Page 46 of Breaking the Rules
“Pro wrestling.”
“First thing that comes to mind when I say Dante Wrede?”
Waverly smiled big. “Charming.”
“How about when I say Xavier Saint?”
She smiled bigger. “Lifesaver.”
The crowd cheered with enthusiasm.
“I understand that Xavier is here with you tonight,” Max said, and an “oooh” went through the crowd.
Waverly nodded. “He’s in the green room.” She was going to kill Gwendolyn.
“I feel like we should bring him out, don’t you?”
Oh, yeah. Gwendolyn was a dead woman. “Uhh—” Waverly was weighing her options while the crowd made their opinion deafeningly clear. When the screen behind her cut to a moving shot from the green room, she knew the decision had already been made.
Xavier was standing up and buttoning his jacket over his vest. Every woman in the studio whooped. A production assistant led him through the short maze of hallways to the studio while the camera followed. And when he stepped onto the stage, the noise was deafening. Max stood to greet Xavier with an enthusiastic handshake. Waverly stood, too, and accepted the peck on her cheek that Xavier delivered as he stepped to her side.
The crowd continued to cheer, and Xavier waved politely before taking a seat next to her.
“You’re pretty popular, X,” Waverly commented under her breath while the din could cover it.
“I’m going to stuff Gwendolyn in a trunk and bury her in the desert after this.” His words were in direct contrast to the wry smile plastered on his face. The producer finally had to gesture for people to sit back down again.
Max could barely suppress his glee at having landed the first interview with Xavier Saint and Waverly Sinner together.This was going horribly wrong, Waverly thought. The studio was going to see this interview as her going rogue. And everyone in the country would be drawing conclusions that she and Xavier were together.
“Thanks for being such a good sport, Xavier,” Max beamed at him.
“Thanks for not giving me a choice, Max.” Xavier said with a sharp smile.
Waverly saw Max swallow nervously before pressing on. “Right then. So now you two have never given an interview together, I’m told.”
Both had spoken to the media separately over the years. But Xavier had always refused to answer questions about the night Les Ganim had abducted Waverly. And Waverly had stuck to her guns about never answering personal questions about Xavier.
“We have not,” Waverly agreed. “He’s too argumentative.”
“She’s too stubborn,” Xavier argued.
“No, I’m not!”
“You are,” he nodded.
“I can see that neither one of you has a point,” Max quipped. “Let’s talk how you two met.”
Waverly and Xavier exchanged a glance. It was a relatively safe topic, but they both knew he was just warming them up with softballs.
“Waverly’s parents hired me five years ago to help with some security concerns,” Xavier said.
“They hired him to keep me in line,” Waverly corrected.
“And she wasn’t very happy with the idea,” Xavier grinned at the memory.
“I threw him in the pool,” she admitted. The audience roared.
“I wasn’t happy,” Xavier said, raising an eyebrow at her.
