Page 54 of The CEO I Hate

I shook my head. “I honestly don’t know how you do it. I thought balancingEnd in FireandHeart and Hustlewas a lot.”

“I remember feeling that way when I first started building the business in college.”

I sipped my water. “Jake always told me it started out as a joke.”

He nodded. “I had this girlfriend at USC. She was in theater and always talked about the backstage drama at all the student productions. It was like living a soap opera every day. Light crews and sound crews bitching over who was more important, wardrobe malfunctions, the fact that everybody was sleeping with everybody. One day, we got the idea to film a short series.”

“LikeThe Real Housewives of Backstage?” I teased.

He grinned. “Exactly. We streamed it on a website we created and charged a tiny subscription fee just to cover costs.”

“I feel like this is more than most college students accomplish in their four years.”

He shrugged off the compliment. “My girlfriend’s roommate was a film major—I think she finagled class credit for her part in it. Same thing formyroommate, with the website; he was a computer science major.”

“And you?”

“Business major. I made the budget, rented the equipment, handled the subscriptions, and made sure everyone on camera signed releases—producer stuff, though I wasn’t really thinking about titles at the time. But then the show was a hit on campus, and soon all these students were reaching out, saying they wanted to make their own shows. Word started to spread, and soon we had subscribers from colleges all over the country.”

“Not such a joke anymore, huh?” I said. “I still don’t get what made you jump from reality TV toEnd in Fire. Aren’t reality shows way cheaper to make?”

Liam nodded. “Absolutely. They can be shot faster too. And there’s never a shortage of people with ideas to pitch. But when Lyle came to me withEnd in Firethree years ago, the script was so good—and, you know, with Jake, that world felt near and dear. Something inside me just told me to go for it.”

“Good instincts,” I said.

“Or dumb luck.”

“I think you need more than just luck to bethissuccessful,” I pointed out.

Liam shrugged. “It hasn’t all been hits, you know. I’ve had my misses.End in Firewasn’t the first scripted project I tried out. About ten years ago, a college buddy came to me with a pitch.”

I frowned. “There was another scripted show on VeriTV? I don’t remember seeing anything like that.” Even if the show hadn’t taken off likeEnd in Fire,I couldn’t imagine him taking it off the platform altogether. In the streaming industry, content is king. Even bad content is better thannocontent. It’s why you find so much random stuff in services’ catalogs: soap operas from Sweden, game shows from Thailand, anything and everything to give viewers something to watch.

“That’s because we weren’t able to complete a single episode.”

Oh. Ouch.

“I sank a lot of money into developing it, gave my friend fairly free rein because I trusted him,” Liam said with a hard scowl on his face, “and that ended up being a terrible idea because production was a disaster. I made sure the same thing didn’t happen withEnd in Fire.I was there for at least part of the day every day they were shooting. I kept an eye on budgets, schedules, made sure everything came together on sets, costumes, whatever they needed. I wasn’t leaving anything to chance.”

“Except the writers’ room?”

He let out a sigh. “Except the writers’ room,” he agreed. “I didn’t want to interfere on the creative side. I’d heard Lyle could get touchy about that. So I kept my distance. Should’ve known that would blow up in my face.”

“I’m sorry that happened.” This was the first time I’d glimpsed “behind the curtain” with Liam, and it put a lot of his more annoying behavior into context.

“I just want VeriTV to be successful,” he stated. “So I can keep supporting the people who depend on me. And I want our content to be fun and engaging and something peoplelove. The fact that Lyle almost ruined that…” He shook his head, his jaw clenched.

That’s sort of how I felt aboutHeart and Hustle. I wanted it to be a story people connected with and cared about. My pulse skipped as I realized the depth of Liam’s concern for VeriTV and the people who worked for him. My longtime crush on him had always been fairly shallow—mostly focused on the fact he was hot—but being here now, we were meeting more like equals.

And damned if that didn’t make him even hotter. I liked it way more than I should.

“Season two is going to be amazing,” I said. “Seriously. We’ve got a great team. And you saw the fan reactions today. As long as we get a sexy firefighter calendar shot, nothing can stop us.”

He smirked. “Carl thinks it’s a great charity idea.”

“Absolutely. We could put a new one out with every season of the show. They’ll make great Christmas gifts!”

Liam rolled his eyes as our food arrived. He tasted his broth before adding extra chili flakes. “You gonna gift one of those to your parents?”

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