“Not yet,” Taylor said, not quite meeting my gaze. “Matthew Burdette wants to talk to you.”
Chapter 6
I’d like your permission to slightly exaggerate our relationship.
“Why does he want to see me?” I asked, my heart in my throat. “What’s wrong? Where are we going?”
Taylor chose the last question to answer. “Everyone calls it the ‘Bat Cave.’ It’s the studio where the production team lives and obsesses over everything on the show.” She took me outside, and it was now light enough that I could see a small guest cottage positioned just south of the main house. I knew they had a room inside the mansion where the story producers would stay with monitor feeds, and that the garage served as their control room.
It seemed rather ominous to go somewhere called the Bat Cave. If this were a scary movie, the audience would be screaming at me not to be stupid enough to go in.
She opened the door and ushered me inside. I hesitated for a moment, and then went in. The house was dark, because someone had put blackout curtains on all the windows. It took my eyes a second to adjust, and I recognized Matthew Burdette before Taylor led me over to him.
He seemed very average—average height, average appearance, brown hair, brown eyes. Your eyes would skim over him in a crowd.
But the anger he radiated was not average, and was wholly intimidating. I instinctively realized that he was meaner than a wet panther, and I would be a fool to cross him.
“Tell me,” he said, his voice low and dangerous. “What is the name of your company again?”
I felt the urge to lie to him in order to protect myself, but I was a terrible liar and it would be very easy for him to find out.
“Lemon Zest Communications, sir.”
I hadn’t meant to add the sir on the end. All my life I’d been raised to say “yes, ma’am” and “no, sir” to adults. I’d had a hard time dropping the habit in my college years as it had been so ingrained, and this man was bringing it back out in me. That abject fear that I’d endure something terrible if I didn’t show the proper respect.
“You’re filling in because of the girls we had to send home, correct?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you didn’t want to fill in?”
“No, sir. I didn’t.” He was pee-your-pants scary.
“And you thought, what, you’d sabotage my entire show by dressing up like this and ignoring Dante?”
Ignoring him? I felt like I’d spent the whole evening doing nothing but talking to him. Well, I probably hadn’t talked to him that much, but I’d definitely spent the entire party thinking about him when I wasn’t talking to him.
Which was a disturbing realization.
“You thought you’d just disrespect my entire show and everything I’ve worked so hard to accomplish here?”
There were easily twenty people in the room with us, but not one made a sound. They were also all motionless, as if moving would draw his attention and his wrath. “I didn’t mean any disrespect to you, sir.”
He leaned forward, both of his hands clenched up like he was fixing to punch me next. “Then I’ll tell you what’s going to happen. Unless you want to be blackballed from this industry for the rest of your life, you will never pull another stunt like you did tonight, where you acted angry and put out. You will act like Dante hangs the moon and as if you can’t wait to be his wife. Do you understand me, or do I need to use smaller words?”
I could feel the sweat beads forming at my hairline. “No, sir. I mean, yes, sir, I understand you and you don’t need to use smaller words. Sir.”
Then he slammed his hands down hard on a nearby table, making everyone jump in fear. “And no more logos! Didn’t anyone explain that to her? No shirts with logos on them!”
I fought back the urge to cross my arms across my chest, like I could hide what he’d already seen.
“Now get out.”
He didn’t need to tell me twice. My heart pounded in my throat, and a silvery, metallic taste filled my mouth as I sprinted out the door and across the yard before anyone could catch up with me. I ran like a scalded haint.
The Monterran royals were my only clients. I’d been so busy with the engagement announcement and the show that I hadn’t had time to try and find anyone else. And no one else would ever even speak to me if I angered Matthew Burdette. How could I help a potential client if no talk show hosts would e-mail me back, or if no reporter would return my calls? I could never get anyone any publicity. I had no fallback plan if Burdette carried through on his threat to blackball me.