Chapter 7

Bride at First Sight had three episodes in the bag. Lilith had actually started having fun at some point, but she could never forget the cameras. It was weird to have them follow her around, which they did all the time, even when she wasn’t doing married stuff.

Of course that was a giant plus when the stuff in question was checking on Relâcher. She breezed through the heavy cherrywood door with an exaggerated pause at the reception desk so the camera could get a wide shot of the spa’s logo. She’d had the lacquered ebony sign commissioned before they’d even found the building to rent, then hung it on the wall behind the reception area herself. It was still her favorite part of the décor.

“Hello party people,” she called out gaily to the reception room at large, thrilled to the marrow to note there were—count them—four ladies leafing through magazines or face down in their phones as they waited for their appointments.

Sure it was close to a quarter of what they should have, but it was an improvement. Solid proof that this plan was starting to work toward foiling Rohina’s evil plot. If that wasn’t a party, what was?

“Hi, Ms. Parker.” Shannon, the temp receptionist Eliza had hired to fill in for Lilith, gave a nervous, flat-handed wave. She did a great job with the customers, according to the report Lilith had gotten from Eliza, but she didn’t seem all that comfortable on camera, which was fine. No one here had signed up to be the star of a reality show except Lilith. She’d rather they all kept Relâcher afloat than practice their TV smiles anyway.

“Mrs. McClarren,” she corrected easily. “And yes, you can be as jealous as you want.”

“That was some hot kiss while you were baking cookies,” Shannon responded dutifully as if she’d been given a script, and maybe she had. The producers liked to play chess with all the pieces, even the unexpected ones.

“You don’t know the half of it,” Lilith returned with a wink. “You should have seen what happened when the cameras stopped rolling.”

Another staple of the deal. For the audience’s sake, she was supposed to keep up the illusion that she and Dane had an off-camera relationship, when in reality, he disappeared a lot when they weren’t filming. She’d wonder if he had a mistress somewhere—not that it was any of her business, since their relationship was more manufactured than a trailer home—but she knew he stayed holed up in his bedroom. Sometimes, late at night, she heard him clacking on his keyboard and assumed he was playing his video game, so she never bothered him. They weren’t friends, not for lack of trying. On her side anyway.

Okay, it was kind of bothering her that he could kiss her so thoroughly she thought her hair would incinerate and then vanish. But that was probably best because what could possibly happen if she did seek him out after hours? Nothing that would be to her benefit, that was for sure. He was still a man at the end of the day.

“Mrs. McClarren, nice of you to drop by,” Eliza called in her fake camera-lilt that never ceased to make Lilith grin.

“I had to make sure you weren’t burning the place down.”

Really, she probably could have taken a few appointments when they weren’t filming but Relâcher had still been suffering from the cancellation plague at first and there hadn’t been enough business to warrant it.

Now that it seemed the tide had turned, she was just superstitious enough to leave the status quo alone. If the sudden influx of people proved to be too much to handle, Eliza would let her know. Hard to give up that much control, and she wouldn’t trust anyone other than Eliza.

They chatted about inane gossipy things that the director loved to portray, like all women talked about behind closed doors were the Kardashians and Louis Vuitton. One day, Lilith planned to slip in a mention of the herbalism book she’d been reading and see how the audience liked that. The staff of Relâcher worked hard to stay abreast of new trends in plant extracts and other elements of healing. It would be doubly awesome if the audience learned something new, and she could shove it in the director’s face that he didn’t have all the answers as to what made for good TV.

The director called it a wrap once he had his requisite thirty minutes of footage, which he’d whittle down to about seven minutes during editing, once he cut out dead air and shots that showed Lilith from behind. Sometimes that meant she ended up sounding like an idiot because he left in only half of her sentences, but she was used to it by now.

On the way back to the condo, the director leaned toward her in the elevator. “You and McClarren need to have a fight. Tonight. Figure out something to get mad at him for.”

Nebulous much? She arched a brow. “Like what?”

He rolled his eyes. “I literally couldn’t care less. He leaves his socks on the floor. Whatever. Just make it good.”

“Socks on the floor don’t bother me,” she informed him blithely, just because his attitude stuck in her craw. Though to be fair—which she had no intention of doing—the whole concept of the show was fake. Was she really going to draw the line at fighting over something that actually ticked her off?

“Find something else.” The director elbowed her lightly. “Maybe you see some incriminating texts on his phone, yeah? Ones that make you think he’s got something going on with a girl at work. Confront him about it. Make it a huge blowup.”

Ice formed in the pit of Lilith’s stomach instantly. The chill seeped into her blood. There was nothing on God’s green earth that could get her to have a knock-down drag out with Dane over another woman, not even a made-up one. Talk about cutting too close to the bone. “I’ll think of something.”

Otherwise, the director would make up his own, and she’d rather have control of the situation. The second she cleared the threshold of the condo, she sought out Dane so she could explain the mandate, but he wasn’t home.

Great. Now she’d have to sit here and stew about this trumped-up fight until he reappeared. Melanie had texted him almost ten minutes ago with no response. The crew set up pretty quickly for the next round of filming, and the director got agitated the longer Dane made them wait. If they didn’t get this show on the road, Lilith had the feeling she wouldn’t get to retain creative control of the content of the fight.

Finally, her husband arrived, with much fanfare. The director started filming before Dane even unlocked the door, which meant she had no chance to even warn him that he was walking into a scene he’d had no preparation for.

“There you are,” she said somewhat desperately as he came into the kitchen where she was waiting with her arms crossed. The rest just sort of tumbled out. “We have to talk.”

Dane’s eyebrows lifted and she could tell by his expression that he’d clued in on the tension, bless him. “The four little words all men love to hear.”

For some reason that made her laugh, and the director immediately called, “Cut!”

With a brief lift of his hands, Dane turned to the nearest camera. “What? We’re not close enough together for the shot?”

“You’re supposed to be fighting,” the director said with a roll of his hand. “Laughing isn’t the typical response when things get heated. Get it together.”

Comprehension dawned in Dane’s gaze, and he shot Lilith a secret smile, like they were in on this together. “So you’re saying I should stop being funny.”

That set her off again, and a laugh burst out between her clenched teeth. “Maybe we should fight about the fact that you can’t keep a straight face.”

“Me?” Dane said with feigned injury, complete with a flat hand to his torso as if she’d affronted him terribly. “You’re the one who ambushed me with all this talk about talking.”

A bad case of the giggles gripped her, and to top it all off, Dane seemed to catch it too, fighting to keep himself from smiling. He had such a great smile though. It would be a shame to force him to lose it.

“Sorry,” she gasped between rounds of laughter. “I can stop, I promise.”

The director stood there tapping his foot while the camera crew stared at the ceiling or their phones. No skin off their nose. They got paid whether they were filming or not.

“Should I step on your foot maybe?” Dane offered gallantly, which did nothing to fix things. They both dissolved into more giggles, though his were a lot deeper, and the sound of it crawled inside her with warm little tendrils.

“Stop. Seriously.” She could hardly catch her breath at this point, but she couldn’t even find a shred of remorse. There was something so cleansing about laughing with someone, especially when it was a guy you’d recently kissed. “Now you’re just doing it on purpose.”

Dane grinned. “I like hearing you laugh. Sue me.”

“Same goes. You’re good for my soul.” Of course, the saying was that laughter was good for the soul, but in this case, the editorial fit.

The director gave a snort of disgust and stomped off, calling out over his shoulder. “You two are useless. Take five and then get me a fight on film or else.”

Alone in the kitchen, or as alone as they could be with eight other people in the condo, Lilith automatically put a hand on Dane’s forearm. “Sorry you had to walk into that.”

It was only when he glanced down at her hand that she realized she’d touched him, but oh, well. She liked the way sinews corded along his muscles and they felt nice under her fingers. When he met her gaze, something warm bloomed between them. Since he didn’t immediately back off, she guessed he wasn’t all that bothered by her impulsiveness.

“Sorry I got the best laugh I’ve had in a long time?” he asked and if anything, he’d edged a little closer. His voice had dropped too, likely to keep the crew from overhearing, but he’d fallen into a register that gave her goosebumps. “Not much to apologize for there.”

At this rate, they’d never get to a point where they could yell at each other over even a major infraction, let alone something minor like socks on the floor. She let her hand drop before her fingers went on a walkabout with no other purpose than to discover if his whole arm felt that hard and delicious. “We have to find something to fight about. What are some of your annoying habits?”

“You’ve been living with me for how long, and you don’t have a list already?”

The smile on his face was reflected in his tone, and she’d be hard pressed to remember the last time she’d felt this aware of another person, this…electrified all at once.

“I’m not really much of a list maker when it comes to people’s faults,” she murmured, her voice dropping to match his. “Play your cards right and I might share the one listing all the things I like about you.”

“Yeah? All both of them?”

“Come on.” She laughed softly but in comparison to earlier, she was far from amused. “You’re a sweet guy. Funny. Smart. You stay out of my way, deliberately I’m pretty sure. That’s four.”

Dane nodded, his lashes sweeping closed to shutter his eyes for a long moment. “I have a similar list about you, but I think it’s too long. Maybe we should strike that last one off.”

His meaning sang through her as she stared at him, lost all at once in the deep pools of blue. “What, like we stop going our separate ways after all the filming is done for the day? You want to spend time together? On purpose?”

“You say that like you’re shocked I would suggest such a thing.” The brief lift of his lips was one hundred percent self-effacing, and he shrugged. “I’m in a new place and I don’t know anyone except you. Why not?”

Oh, man. Her powers of observation needed serious triage. “That’s what we should fight about then. How obtuse I am. I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were shutting yourself up in your room because of that.”

“I’m finding things to keep myself occupied. But I wouldn’t mind the occasional late-night chat.”

Dane said it so casually, but she could imagine he’d been pretty lonely and probably a lot bored. “Done. I mean, who better to hang out with than my husband? I certainly can’t complain about the convenience.”

“That’s the spirit,” he said with a wry twist of his lips. “I’m happy to be your default plan for the evening.”

The director stomped back over then, motioning to the crew and generally throwing his weight around until Lilith wanted to throttle him. Ironic. The person she was supposed to be mad at kept doing cute things like smiling at her behind the director’s back. Finally, they received the ultimatum that Lilith put the toilet paper roll on the holder backward and Dane was tired of flipping it around.

And go.

Lilith rolled her eyes with enough exaggeration that the lead camera guy got it on film and promised to splice it in. Then she let Dane explain how important this issue was to him. Fortunately, the whole thing was so dumb, she had no problems spitting out that exact opinion, which Dane took with his typical good nature until the director made a noise in his throat, rolling his fingers in a combo “ramp it up” and “are you kidding me” gesture.

“It’s toilet paper, Dane,” she repeated for the fourth time, but did her level best to put some heat into her tone. “Get over it.”

“You’re mean sometimes, you know that?” he said, out of the blue and with such sincerity that Lilith did a double take. Wow. Where had that come from? Dane had been holding out on her with the acting skills.

“I’m not mean. I’m the nicest person anyone has ever met. Ask them,” she offered loftily, waving at the wall as if people actually stood there waiting to be polled.

Dane crossed his arms and leaned on the kitchen counter, his favorite filming pose, which worked for everyone because it showed off his very lovely biceps. “I don’t have to ask anyone. My feelings count the most, and I say you are.”

“Fine.” She showed her teeth, trying really hard not to laugh again. “I’ll put the toilet paper roll on any way his majesty pleases. Will that allow us to forget this whole thing and move on?”

He didn’t so much as blink. “Only if you apologize.”

“For what? Putting the toilet paper on backward? That’s ridiculous.” Out of the corner of her eye, she tracked one of the camera men moving in for a close shot which meant they were nailing it. “When you’re ready to act like a grown-up married couple, let me know.”

“See? Mean.” Dane’s eyes slatted as he stared her down, forming this shield that kept her out.

All at once, she heard it, and her throat closed. Oh, goodness. That had been kind of nasty, but seriously. She’d just been kidding. This stupid show. “I’m sorry. I don’t know why I said that.”

Dane shrugged, his gaze growing warm but no one else could see it except her. “Thanks. I forgive you.”

“Just like that.” She laughed but this time, it was out of sheer confusion and a good bit of self-consciousness. “You shouldn’t. You should make me give you a full body massage as penance.”

“Would you?” Something dark and a little dangerous swept through his expression, and it made her stumble as the vibe between them turned on its head in a snap. “Because that sounds like a win-win in my book.”

The very molecules in the air between them heated as they stared at each other. Really, she hadn’t meant it that way, tossing off the suggestion because it was one of her areas of expertise. The delicious liquid warmth inside her felt extremely unprofessional though, and she couldn’t find a thing to complain about.

“I don’t make offers I don’t plan to fulfill. I always follow through,” she told him with enough color in her voice that there was no way he didn’t pick up on how much she liked the direction of this conversation.

“Then I take it back.” His voice had gone rough with its own texture, the kind that never failed to seep into skin with its toasty little tendrils. “I don’t forgive you. You need to learn your lesson.”

She shivered as he reached out, snaking an arm around her waist and yanking her closer, nestling her into that groove of his body where she just seemed to fit. No complaints here.

“I’m feeling very properly chastised,” she murmured throatily. If she’d known this would be the result of that stupid fight, she’d have initiated it an hour ago. “And like I must kiss it to make it better.”

Heat flared in the depths of his Caribbean blue eyes and the next moment, he plunged her into a maelstrom, courtesy of his mouth, as he jumped into the suggestion with all-encompassing commitment.

The kiss sucked every ounce of oxygen out of her lungs, leaving her dazed and breathless and quite literally weak in the knees as his lips masterfully worked her into oblivion. Somewhere in the far reaches of her senses, she heard the director yell, “And cut! That was fabulous.”

But stopping wasn’t high on her list of things to do at the moment. Dane seemed to be of the same mind, threading his fingers through her hair to gently caress her neck, and she was lost to sensations he’d created.

“Get a room,” the director called with a snarky laugh, which finally broke enough of the tension to pull her apart from Dane. “You two are priceless.”