EIGHTEEN

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A good sport. Cheerful. Cooperative. That was what Doug was hearing about Katie from the staff at Reign, from talk show bookers, journalists, photographers. Pretty much everyone, really. Fans of her show were recognizing her out on the street more often now, and everything they said online was positive too.

So far, so good, then.

They’d hit a bump in the road eventually—that was almost a given in Hollywood—but he was sure she’d accept it with her usual good humor. As he’d seen during the photo shoot in Twin Falls, unless she hadn’t gotten enough sleep, she was energetic and pleasant, and she seemed to be gaining confidence by the day.

For his part, he made sure she felt appreciated, whether it was with a heartfelt compliment, a treat, or an extra half-hour of sleep whenever he could arrange it. He was all too aware that her hiatus, the three months of time she was supposed to have had all to herself, was dwindling rapidly, and in only a few more weeks, she’d be back at work on Roomies, so he tried his best to work fun things into the schedule: the Broadway show she’d wanted to see, a trip to the zoo (though it was the Los Angeles zoo, not San Diego), an afternoon at a new, popular spa.

He also tried to ignore the fact that he was more tired than he’d ever been, and wondered if this was what new parents felt like. If having almost complete responsibility for the wellbeing of another person, even though that other person seemed to be thriving, could manage to suck all the energy right out of you.

It was a good thing he wasn’t dating anyone, he thought. It seemed more than likely that if he tried to see a movie with someone, or snuggle on the couch listening to music, he’d fall fast asleep.

The publicity train would slow down a little once Katie started working on her show again. Learning her lines, rehearsing, and filming took up a lot of her time, so, for the most part, she’d be available for publicity only on weekends. During the past two seasons, she’d spent her weekends puttering, and part of Doug wished they could let her go on doing that. She needed that time—as did he—to rest and recharge.

Wryly, he thought of his grandfather saying, “Eh. You can rest when you’re dead.”

So he took another look at the list of things that were scheduled for the coming week, making sure nothing overlapped, that all the appropriate arrangements had been made, and that each individual thing was a good step toward where they wanted to end up.

Don’t waste any time. Amanda had warned him of that.

He was most of the way through the list when he found something he was sure hadn’t been there before. Taping of Hollywood Match, it said. Clearly, it was something Amanda had added, but she hadn’t mentioned it to him beforehand.

Hollywood Match?

It had to be a TV show, but he’d never heard of it, and he prided himself on being aware of almost everything that was on the air now or was coming up in the fall. He had to be, because of how it might impact Katie.

A game show, maybe? But Amanda would never book Katie on a game show. To her, game shows were where C-list celebrities went to shrivel up and blow away. A paycheck for some nice people, he thought, but not for any of Amanda’s clients.

What, then?

Part of him wasn’t sure he wanted to know.

Rather than ask Amanda herself (only partly because it would make him look ignorant), he went to her assistant. Luckily, Amanda was out of the office, having lunch in Westwood with an up-and-coming director she had her sights on representing. Some of the other staff were out as well, which left things quiet and reasonably private, especially in the area outside Amanda’s office.

“It’s new,” Tony, her assistant, told Doug. “Premieres late September.”

“What kind of show is it?”

Tony shrugged eloquently. “Sort of a spinoff of the whole Bachelor, Bachelorette thing. A Hollywood match. About as subtle as a sledgehammer, but where did subtlety ever get you in this town?”

“And Katie’s going to do this?”

“Mm-hmm.”

Tony had worked at Reign for a couple of years before Doug arrived, and he was well-known for having his ear to the tracks. It was through Tony that Amanda got a lot of her inside information—things that were coming up, things to avoid, things that were barely more than a glimmer of an idea but seemed likely to blossom and become something noteworthy. Almost without fail, Tony knew someone who knew someone, most of whom were willing to do him a favor if he asked.

“They’re keeping it under wraps,” he said in a low tone, as if he were trying to avoid waking a sleeping baby. “It’s not a weekly thing, just periodic. Three or four episodes here and there. This first one, they’re going to pop out as a surprise. Something exciting for premiere week.”

“And it’s a dating thing.”

Tony’s head and shoulder twitched toward each other, his equivalent of a shrug. “It’ll be fun.”

“Does Katie know about it?”

“That’s the gimmick. The ‘Hollywood’ in question goes in thinking it’s something else. Total surprise. They’re taping all four episodes at the same time, in different places around town, so word doesn’t get around. That would ruin the concept.”

“Then she has no idea.”

“Try to keep up, darling,” Tony said dryly. “No, she has no idea. And the lovely Ms. Reign will have your behind if you tell her. So, if I were you, I’d zip that lip. And please don’t look at me as if we’ve arranged for her to be kidnapped by white slavers. It’s one day of shooting. And no one expects her to actually date these people.”

“Except that they do.”

“She’s a good sport. She’ll go along with it.”

“What’s she being told it is?” Doug asked, thinking, And why did no one tell me about it?

“A birthday party.”

“For her?”

“It’ll be fine,” Tony said.

 

¤ ¤ ¤ ¤

 

“A birthday party. For me.”

“Mm-hmm,” Doug replied.

“It’s June. My birthday is in September,” Katie said, wearing a frown so huge, it was almost comical. “Why would anyone… Who’s doing this?”

She was adorable, Doug thought. Safely away from the cameras, she was dressed in soft, comfortable clothes: an oversized t-shirt and yoga pants. Barefoot. Hair falling in a braid down her back.

As if she’d suddenly realized she ought to be a good hostess, she gestured him toward a chair and asked if he’d like something to drink. They’d done this enough times that he knew it would make her fidgety if he said no, so he agreed to an iced tea, and she quickly brought him a bottle from the fridge.

“It’s the network,” he told her. “You know how they are.”

That much was true. Hollywood Match was being produced by the same network that aired Roomies, although the show’s offices were in Santa Monica, not at the Burbank studio where Katie worked.

Which was just as well, Doug supposed.

“But—”

“It’ll air the week of your birthday,” he said. “The same week as the season premiere of Roomies.”

“So… it’s like when they film Christmas specials in April.”

“Exactly.”

Katie, who’d gotten a lemonade for herself out of the fridge, began to drink it solemnly, punctuating each sip by sliding her tongue over her upper lip. Doug was almost positive she wasn’t aware she was doing it, but, like her outfit, it was adorable. It made him want to kiss the drops of lemonade off her lips, but he didn’t dare approach her. In fact, he didn’t dare go on looking at her too closely.

“It’s just one day of filming,” he explained. “At a club on the west side, during the day, when it’s not open to the public.”

“Do I get birthday gifts out of this?”

He chuckled. “I don’t know. I could ask.”

“And who—who are they going to invite? Is it like one of those old This Is Your Life things, where they’d bring in my family, and people from back home? I don’t know that any of them want to be on TV.”

Doug shook his head. “All Hollywood folks.”

“Will I know them?”

“If it’s network, I assume it’ll be a whole parade of other people from their shows. It’s a publicity thing, remember? Probably Ellery and Dana and the other people from Roomies, and… I don’t know. Everyone they can book, I suppose. I’ll try to get hold of a list, if that would help.”

“I guess it doesn’t matter.” She took another sip. Licked her lip again. “What should I wear?”

“Cocktail attire.”

“And you’re coming with me.”

“I am.”

“My steady date.”

The warmth in her voice hit him like a brick.

Everything would be fine, he told himself, but that assurance refused to take hold. For a moment, he distracted himself by sipping his iced tea, trying to convey to Katie through his eyes alone that he appreciated the comment.

Over the past few days, with Amanda’s noticeably reluctant agreement, he’d tried to fill Katie in completely about everything she was going to do. She might not have a lot of advance notice, but she wasn’t going into anything cold—and that was what this amounted to. Before he left the office, Amanda had reiterated to him that the production of Hollywood Match was a closely guarded secret, and if he leaked the truth about it, she would begin to wonder whether he really belonged at Reign Management.

Whether she could trust him.

It was bad enough that Amanda felt she had to say that outright. Obviously, Tony had let something slip, something that would ensure that his boss’s best interests were carefully guarded. So, Doug was more or less on notice. Go along with this, or you’ll be out looking for another job.

“I’ll be right there with you,” he assured Katie.

For better or worse.