Page 20 of Hot SEAL, Under Pressure

She resisted the urge to take a step backward.

“I saw what you filmed yesterday. The teams on the O-Course for B-roll.”

The O-Course. Ever since Joanne had started dating a SEAL, she’d begun to sound like one.

“Okay.” Shelly nodded, waiting.

“We found our eighth team.”

“We did? Okay. Which guy?” Relieved that it was just that Joanne had found a SEAL that tickled her fancy, Shelly took a step closer to the monitor.

“Him.” Joanne tapped one manicured nail on the display.

Shelly’s hopes sank as the SEAL she singled out was the thorn in her side. Mister Obnoxious. The one SEAL who hadn’t signed a release. The one the editor should have been blurring out.

She was about to explain the difficulty with Joanne’s decision when Joanne turned back to her and said, “And you.”

Shelly frowned. “Excuse me?”

“You and him. That’s our eighth team.”

Her eyes widened. “Me? But I have a whole folder on my computer filled with beautiful—”

Joanne brushed away that protest with the flick of a wrist. “Don’t sell yourself short. You’re gorgeous.”

“But I’m in production. I’m not in front of the camera—”

“You are now. Welcome to the cast.” Joanne shot her that evil impish smile again.

“Why?” she asked, losing this battle and completely at a loss of how to fight a force like Joanne Rossi.

“Watch for yourself.” Joanne stepped to the side and said to the editor, “Show her.”

Somehow the woman knew what Joanne meant. She tapped a few keys, rewound a bit of footage and suddenly Shelly was watching herself and the SEAL of her nightmares on the screen.

She had her hands on her hips and was saying something to him as he smirked at her, the unsigned release papers in his hands.

The angrier and more animated she became, the more amused he appeared until he outright laughed at her. That’s when she stomped her foot and stormed away in an embarrassing career moment.

“I didn’t know they got this on camera,” she mumbled for a lack of anything else to say.

“You said get everything because we might be able to use it,” Jonas offered, not so helpfully.

“I’m glad you did. It was a good instinct. This was exactly what I wanted between the couples on the teams. Fire. Passion,” Joanne explained.

Passion.Couples?Her and him?

“Wait. What?” Shelly shook her head. “No.”

“Yes,” Joanne countered. “You’re perfect.”

“But you wanted a power couple like Clay—"

Joanne dismissed the objection with another flick of her gold and diamond encircled wrist. “We’ll have Clay and Tasha visit. They can be guest judges or something. Ideallyaftershe starts to show so we can tease the baby for the next season ofHot House. Sign this SEAL up today. I want him.”

“That’s going to be a problem. He refused to even sign a release for the B-roll,” Shelly said, grasping onto to her one last objection that might actually work.

His stubbornness might be the thing that saved her from this Hell on Earth.

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