Unscripted ebook

Unscripted

Aylin Red

2026

Unscripted

Unscripted

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Title Page

Cover

Table of Contents

Unscripted

The Messy Hearts Romance

Poza Scenariuszem

Aylin Red

Chapter 1

Three minutes to spare.

By Lucy Crowe's private definition — practically late.

The glass doors of Seraph Entertainment slid open with a soft exhale of AC and Lucy walked through without slowing. Morning sun caught her hair for half a second — the lighter ends flared, then the building swallowed her whole. Her heels hit marble and kept their own rhythm, separate from all the office noise around her: clean, even, unapologetic. The charcoal suit fit her in exactly the right places. No give that might suggest anything else.

Her tablet already had everything she needed. Her assistant knew how Lucy operated.

Ariel Devereux.

She'd scrolled through his filmography on the Uber ride over — every magazine cover, every interview that went viral, every whispered piece of gossip circulating through the LA talent circuit. Midnight in Manhattan made him Hollywood's golden boy. The Last First Date cemented his status as the industry's most bankable romantic lead. The guy sold tickets — that part was inarguable.

Everything else?

Four agents in two years. Every split wrapped in "professional" language that barely covered the truth: he was difficult, demanding, and — according to the talent circuit's whisper network — particularly resistant to being represented by women.

Lucy felt her jaw tighten. She released the tension before it became visible.

She'd dealt with worse.

Much worse.

The elevator opened on the seventh floor. Seraph's conference wing — marble with thin gold veining underfoot, abstracts on the walls that whispered money instead of screaming it. Lucy walked through without slowing.

Ben Smith was waiting outside conference room three.

She recognized that posture immediately — suit hanging a little too loose across the shoulders, shoulder blades pulled inward, gaze fixed on the closed door.

"Hey," he said when she got close.

The word landed like wet paper.

Lucy extended her hand.

"Ben."

He shook it without much conviction, then glanced back at the door.

"Ariel might not be thrilled."

She raised one eyebrow. Said nothing — enough of an invitation.

"He asked for the best agent." Ben dragged a hand over his thinning hair. "A man. He put it in writing. Twice."

Of course he did.

Lucy could practically see Angelica Reynolds reading that clause — those sharp blue eyes narrowing behind her desk as the full meaning landed. Angelica didn't tolerate sexism dressed up as professional preferences. Not ever.

She'd built Seraph from nothing, in an industry that cheerfully chewed through ambitious women and spat them out the moment they tried to climb.

Prove me wrong — that was Angelica's operating principle. Someone challenged her judgment? She raised the stakes. Someone rejected her people on the basis of gender? She sent him the best person she had.

Who happened to be — much to Ariel Devereux's unfortunate prejudice — Lucy.

"Did he specify why it had to be a man?" she asked, voice as level as a conference table before a meeting.

Ben shifted his weight.

"Says he works better with guys. That women in this business are too emotional, too fixated on the romantic image, not enough on career strategy." He grimaced. "His words, not mine."

"Ah. One of those."

"Look, I'm not defending him." Ben lowered his voice, even though the hallway was empty. "But he's going to push back. Hard. He thinks personal charm is a substitute for basic decency. And when the charm doesn't work, he gets sharp."

Her tablet buzzed. A message from Victoria, head of PR:

Ready to resuscitate another fallen angel? This one's got wings made of solid gold and a personality made of pure acid.

Lucy held back a smile. Victoria had always had a way with words.

"I appreciate the heads-up." Her voice shifted slightly — that steel-wrapped-in-velvet note she'd spent years refining across negotiations with studios trying to lowball her clients. "But Angelica assigned me this for a reason. If Mr. Devereux has concerns about my qualifications, we can address them directly."

"Your funeral." Ben managed a thin smile. "Between us — you're probably the only person at Seraph who can actually handle him."

The conference room door swung open. A young assistant leaned out — tense, wearing exactly the expression Lucy knew well: someone who'd just realized what they'd signed up for.

"Ms. Crowe? Mr. Devereux is ready."

Lucy straightened her blazer. Portfolio under her arm.

She'd worked with musicians who lost their minds over the wrong brand of still water. Actresses who demanded veto rights over every line of their script. A comedian who livestreamed his own police intervention and then asked his agent whether it helped his image.

How difficult could one rom-com actor be?

Ben knocked twice and pushed open the heavy oak door.

The conference room opened up in front of them — floor-to-ceiling windows, the LA skyline drenched in morning sun, furniture that cost more than most cars in the parking structure below. Seraph didn't do anything halfway.

By the windows, on a cream leather sofa, sat Ariel Devereux.

One arm draped along the back, legs slightly apart, phone held at the angle Lucy recognized immediately. Scrolling. He was just — scrolling — for a meeting with a new agent.

He looked up.

Blue-green eyes — exactly like in the photos, except photographs hadn't captured the temperature of that gaze. He slid his phone into his pocket in one unhurried motion and made a gesture toward Lucy that technically qualified as pointing but read more like waving someone out of his sightline.

"Ben." The accent landed immediately — clipped British vowels pressed into an easy American cadence. "This is Seraph's best agent?"

He stood.

One fluid movement and the conference room got a little smaller. At least six-two, shoulders filling a perfectly cut navy suit as though it had been tailored to his frame specifically — because it had. Dark blond hair catching the light, styled in that deliberately effortless way that always signals hours of a stylist's work. A straight jawline, corners of his mouth slightly lifted, like everything he saw amused him just a little more than he was letting on.

He closed the distance. Extended his hand.

"Lucy Crowe."

The grip was firm, purely professional. Not a trace of warmth. He released her hand and turned back to Ben — a barely subtle move, that nonverbal exchange between men conducted on the assumption that the woman in the room either wouldn't notice or wouldn't say anything.

Lucy noticed.

She always noticed.

"That's right." Her voice stayed calm, professional. "The best agent at Seraph. The CEO chose me herself."

The muscle at Ariel's temple jumped. Small, fast — but it was there. First crack in the perfect facade.

"The thing is, Ms. Crowe—" his brow furrowed, the irritation thin under a layer of British politeness — "I asked for a man." His gaze moved over her once more, without even attempting discretion. "And you are quite clearly not one."

The words hung there.

Ben shifted near the door. Probably calculating the distance to the emergency exit.

Lucy held Ariel's gaze. Didn't blink first. She knew this type — men who mistook preferences for prejudice and dressed their sexism in corporate language, expecting everyone to go along with it for the sake of a quiet life.

"My gender is irrelevant." Each word separate, like initialing each clause of a contract. "What matters is skill."

"We'll see." He crossed his arms, fabric pulling across his shoulders. "I asked for the best."

"Good agents know how to walk through fire." She paused. "Or someone's ego."

That smile — the one from the movie posters, calibrated to the millimeter — appeared and didn't reach his eyes by a centimeter.

"Fair enough. Let's find out. I'll assume Seraph knows what it's doing."

Lucy swallowed the comeback sitting at the back of her throat. The contract would look good in her portfolio regardless of what she thought about the man attached to it.

"Of course." A small nod.

Ariel moved toward the conference table, trailing his fingers along the polished surface.

"Three months." He turned, positioning himself so the window sat behind him. Someone who knew his angles perfectly. "If this isn't working after three months, you're out."

He waited.

Lucy could see it in the stillness — one leg slightly forward, shoulders relaxed, the whole posture of someone who expects a particular response and already knows what it is.

"Fine."

One word. No ornamentation.

Something shifted in his expression — brief, immediately gone. The corner of his mouth, maybe. Or the jawline that lost its certainty for just a second.

"Good." Clipped. "I assume you've reviewed my contracts."

"All of them." She approached the table, set her portfolio down deliberately, opened it to the right page. "Including the Montblanc deal that's bleeding money due to terrible brand positioning, and the franchise option that locks you into a sequel you — reading between the lines — have no intention of making."

Ariel's eyes narrowed. "Ben mentioned that."

"Ben mentioned it three months ago." She slid the breakdown across the table. "I already have a termination proposal drafted for Montblanc that protects against penalty clauses, and preliminary terms negotiated with the studio on the sequel."

"Without consulting me?" Ice in his voice, arriving fast.

"Preliminary terms," she repeated, level. "Nothing's been signed. But if you'd prefer to spend the next three months starting from scratch instead of building on a foundation — we can do that too."

The silence between them pulled taut.

Behind her, Ben cleared his throat.

"Right. I'll, uh — leave you two to it."

The door latch clicked.

Ariel studied her across the table — the practiced charm stripped away now. Something sharper underneath, which Lucy noted and filed for later.

"You're confident."

"I'm just good."

The corner of his mouth moved. Barely — but it moved.

"Three months, Ms. Crowe."

"Three months, Mr. Devereux."

Her heels hit the lobby marble on the way out — a little harder this time, the rhythm faster than it had been going in. The parking valet handed Lucy her keys with a practiced smile she didn't register.

She got into the BMW, pulled the door shut. The leather seat met her with a cool press.

She shut the door slightly harder than necessary.

"Three months, Ms. Crowe," she quoted under her breath, tilting her voice into his unhurried, clipped cadence. Her fingers closed around the steering wheel — she felt her own knuckles under the skin. She eased the grip. Then tightened it again.

"What an ass."

The engine purred on. She hit the radio — something loud and sharp flooded the car and Lucy pulled out of the parking structure into the full noon glare of LA.

Wilshire Boulevard moved at its usual slow, indifferent pace. The palms swayed in the breeze with the maddening indifference that trees have — they don't care about your mood, your plans, or men who look at you like a bid they've already decided to reject.

The music hammered through the speakers and Lucy let it hammer.

Just wait, you British ass.

"Lu!"

Victoria appeared in the hallway — dark eyes already lit with amusement.

"You survived!"

Lucy's expression landed somewhere between a grimace and a snarl. She dropped her portfolio on the nearest desk.

"God." Short. "His Royal Highness."

Victoria let out a laugh she tried to muffle behind her hand — it shook her shoulders anyway.

"That bad?" Her eyebrows moved in the dance Lucy had memorized years ago. Then something shifted — unabashedly entertained, maybe a little bit impressed. "Okay but at least there's something worth looking at. Girl. Wow."

Lucy's look could have etched glass.

"He might be attractive. He's still an ass."

"Sure he is." Victoria drew it out.

Skepticism dripped from every syllable. Her expression said everything — she'd already written the whole story in her head, with exactly the beginning, middle, and end that Lucy was going to serve her, and then categorically deny.

Lucy gathered her things and headed toward Angelica's office.

Glass walls. The CEO at her desk, leaning over her tablet with the focused intensity that had become industry legend. Lucy knocked once.

Walked in.

"Why did you send me in there?" The words came out before she'd decided between professional and honest. "He is deeply unimpressed with me and we haven't even started. I haven't done anything yet and he's already planning my exit."

Angelica set down her tablet. Crossed her arms.

"Exactly."

Lucy blinked.

"That man needs to learn that behavior like that is not acceptable here." Angelica's voice carried the weight of years spent managing egos that would make Ariel Devereux look minor-league. "He doesn't get to choose his representation based on outdated prejudice. Not at Seraph."

The pieces clicked into place with painful, crystalline clarity.

"You sent me in there to piss him off?"

"Yes."

Angelica's smile broke open — proud, unapologetic, absolutely certain of its own logic. The smile that had founded the company, signed eight-figure contracts, and never apologized for any of it.

Lucy felt something strange in her stomach. Admiration and despair, in roughly equal measure.

Of course.

Not a prestige assignment. A lesson — packaged with a contract.

"Show him you're better than any male agent he's ever had." Angelica settled back into her chair. "Three months is enough."

The sigh came from somewhere deeper than Lucy intended.

"Great." The sarcasm landed with the finish of a good vintage.

"Off you go, chérie." Angelica waved her out — a general dispatching a knight, no doubt about the outcome.

Lucy picked up her tablet.

Lists started organizing themselves in her head — contract review, schedule restructuring, a detailed management plan for a man who had made it abundantly clear he did not want to be managed. Especially not by her.

The elevator doors closed and behind the glass, Los Angeles spread out — city of ambition, illusion, and people absolutely convinced of their own irreplaceability.

Lucy pulled out her phone.

Started typing the first note.

Challenge accepted, Your Royal Ass.

Chapter 2

The key turned in the lock.

Home.

Finally.

The apartment received her the way only a good apartment can — with silence, the right temperature, and a smell that was entirely hers. Floor-to-ceiling windows caught the evening light over the city. Furniture chosen for comfort, not for a photo shoot. Marble countertops she'd picked out herself when she bought the place a year ago, with a check she'd spent years earning.

She hadn't even gotten her shoes off before the black-and-white missile hit her legs — Princess, her Boston Terrier, twisting her whole body, stub tail flickering like a fan on high, nails tapping the hardwood in an excited, syncopated rhythm.

Lucy dropped to her knees, face immediately caught by a warm, rough little tongue.

"Did you miss me? Did you miss me, huh? Of course you did, my baby!" Her voice shifted automatically into something she showed no one outside these four walls — high, singsongy, completely without dignity. "You are the best girl in the entire world, you know that?"

Princess confirmed this by climbing onto her knee and attempting to lick her ear.

"You are the real princess," Lucy murmured into black-and-white fur, pressing a kiss to the little snout. "Unlike certain royal pains in my ass."

One short, very decisive bark.

"Are you hungry? Do you want your yummy dinner?"

The answer was another full-body tail rotation and both front paws scratching at her thigh.

Lucy stood, reached for the paper bag from Nobu she'd left on the side table. Ramen — the kind you don't justify out loud, because doing so risks acknowledging what a single bowl of noodles actually costs. She didn't care. After a day like this, she'd earned it.

She turned on the TV — background, not content. Some reality show on screen, contestants competing for something Lucy didn't even try to follow.

She settled onto the counter stool with her ramen bowl, fixed her chopsticks, and cut into the soft-boiled egg. The yolk spread through the broth slowly, the way it should. She closed her eyes on the first bite — hot, dense, that layer of umami that sits at the back of the palate.

Five seconds of quiet.

"— and our very special guest—"

Her eyes opened on their own.

The voice came from the screen — clipped British vowels pressed into an easy cadence — and Lucy's stomach did something unpleasant, entirely without her permission.

On the studio couch sat a man built from white teeth and practiced charm. He was laughing at something the host had said — too loud, too wide, too much. The camera cut to a confessional. The smile dropped in a fraction of a second, replaced by something cold and mildly condescending.

"I mean, if she actually believes that, she's just completely out of touch—"

Lucy leveled her chopsticks at the screen.

"There he is! His Royal Ass, in the flesh!"

Princess's ears twitched. She lifted her head from her bowl and looked up.

The contestant on screen kept dissecting someone with that particular patronizing ease, and without any effort at all Lucy saw Ariel Devereux in that exact seat — a gentleman on camera, a nightmare once the studio lights went off.

She grabbed the remote and hit the button with energy well out of proportion to the situation.

The screen went dark.

"And there goes my good mood."

Princess tilted her head. She didn't understand, but she clearly stood in solidarity with the tone.

"Not you, baby." Lucy scratched her behind the ear. "You are still perfect."

An hour later, freshly showered — the bath had done nothing for her frustration beyond rinsing the day off her skin — Lucy wrapped herself in her favorite silk robe. Worn at the collar, fraying slightly at the hem, too comfortable to throw out. She settled on the sofa with her laptop. Princess curled up against her thigh, warm as a pillow with a will of its own, and fell asleep with a sigh.

Alright, Your Highness. Let's see what makes you tick.

IMDb loaded without hurry. Devereux's filmography stretched across several screens — two decades, almost from his teenage years. She clicked on the first still from a small drama when he was twenty. A boy with cheekbones slightly too large for his face looked back at her, those blue-green eyes even more intense in the photograph than they'd been across a conference table.

"You had that smug look even back then."

She scrolled to The Last First Date.

Box office gold, critics delighted, audiences in love — and at every red carpet, a different stunning woman. Never the same face twice.

Until Camille Laurent.

"Commitment issues?" she muttered, scrolling on. "Or just an ass?"

She opened interviews one after another. Ariel on a late-night couch — charming, witty, every answer polished to reveal nothing. Not a crack. Not one faster breath before a hard question. The facade gleaming like fresh lacquer.

"You could at least pretend any of this means something to you."

Her gaze drifted to the poster on the opposite wall. Kim Woo-bin looked back with that mix of intensity and vulnerability that had been working on her for years, reliable as clockwork.

"If only." She sighed at the poster. "You would never treat your manager like a piece of furniture."

Princess snuffled in her sleep.

Lucy kept scrolling — charity work, festivals, industry events. Ariel Devereux everywhere and nowhere at once; a perfectly calibrated presence that amounted to nothing.

The screen started to blur slightly.

She blinked. Just a few more articles.

Her head dipped forward, a jerk of her neck pulling her out of a short doze. She rubbed her eyes, resettled, determined.

The next time she closed them, she didn't open them again.

The laptop slid slightly to one side, screen glowing with Ariel's face frozen in a perfect premiere smile. Princess shifted closer, warm and heavy against her.

The espresso machine hissed and gurgled, filling the Seraph kitchen with the only sound available, because Lucy yawned wide enough for her jaw to pop.

7:46. The building was still dim and quiet, not yet breathing, before it pulled in its first full lungful of morning and became itself.

She took the mug in both hands, leaned back against the counter. A sip of coffee — hot, black, no additions. The egg in her breakfast sandwich still slightly burned through the wrapper, the bacon crispy on one side. Small victories.

A second yawn caught her mid-bite.

Fifteen minutes. That's what she had to get functional enough to look like someone who'd slept. Get enough caffeine in her system. Mentally prepare for the first official meeting with Ariel Devereux in her capacity as his agent.

The thought pressed something tight under her ribs.

She took a longer sip.

Princess had given her the abandoned-soul look that morning — big eyes tracking every step Lucy took toward the door. At least one of them had gotten to sleep in.

Lucy caught her reflection in the cabinet glass. Professional. Put-together. Ready for whatever Ariel decided to pull today.

In the distance, the elevator chimed.

She took her mug and headed toward reception. Too early for an arrogant actor — probably a courier, or—

Angelica's voice carried down the hallway — that soft, persuasive register she used to close the biggest deals and quietly disarm the most difficult clients.

"…we really are the best boutique agency in Los Angeles. Individual attention to every client is what we're known for."

Lucy came around the corner.

And stopped.

Walking beside Angelica was Ariel Devereux — a white shirt, cuffs folded to the middle of his forearms, hair in that expensive, supposedly-effortless arrangement. He moved like every building he walked into had always belonged to him.

He looked like he'd been up for hours. Probably a personal training session at dawn, then a green smoothie with a name you couldn't pronounce sober.

"Lucy works with our most demanding clients," Angelica continued. "She's handled everyone from Brian Wilde to Jessica Gracy."

Ariel's eyebrow lifted slightly.

"Actors, mostly?"

"Actually—" Angelica smiled in a way that made the rest of the sentence unnecessary. "She started with musicians."

"Morning."

Lucy cut into the conversation, voice clean and level. She extended her hand.

His eyes found her face and read that entrance exactly as she'd meant it: boundary established. He shook her hand — firm, brief, no unnecessary gesture.

"Shall we?" She nodded toward her office.

The lock clicked, cutting them off from the rest of the building.

Ariel paused for a moment, taking in the space — awards on the shelves, client photos on the walls, notes stuck to the monitor in an order that made sense to no one else. His gaze moved slowly, the way someone reads a room instead of just looking at it.

"You worked with musicians before."

She sat down behind her desk, met his gaze across the surface.

"Ancient history."

Two words, flat as a closed door. Something flickered on his face — curiosity, immediately contained — and he sat down across from her, one ankle crossing his knee.

"All right. I'm listening."

Lucy opened her laptop, angled the screen so they could both see it. She'd spent hours on this presentation, and no amount of lost sleep was going to take this moment from her.

"Your career is a success by every metric." She clicked to his filmography. "Twenty years, consistent box office performance, critical recognition within the romantic comedy genre."

"I feel a 'but' coming."

"But you've been boxed in." She pulled up his last four movie posters side by side. The same smile, the same body language, the same Ariel the world expects with every new project. "You're the romantic lead. The charming architect, the spontaneous florist,the witty whatever-as-long-as-it-works-for-the-lead-guy."

The line of Ariel's jaw sharpened. He said nothing.

"The industry sees you in one dimension." She opened another tab. "If you want to survive past the end of the pretty-boy rom-com era, you need range. Drama. Something that shows you're more than a smile and good timing."

"How refreshing." The sarcasm fit neatly into every syllable. "Another person who knows exactly what I need."

"I'm telling you what the numbers show." She turned the laptop to face him. "Last three films — declining returns across the board. Audiences are done with predictable rom-coms, and you're the face of that fatigue."

Ariel leaned in. Expression steady, but his eyes were moving fast — absorbing, calculating, looking for a gap in the data. One finger tracked along the graph.

"I have a three-stage plan." She clicked ahead. "First: rebranding. Interviews built on substance, not charm. Second: dramatic roles — strong supporting parts in prestige projects to start. Third: building toward a lead dramatic role that redefines who you are on screen."

Silence.

"You did your homework." He settled back, and something crossed his face that might have been respect if he weren't still holding it on a short leash. "I'll give you that, Ms. Crowe."

"Lucy."

"Lucy." He repeated it carefully, like he was testing whether the word fit the space. "And you think this will actually work?"

"I think if you stay in your comfort zone, your career ends in five years. This gives you twenty."

The smile that appeared wasn't warm. But it was real — the first real one since he'd walked through that door.

"All right. Show me what you've got."

Lucy opened the list — thrillers, crime dramas, dark psychological projects that would scrub every rom-com expectation off him. She expanded the treatment for a psychological thriller in pre-production.

Ariel leaned in, eyes narrowing as he read.

"Supporting role," she explained. "But substantial. Seventeen scenes, a complete character arc, an on-screen death that would probably generate awards buzz."

"An on-screen death." The corner of his mouth moved. "Can't kiss your way out of that one."

"Exactly."

She scrolled on: an indie drama about addiction and family trauma, a period film about wartime atrocities — each project darker than the last, further from beach proposals and Manhattan penthouses.

Ariel studied each title with an intensity she hadn't expected. The bored facade was gone; in its place, hunger. His finger tracked the text on screen, lips moving slightly as he repeated key lines to himself.

"My previous agents never—" He stopped, corrected himself. "This wasn't on the table before."

"Because rom-coms are safer. Better rates, guaranteed returns, lower risk. Why push you into uncertainty when your charm pays the bills?" Lucy closed the filmography tab, opened a new one. "I'm saying let's try something different. I won't promise results — I'm not a fortune teller. But that's what the risk is for."

Something shifted in his expression. He didn't answer immediately — and that was new, because until now every response had come without a pause.

"Right. My face takes the risk, not yours, Ms. Crowe."

He stood. Came around the desk with that predatory ease actors spend years calibrating for camera — before Lucy could track the movement, he was on her side. Not across from her. Beside her.

Without asking, he pulled the empty chair over and sat — the corner of the desk between them, a collaborative angle, the distance calculated to the centimeter.

She didn't move back.

"Your face is attached to your career," she said evenly. "And your career is attached to my reputation. If you fail, so do I. If you succeed, we both win."

"How noble."

Lucy opened the thriller. Ariel leaned toward the screen and for a moment his arm nearly brushed hers — an expensive, discreet cologne filling the narrow space between them, warm and too close.

Lucy scrolled without slowing.

"This director has no patience for actors coasting on their looks. He'll get everything out of you. Eighteen-hour shoot days, method work, full immersion."

"Sounds delightful."

"Sounds like work."

She opened the indie drama file — handheld camera, natural light, improvised dialogue that would strip away every rehearsed mannerism he had. Ariel's eyes moved through the character description and something shifted in his face. Too quickly.

"I didn't know you could be this ruthless." The words came out soft, almost admiring. He turned his head from the screen, attention settling on her profile.

Lucy didn't look away.

"Get used to it, Mr. Devereux."

He smiled slowly, wider than before — like she'd just passed some invisible test he'd been running.

"Ariel."

"Sorry?"

"Call me Ariel." He nodded toward the laptop. "If you're going to demolish my comfortable career, we can probably drop the formalities."

He refocused on the screen. The distance between them hadn't changed. Every time she reached for her notes or adjusted the laptop angle, she felt that deliberate proximity — not aggressive, but calculated to the centimeter.

"Send me all of this, I'll go through it later." He straightened up finally.

"You'll have everything by end of day."

She opened the media strategy document. She could feel his gaze on her with that surgical precision she'd already seen when he was working through the filmography data — except now the subject wasn't charts.

She pulled herself closer to the desk.

"Your current interview style just cements the rom-com image." She highlighted sections from his recent press tours. "Flirty banter with the hosts, jokes about knowing you're good-looking." She clicked through a few examples. "We need substance. Interviews that show—"

She stopped.

He wasn't looking at the screen.

He was looking at her.

That same analytical attention he'd been giving the treatments — focused now entirely on her.

Heat climbed her neck before she could stop it.

"Do I have something on my face, or—"

"No." The word dropped clean as he crossed his arms and leaned back. "You just interest me."

Lucy held eye contact, not giving him the satisfaction of looking away first.

"You're not the first man I've interested." A beat a second too long. "Professionally, of course."

The smile came slowly. The full version — the one from the posters, the one that had probably done damage from Seoul to São Paulo.

"Keep telling yourself that, sweetheart."

Lucy's jaw tightened. She mentally catalogued seventeen ways to damage that attractive, insufferably self-assured face without leaving anything visible on camera. None of them fit within professional standards.

"Could you focus?"

"Weren't you supposed to be the best?" The amusement in his eyes deepened.

"I am the best." She turned the laptop toward him with slightly more force than necessary. "Which is exactly why I'm not going to let you sabotage this with your little games."

He held her gaze for a moment. Then something at the corner of his mouth — not quite a smile, but close.

"Go on." He uncrossed his arms, attention returning to the screen.

Lucy took a breath.

"Long-form." She pulled up a list of journalists and programs. "Interviews you can't walk out of after five minutes of charm. Hour-long conversations about your craft—"

"That sounds absolutely riveting for audiences."

"It sounds real." She expanded the profile of a journalist from a well-regarded film magazine. "She specializes in career retrospectives. She asks uncomfortable questions."

Ariel scrolled through the examples, his finger stopping on one particularly brutal question — about an actor who'd never managed to carry a dramatic role. He read it twice.

"Doesn't pull punches, does she?"

"Neither do I." Lucy looked up at him.

The muffled sounds of the building waking up filtered through the door — phones, footsteps, someone laughing in the hallway.

"What's next?" His tone was different now. No irony in it. He was listening.

She laid out the full strategy in front of him: film analysis podcasts, industry panels on typecasting, long-form features where he controlled the narrative instead of performing it live.

"No morning shows for six months. No studio flirting." She closed the list, met his gaze. "We build you as someone who has something to say and happens to look good doing it. Not the other way around."

"Brutal."

"Necessary."

He stood.

Walked to the window.

Outside, Los Angeles spread to the horizon, morning light cutting across his profile — the angle of his jaw, the line of his nose, shoulders dropped slightly. Cameras loved him exactly like this.

Except cameras had never seen what she was seeing now: that small tension at his temple, fingers closing and releasing along the seam of his pants.

Lucy picked up her tablet. Tapped the screen — a little harder than she meant to, because his presence by the window was taking up more room than it should.

"Here." She said it to the screen. "Three key interviews to start. Each one designed to shift the perception a step."

"Mm."

The sound landed distinctly too close to her ear.

She turned around.

He was right behind her.

Leaning in, nearly touching her back with his chest, eyes on her tablet screen — and yet fully attuned to how she was responding to his proximity. His cologne, warmth through the fabric of his shirt, the distance measured in centimeters.

She cleared her throat. Scrolled on.

"This one's the key." Her voice came out steadier than she expected. "It reaches industry people, festival programmers, awards voters—"

"You're very thorough." The warmth of his breath grazed the skin just below her ear.

She stepped to the side on instinct — her hip caught the edge of the desk, her balance went, and—

His arm came around her waist.

A firm, sure grip, and she was standing there, caught mid-motion, Ariel's hand flat against her ribs through the thin fabric of her blouse.

"Careful, Ms. Crowe."

She heard the smile in his voice before she turned around. Blue-green eyes glinting with amusement — registering everything, every slight quickening of breath, every centimeter of color rising in her face.

His arm was still there. He didn't move.

"Right," she said to the space in front of her. Very professionally.

"Believe me, a lot of women would trade places with you right now."

The heat hit her cheeks with a delay just long enough for him to catch it. She pulled free, stepped back, smoothed her blouse in a motion that was meant to look like straightening her clothes and looked like straightening herself.

"I — sorry."

The words came out too quiet.

Ariel didn't look remotely thrown. He crossed his arms, settled his hip against her desk — her desk — perfectly at ease in the tension he'd created himself.

"Nothing to apologize for." He watched every move she made as she came back around the desk to her chair. "Though I am curious why my best agent flusters so easily."

"I'm not flustered."

"Of course not." He lifted the tablet as though nothing had happened. "You just always go that shade of pink when you talk about press strategy."

Lucy bit the inside of her cheek. She pulled her laptop toward her, opened a new document.

Ariel looked up from the tablet.

"You actually believe this will work." Not a question. Weighing her conviction.

Lucy held his gaze.

"I think you're good enough to pull it off. If you stop hiding behind that smile."

The words came out more honestly than she'd planned. Something moved in his face — possibly the surprise of being seen clearly by someone who wasn't supposed to be looking that carefully.

He set the tablet down on the desk slowly.

"In that case—" the edge left his voice. "I suppose we should start with those interviews."

"Good."

She opened the calendar.

The coffee mug by the keyboard had gone cold — she couldn't remember when it had stopped steaming. She started entering dates, syncing schedules with the outlets she already had on the hook. Ariel moved back to the chair across from her, this time with a distance between them that both of them quietly accepted.

He watched her work — building his new image piece by piece, email by email. Not a trace of mockery on his face. Just focus.

"You're really something, Ms. Crowe."

Lucy didn't look up from the screen. Her thumb paused at the edge of the keyboard for a moment, then went back to work.

"Lucy." A beat. "And thank you."

Chapter 3

The TV's blue glow rocked across the living room walls, pulling soft shadows with it. Princess had claimed the entire couch the way only a Boston Terrier can — spread flat on her back, hind legs in the air, wearing the expression of a creature who has never once had a problem in her life.

Lucy resented her for it.

"Okay, girl. Time for something good."

She scrolled through Netflix, blanket pulled up to her chin, finger hovering over a very familiar thumbnail. Moonlight & Mochi Hearts, episode twelve. The one where Park Ji-woo confesses in the rain.

She hit play.

Strings spilled through the living room — warm, nostalgic, exactly what she needed after a day like today. On screen, nighttime Seoul shimmered with wet streets, neon signs bleeding into puddles. Lucy sank deeper into the cushions. Princess shifted without opening her eyes and rested her wrinkled little snout on Lucy's thigh — warm, heavy as a small sandbag.

Park Ji-woo appeared on screen in a perfectly fitted suit, his gaze intense and open at the same time, not a calculation in it.

"See, Princess?" Lucy pointed at the screen. "That's how a rom-com starts. Not like with that idiot."

Ariel's face flashed through her mind — leaning against her own desk like he owned it, that half-smirk, the expensive mess of his hair.

On screen, Park Ji-woo smiled at the heroine with a warmth Lucy could feel through the glass. Clean. Unmanipulated. Genuinely disarming in the most unguarded way.

"Ahh." Something squeezed under her ribs. "If only men like that actually existed."

Her phone buzzed on the side table.

She reached for it, expecting Victoria's nightly so what happened.

Ariel:None of these projects work for me. Keep looking.

Lucy stared at the screen.

She blinked.

Read it again.

"Seriously?!"

Princess scrambled to her feet, both ears up like twin radar dishes.

"You see this?!" Lucy waved the phone in front of the dog's nose like exhibit A. "He is impossible."

Her fingers started moving across the screen, professional instincts doing battle with the overwhelming urge to type exactly what she thought of him right now, in full detail.

Lucy:Sure, I'll find something better.

Sent. She dropped the phone face-down on the cushion like it had burned her.

"Ungrateful, picky, completely insufferable—" She waved a hand at the TV, where Park Ji-woo was making ramen for the heroine in an apartment of unrealistic perfection. "Why can't I have clients like that? Nice ones. Grateful ones—"

The memory hit her without warning.

Ariel's arm around her waist — solid, certain. The warmth through the thin fabric of her blouse, warmer than a single steadying gesture had any right to be. She'd had to consciously not lean back into it. Those eyes tracking every millimeter of color in her face, his voice dropping to the register that worked like a finger drawn slowly up the back of her neck: Believe me, a lot of women would trade places with you right now.

Her cheeks burned again, without consulting her.

"Okay." She pointed at Princess in a tone that was meant to sound firm and mostly succeeded. "He might be attractive."

Princess barked. Short. Accusatory.

Lucy raised both hands.

"But only a little! Barely at all! Microscopic amounts!"

Another bark.

"I'm serious! It is completely irrelevant to our professional relationship!"

The phone buzzed again.

She picked it up with the same tension she usually reserved for emails with urgent contract changes in the subject line.

Ariel:Impress me.

"This man." She was gripping the case hard enough to feel her own knuckles. Princess tilted her head, watching Lucy's face cycle through an entire emotional range in three seconds — the kind only a dog ever witnesses.

"I will find you a film that leaves you speechless, you pretentious, self-satisfied, completely unbearable—"

Her fingers switched to agent mode: Of course.

Sent.

She set the phone down like evidence at a crime scene and looked back at the screen. Park Ji-woo was in the middle of his confession, the rain plastering his hair to his forehead in a perfectly imperfect way, eyes bright with emotion and zero ironic distance.

"Why." Lucy stared at the ceiling. "Why can't British rom-com stars be like K-drama leads? Whatever happened to sincerity? To not being a complete pain in the—"

Buzz.

Lucy looked at the phone.

She stared at it with great commitment.

"I'm not looking."

Another.

"Princess, I'm not looking."

The terrier sighed heavily and pushed her nose further into the blanket.

"I am going to watch Park Ji-woo's confession scene and ignore every new demand from His Royal Insufferableness."

Two more buzzes in quick succession.

"Fine. Fine."

She grabbed the phone.

Ariel:Nothing too pretentious. I actually want to watch it.

Ariel:Surprising, I know.

She read both messages three times, looking for the hidden dig. The second one sounded... almost self-deprecating? Like a quiet, ironic little wink?

Maybe.

She shook her head.

"No. I'm not falling for that." She pointed at the screen, where Park Ji-woo was currently crying one perfect, single tear down one perfect cheekbone. "He would never play games like this. Look at that sincerity."

Lucy sighed and pressed the phone to her chest.

"Why does my life look like this."

Princess answered with a particularly loud snore.

Chapter 4

"Ugh."

Victoria looked up from her laptop.

"He rejected all of them?"

"Every single one." Lucy swiped across her tablet screen harder than necessary. "Too derivative. Too pretentious. Not interesting enough. Take your pick."

They were in the Seraph lounge — Lucy's coffee going cold at her elbow, forgotten somewhere around the third screenplay. Victoria had the expression Lucy knew by heart: maliciously entertained and completely unsurprised.

"Well, he's got standards." She settled back comfortably. "Throw him in some B-horror. Let his own demons do the work."

"Dream scenario." Lucy was frowning at her screen, thumb jumping between folders. Then her expression shifted — eyes widening, finger going still. "Wait. I think I've got something."

"Another screenplay?"

"Mm." She was already opening the file. Skimmed the summary, pulse picking up. This could work. This could actually—

She glanced at the time and pulled in a sharp breath.

"Oh shit, we have to go. The interview's in twenty minutes."

"Good luck, babe!" Victoria waved without lifting her eyes from her screen. "And don't let him charm his way out of doing the actual work."

"Never."

The studio building rose in front of her — exposed brick, oversized windows, that whole we're so authentic industrial aesthetic that costs a fortune and implies no one here thinks about money. Lucy parked the BMW with a precision she absolutely did not feel on the inside.

Ariel was waiting out front.

One hand in his pocket, phone in the other, shoulders slightly dropped — someone standing on a sidewalk who had no idea he looked like a frame from a campaign shoot. The noon light caught pale streaks in his dark blond and Lucy genuinely, without any reservations, hated how that looked.

He glanced up when she got close. Pocketed his phone.

"Right on time, Ms. Crowe."

"Occupational habit." She adjusted the strap of her bag. "Did you read the brief?"

"Cover to cover." That familiar half-smirk. "Fascinating material. Apparently I'm supposed to be charming."

"Revolutionary concept."

"I'll be honest — I've never done a podcast interview before." He paused for a second, gaze drifting somewhere briefly. "All that relaxed sitting and talking."

"Oh, your first time." The words were out before the filter caught them.

Lucy went still.

Ariel's eyebrows climbed with slow, obvious satisfaction.

"I mean — " she started.

"Be gentle with me." The smile turned purely wicked, his eyes lighting up. "I'm very nervous."

"That's not what I meant." Heat flooded up from her neck, treacherous and uninvited. "I meant the format. This specific interview format."

"Of course." He said it with an expression so innocent it was offensive, the corner of his mouth giving him away completely. "What else could you possibly have meant?"

Lucy opened her mouth — and at that exact moment the studio door swung open with a bang.

"Hey, you two!"

The journalist came out to meet them with the kind of polished enthusiasm you develop after years of being on. Around thirty, effortlessly put-together in jeans and a silk blouse, dark hair in a smooth ponytail. Her gaze landed on Ariel for a beat too long, her smile visibly brightening.

Before he'd said a single word. Lucy noted it without comment.

"So great to meet you!" Stephanie extended her hand, directed mostly at Ariel.

"Thank you for having us." Ariel stepped forward with the smile he kept for cameras and strangers. "Really looking forward to this."

"Us too, honestly!" Stephanie shifted her attention to Lucy with a minimal delay. "And you must be Lucy Crowe. I've heard wonderful things about Seraph."

"Thank you." Lucy returned the handshake. Professional smile, calibrated to perfection. "We appreciate the invitation."

They walked down the hallway.

Stephanie beside Ariel, asking about Midnight in Manhattan in the tone of someone who had watched it at least six times, and Ariel listening with apparent interest — accent slightly sharpened, polished and gentlemanly. Lucy walked a step behind them, tablet gripped in both hands.

The studio interior matched the building's aesthetic — exposed brick, vintage furniture mixed with modern equipment, ring lights arranged around a low table flanked by two comfortable armchairs. Warm, intimate. Built for conversations where people open up.

Or interviews where someone forgets they're a journalist.

"We'll get you mic'd up." Stephanie gestured to the seats. "Super casual, like catching up with friends."

"Perfect." Ariel settled in with that effortless ease he seemed to have been born with — one leg loose across his knee, shoulders dropped, as though the armchair had always been his.

Lucy took the seat beside him. Crossed her legs, tablet on her lap.

A tech came over with the microphones. Quick, routine — clip at Ariel's collar, clip at his lapel.

"Check, check." Ariel's voice came through cleanly in the crew's headphones. "How's that?"

"Perfect."

Stephanie sat across from them, her smile still directed primarily at Ariel.

Lucy's phone buzzed quietly in her bag. Probably Victoria with another reel idea. She ignored it, focusing on the camera that blinked a red standby light.

The warm-up lasted three minutes. Maybe three and a half.

Stephanie leaned in, resting her chin in her hand. Eyes fixed on Ariel with an attention that had little to do with professional interest.

"Tell me—" her voice dropped a register — "what's it like being one of Hollywood's most eligible bachelors?"

That wasn't on the question list.

Lucy's jaw tightened slightly. She watched Ariel's practiced smile broaden, watched him tilt his head at that precise angle where the light sculpted his cheekbones without needing a filter.

She stood.

"Actually." The word landed sharper than she'd intended, cutting clean through the answer Ariel was just beginning to form. Her heels struck the polished concrete with a crack. "Five-minute break before we start recording."

Stephanie blinked, pulled back from whatever she'd been sliding toward — already most of the way into the smile you give a camera when the camera is a person.

"I feel like we're really getting into a flow here—" she started, still looking at him.

"Maybe a little too much of one." Lucy kept her voice level. She didn't need to raise it. "Please stick to the questions we submitted. Otherwise this interview doesn't happen."

Silence.

The camera operator froze with one hand on the tripod. Someone from the tech crew became very interested in a cable near their feet.

Stephanie's cheeks went pink. The smile collapsed.

"I — yes, of course. I'm sorry." She jumped up, smoothing invisible wrinkles from her jeans. "Water?"

"Please," Ariel answered in a tone as neutral as concrete.

Stephanie turned toward the kitchenette, her movements jerky and too fast. At the counter she reached for a small radio and switched it on — the reflex of someone who wants to fill the silence they just created.

"— and here's a brand new track! Levi Archer!"

Every muscle in Lucy's body locked.

The opening chords spread through the studio — acoustic guitar, a melancholy that settled through the air like smoke. Then the voice. That voice.

Smooth as good bourbon, carrying words that landed in her stomach before her brain had time to process them.

Oh baby, we were so good for each other…

Stephanie was fussing with the glasses, completely blind to what she'd just let into the room.

"Aren't you being a little hard on her?" Ariel said quietly, a faint note of amusement in it, but his eyes were drilling into her profile with new, concentrated attention.

But the road kept pulling our hands apart…

"If you want to flirt, do it on your own time." Lucy didn't look at him. She picked a point on the wall across the room and held onto it with both hands.

The chorus moved through the studio.

"Oh, I love this song!" Stephanie came back with the tray, already recovered, lit up by the melody like someone with no idea what she'd just carried into the room.

You found sunlight, I found shelter…

"Sure." Lucy murmured it at the middle distance, too quiet for most of the room.

But Ariel was sitting close enough.

He turned his head. Watched her with a new, careful stillness.

"Can we turn that off?" Lucy's voice came out even, professional.

"Not a fan?" he said.

Now I'm dancing with the echo of your heart…

Something pricked under her sternum.

The practiced, flawless smile found her mouth.

"We have an interview to get through."

Stephanie reached for the radio and turned it down in one smooth motion, cutting Levi's voice off mid-word.

"Of course. You're absolutely right." She sat back down across from them, spine straight, clearly back in work mode. "Let's get started."

The camera operator nodded. Someone counted down silently on their fingers.

Lucy returned to her chair. Back straight. Tablet on her lap like a shield.

She could feel Ariel's gaze — heavy, asking, something forming behind it that was shaping itself into questions. Questions she had no intention of answering.

The red light blinked on.

"Welcome back, everyone!" Stephanie's smile returned, cut for the camera. "Today I have the pleasure of sitting down with Ariel Devereux, star of your favorite romantic comedies. Ariel, thank you so much for being here."

"My pleasure." The charm switched on like a light. Accent smoothed, smile aimed. "Thanks for having me."

"Your latest project has been generating a lot of buzz…" Stephanie glanced at her notes. This time she stayed on script.

Lucy let the air out through her nose very slowly. The tablet screen blurred for a moment before she pulled it back into focus.

Stay on the interview. On Ariel's answers. Keep everything on-brand, no question going sideways, these three months starting right now and starting well.

Not on the fact that of all the songs in the world, it had been that one coming through those speakers.

Not on the fact that every few responses Ariel was glancing at her profile with a new expression — like he'd just found something he hadn't expected to be there.

Professionalism.

That part she had down.

Even if Now I'm dancing with the echo of your heart was still echoing somewhere under her ribs and showed no signs of stopping.

Chapter 5

The restaurant was quiet by LA standards — the kind of quiet you pay for along with the table.

Lucy stabbed her linguine with the energy of someone who had a full week to work through.

She wound the pasta around her fork slowly. Methodically.

"You can't flirt during interviews." She looked at Ariel across the table. "We're rebranding you."

"A little flirting never hurt anyone, darling." He lifted his wine glass with the smile of a man who knows he's right.

"You're doing it again!" The fork hit the plate.

"What can I say? I'm charming." He settled back easily, arm draped over the chair back, glass held loosely between his fingers like something you don't need to grip because you don't need to hold onto anything. "You could stand to loosen up a bit, pull that stick out of your—"

"I'm working right now, you know." She cut him off, voice flat as a desk surface.

"Sorry, I'm half French." The smile widened — all teeth and mischief. "Can't help it."

If she could have throttled him, she would have done it without hesitation.

Wipe that irritating smirk off his very attractive face — with genuine pleasure. Her fingers were tight around the fork.

"But I'll give you one thing—" He let the pause sit, studying her with an analytical quiet. "You seem completely unbothered by me."

"Why would I be?" She crossed her arms, the pasta abandoned.

His eyebrows moved a fraction — somewhere between surprise and something more alive.

"Well. Women in my company tend to find the charm fairly difficult to resist."

She looked at him without blinking.

"And why exactly would I find it difficult to resist you?"

"What's not to like?" He made a lazy gesture toward himself. "I'm rich, famous, and very attractive."

"Like every other A-lister in this city." Clinical, even. "To me, you're a project."

"A project." Something pulled at the corners of his mouth for a fraction of a second. Then a spark caught in those blue-green eyes — something live. "Interesting."

"Yes. I have three months to pull off a miracle." She reached for her water.

"Fascinating." He murmured it more to himself, fingers tapping a short rhythm on the table. "So everyone you work with is just another project?" The sarcasm glazed the word. "Ouch."

"I'm an agent. Of course they are." A defensiveness crept into her voice that she hadn't planned on.

Ariel leaned forward. Elbows on the table, deliberately closing the distance between them.

"And for some reason you don't like musicians." His eyes narrowed. "Some project that didn't work out?"

Lucy's face moved — barely, microscopically, a slight tightening along her jaw. But he caught it.

"That's — none of your business." The walls went back up immediately. "I just prefer working with actors."

Ariel smiled. Tasting a first small victory.

"And yet." He wound pasta around his fork without breaking eye contact. "A crack in the armor."

"There's no crack."

"Sweetheart, reading people is how I make a living." He took a bite, chewed slowly, unhurried. "And in two seconds you went from Ice Queen to wounded soldier."

"I didn't go anywhere—"

"Was he famous?" He cut her off, his voice dropping, going quieter. "The musician who turned you into this charmingly prickly person?"

Lucy's fingers went white around her glass.

"We're not talking about that."

"Sure we are." The smile was wide, predatory, and genuinely curious all at once. "Because you've been taking me apart for weeks. Running lists of flaws, analyzing every move." He pointed once at her, once at himself. "Fair's fair, little manager."

"Don't call me that."

"Which part stings? 'Little'? Or 'manager'?" The accent deepened, wrapping around the words like silk. "Both fit. You're what, five-six? And technically — you manage me."

"Five-seven," she said through her teeth.

"My mistake." He didn't sound remotely sorry. "So this musician—" He snapped his fingers. "You built his career. The moment he took off — he forgot your name."

Her face went completely neutral. Too neutral, too fast.

Too neutral, too fast.

"Got it, didn't I?"

The smile sharpened. "That's why you work so hard to keep everyone at transaction distance. If you don't get attached, you can't get hit."

"You don't know anything about me." Quietly.

"Maybe not." He shrugged. "But I've been in this industry long enough." He swirled the wine in his glass, watching the light break through it. "You learn to recognize patterns."

Lucy's jaw set harder.

Bastard.

"Fine. You're right." The words came out sharp, cut with anger. "Years ago I supported a musician and, like you said — he used me. I learned my lesson, now I work at an agency." The fork went back into the pasta. "Happy?"

"Deeply moved by this story." The sarcasm dripped, theatrical, one hand pressed to his chest. "Truly rare."

His gaze stayed on her a beat too long.

Lucy rolled her eyes, already regretting saying any of it.

Great.

His Royal Ass could connect dots. And he wasn't as stupid as most celebrities. She resented having to update that assessment.

"You know what? I can't stand you."

"Ouch." The smile only grew, genuine amusement breaking through. "Right after baring your soul like that? That's quite the whiplash."

"You're an ass." No filter, no packaging, no attempt at professional framing. "You think you're so wonderful, but you're not. You're just another pretty actor with a god complex."

"Now that's a new one." And he laughed — not the camera-ready laugh Lucy had seen in dozens of interviews. Short, real, like it caught him slightly off guard. "Usually I get 'difficult' or 'demanding.' 'Ass' is refreshingly honest."

That ass. She repeated it in her head at higher volume, as if sheer force of thought could make things easier. His Royal Ass with his perfectly disheveled hair and his talent for reading people like scripts.

"You're enjoying this." The fork leveled at him like a weapon.

"Enormously." He didn't even try to hide it. "Do you know how dull my life is? Everyone agrees with everything I say. Everyone laughs at jokes that aren't even funny. Everyone pretends I'm an absolute genius." He leaned in. "And you genuinely cannot stand me. It's refreshing."

"Glad my suffering is keeping you entertained."

"It really is." He watched her over the rim of his glass. "You're authentic. You probably don't even know how rare that is in this city."

"So now you're going to compliment me?" She raised her eyebrows. "What's next, you start behaving professionally during interviews?"

"Let's not get carried away." He waved a hand. "I have a reputation to maintain."

"A reputation for being a nightmare client?"

"Among other things." The smile went predatory. "Tell me — in all that research you did, did you actually find anything interesting? Or just the standard PR package?"

She hesitated. The shift was sharp enough to catch her off guard.

"What do you mean?"

"You said you study me." A careless gesture. "Looking for gaps in the armor, angles for the rebrand, all that agent math. But did you actually learn anything?" He paused, and in that pause was something she hadn't heard from him yet — a silence with no irony in it. "Or did you just memorize the filmography and call it done?"