Page 73 of Dream (Fighting Fate)

My eyes bugged. “What? I can’t cover the UN meeting. I’ve never even been to one.”

The look he returned to me was pure no-argument. “Of course you can. It’s only going to be a small meeting. There won’t even be any heads of state there.”

“Okay,” I said, simply because I didn’t want to lose my job. I still wasn’t confident I could cover a UN meeting, but it appeared I had no choice now.

Mike hurried to dish out the rest of his notes, finishing up the meeting by congratulating everyone for the work we’d all put in to get the blog back up and running. When he finally sped from the room in a figurative puff of smoke, Sam and I went to the coffee station to hopefully get ourselves a boost for the day.

Sam gave me a sideways glance as she grabbed her mug out of the cupboard. “So, a UN meeting, huh?”

I shook my head, grabbing my own mug. “That’s crazy.”

Placing her mug in the machine, she added the grounds and pushed the buttons. As she fiddled with sweetener and creamer, I tried to clear a space on the counter for her to place it, but with my mind still off with the UN fairies, I accidentally knocked the magazines to the ground.

“Oh my God,” I said, crouching to bundle them up. “Can we just go back to bed and restart the day?” Straightening the last magazine, I banged it on top of the others and scooped them all into a pile. I was just about to dump the whole lot of them on the coffee table when the picture of the top one caught my breath.

I froze, my mouth popping open with surprise.

“Here,” Sam said behind me. “Liv?” When I didn’t answer her, she peered over my shoulder. “Oh, no.”

With slow movements, I placed the pile of magazines on the table and took two steps back, but my eyes were still stuck on that top one. It was a picture of Josh with a beautiful brunette. But it wasn’t the picture that upset me, really. It was the caption. It read: Joshua Emerson and Hannah Bryant tie the knot in Florida!

I honestly didn’t know that words could hurt me so much. Josh and I weren’t anything to each other, really. Just a summer fling. A small moment in time. But they did hurt. They hurt a lot. And Sam knew it.

Picking up my handbag, she threaded my arm through the straps and draped it over my shoulder. Then she picked up her coffee and her own bag, and she led me out the back to the store room and closed the door behind us.

Turning to me, she pinned me with a gaze that was both kind and firm. “Now,” she said, “you’ll tell me what Joshua Emerson is to you.”

I nodded, feeling as though I was in a daze. “Okay.”

Chapter 44

Josh

Tossing the magazine on the seat next to me, I clenched my jaw. Across from me, Ian raised an eyebrow with amusement. “It’s perfect,” he said.

“It’s misleading. You know people are going to read the headline and assume we got married.”

“And?”

Irritation was rising. “It’s about tying actual knots, Ian!”

He sighed and rolled his eyes. “And people will know that when they read the article.”

I was seriously regretting my decision to join Hannah for the tutorial. I mean, it was important for one of the scenes that we know how to tie a certain knot, but I should’ve requested to do it separately. “And how many people will just read the cover without bothering to read the article?” I demanded.

He shrugged. He didn’t give a shit. But then again, he didn’t care whether or not there were people out there whose feelings I was trying to protect. Pressing my lips together, I stared out the window. I had no doubt Liv would inadvertently find out about this. It was inevitable, really. Even if she didn’t read the rags, she’d see them spread out for sale somewhere. The urge to message her and tell her not to believe the shit she saw about me was astounding.

As the limo drew closer to the Orlando Airport, I tried to push it all from my mind. I had one day off filming to attend the Willow’s Way game launch, and that was going to require some charm. Something I felt very lacking in at the moment.

“Have you organized transport back to my apartment?” I asked, attempting to change the subjec

t before I lost my temper altogether.

“I just booked a room at the Montage,” he said, shrugging a shoulder. “It was part of the promotion.”

I resisted the urge to lose my shit at him. It didn’t even make sense for me to stay at a fucking hotel when I had my own goddamn apartment. And I didn’t want to think about how much it was costing me. “How long have I got?”

“We should arrive at the Montage by four. The launch starts at eight. I’ve had a suit delivered to your room. Black, blue shirt, like you asked.”

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