Total pages in book: 107
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106001 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
If a rap could be angry, mine is livid.
“Come on,” I mutter under my breath. Not quickly, not quickly at all, I hear the click of the door unlocking, then opening. Ian smiles, wide-eyed. He’s wearing jeans and a white button-down that he’s currently buttoning up.
Thank god he’s ready.
Except…
He doesn’t usually wear jeans and casual button-downs for work meetings.
“We have a meeting right now. With our partners. We’re taking them around the city,” I remind him.
He tosses his head back, laughing. “Right, right,” he says, all chipper. “We do.”
With a sly shrug, he gives that look that people flash when they don’t give a shit. “But I’m going to nip off. I think I’ll head to Giverny for the day.”
My jaw hangs open. Did he just say that? “What are you going to do?” I ask, because he needs to repeat that for me to believe it.
“Giverny. It’s fantastic this time of year. Just tell them I had…” He waves a hand as if he’s hunting for a reason, then snaps his fingers. “Food poisoning,” he says, clutching his stomach as if that will help sell the lie. “Will you, mate?”
I don’t try to hide my irritation as I drag a hand through my hair, peering briefly into his room.
I catch a glimpse of a pair of black flats on the floor. Like the ones Isla wore to dinner last night.
A ball of rage lights on fire in my gut. Are you fucking kidding me? He’s asking me to cover for him? In all the years we’ve worked together, he’s occasionally used me as an excuse, he’s claimed he’s had meetings with me, and I’ve shrugged it off since he’s never asked me to lie.
I’ve simply been his alibi.
Now he wants me to be his enabler.
I grit my teeth. I grind them. But now is not the time to argue. “Fine,” I bite out. “But I’m not doing it again.”
He rolls his eyes. “Young people. I swear. So righteous. It’s just a lovely little lie. Surely, you’ve told them,” he says off-hand. There’s no dig. There’s no sucker punch to it. It’s not as if he knows I’m involved with his daughter.
And yet I feel a thousand razor cuts slicing me up.
I can’t do this any longer. I can’t lie by omission. I can barely hold back any longer. The truth wells up inside me—I’m in love with your daughter. It threatens to spill out right now on the floor of his suite, with all its consequences. Namely, the end of all trust—the trust we’ve had as business partners.
But with our brand marketers waiting downstairs, I swallow the truth, instead saying, “We need to talk when we’re back in New York.”
“Of course. My door is always open for you.”
Then he turns around to join his lady, and I go downstairs and cover for him while he spends the day with his newest affair.
That evening I walk along the Seine, heading to meet the Paris production team for dinner at a brasserie by Notre-Dame. As I walk along the water, passing bouquinistes peddling old and new books, I catch up with Jules in New York on the phone.
“And I sent you coverage of Isla Moretti’s script,” she says, as businesslike as she’s always been.
I’m caught off-guard though. “Isla, as in our writer Isla?”
“Yes. She wrote her own show. It’s called…Happy-ish.”
“Good title,” I say begrudgingly.
“Bad story,” she says.
“Yeah?” This delights me. This should not delight me. “What’s the storyline?” I ask, getting down to business.
“A woman in New York goes on dating quests,” Jules says crisply.
That nags on my brain. It sounds a hell of a lot like a show that’s already on Webflix. “Like Ellie Snow’s The Dating Games?”
That show launched to fantastic reviews and ratings. It’s already been renewed for another season.
“As a matter of fact, it’s exactly like The Dating Games. It’s completely derivative. Also, the lead is unlikeable. Ian sent it to me. I think he didn’t want to turn her down himself.”
I seethe as I cross the bridge nearest to the famous cathedral.
He wanted the rejection to come from me. I’m not going to play his game. I’m going to knock on his suite tonight and tell him to do it himself.
Except…no.
My game needs to be truth. My game needs to be honesty. My game needs to be standing up for who I believe in. For myself, for the woman I love, and for the people I work with.
Like Jules. My badass, no-nonsense junior producer. I trust her judgment. If she thinks the script is derivative, then I will stand by that, and my office will do its job—saying yes or saying no.
That’s what I do—I make those decisions.
“You can go ahead and pass on it,” I say. “Make sure it’s clear the decision is coming from our office. We work as a team.”