Good thing his character, Cupid, was supposed to be injured during the climactic battle sequence anyway.
“Go on,” he said cheerily. “I’m listening now.”
Ron managed not to lose his shit again. Instead, a vein throbbing hard at his left temple, he took a minute to calm himself before speaking.
“From now until the show airs its final episode, Lauren will accompany you anytime you either leave the set or your home,” he finally gritted out. “If she can’t hack it, you’ll immediately receive another minder instead, so don’t bother trying to get her to quit. Lauren may be ridiculous, as you say, not to mention joyless, but you won’t like her replacement, I can guarantee that.”
Alex tilted his head.
That was intriguing. Was his Understudy Nanny particularly vicious? Or odiferous? Or maybe—
“No more bad publicity.” The showrunner’s pale eyes speared into his, commanding his attention. “Or you’ll suffer the full legal and professional consequences outlined in your contract. Do you understand now? Or shall I involve our lawyers in the explanation?”
Alex tapped out a note to himself on his phone. Choice of joyless bird-woman or smelly murderer as babysitter, now until show finishes airing. More trouble => lawyers. Ron = serial killer eyes.
“Is anyone staying in your guesthouse right now?” the showrunner asked.
Looking up, Alex found that disconcerting stare still fixed on him and answered without thinking. “No. My friend Faroukh booked a series, so he left last—”
Oh. Oh, fucking hell.
“Then Lauren will move in as soon as you two return to L.A. The show will pay you fair market value for the rental on a monthly basis.” Ron’s smile was smug. “Very convenient for everyone involved.”
Alex’s jaw hurt, and he flexed it. “And you expect this arrangement to last nine months?”
“Hard to say. But if it doesn’t, R.J. and I have already chosen our course of action.” With an impatient flap of his hand, Ron gestured for his relative to stand. “Do what my cousin tells you, or else. Lauren, go shake his hand.”
Up close, Alex could estimate her height more accurately. Around five feet, give or take an inch. And at this distance, her eyes were even more arresting. A clear, soft green with the slightest hint of blue, they were her only feature an honest observer could call pretty.
Her palm was ludicrously small, her grip firm as they shook hands. If she’d taken offense at her cousin’s blunt order or his description of her as ridiculous and joyless, she didn’t show it.
Because Ron didn’t seem inclined to do the job, Alex completed the social ritual.
“Please let me introduce myself.” After he let go of her hand, he swept her a mocking bow. “Alexander Woodroe, at your service. Or, rather, at your command. For the next nine months, evidently.”
“I know who you are,” she said without a hint of a smile.
Her voice was unexpectedly low and rich, and he straightened abruptly at the sound of it.
I know who you are.
It was a simple statement.
It was also a condemnation.
No doubt Ron had told her plenty. But she didn’t know Alex. She didn’t know the first fucking thing about him, and neither did her asshole cousin. Yet there they stood, allied in their judgment of him and what he’d done.
Impotent fury crashed over him, and his self-control disappeared in the churn.
“So you do.” As he looked into those clear, calm eyes, his lip curled in disdain. “Shall I call you Mistress Lauren, do you think? Or will Nanny Clegg do?”
THAT COULD HAVE gone better, Lauren thought, keeping her arms loose by her sides, her hands unclenched, her posture open.
She’d assumed Ron would speak to his star privately first and allow the actor’s anger to dissipate before she met him, but no. Such consideration and discretion were beyond her cousin.
In retrospect, then, she should have skipped what she’d intended to be a simple acknowledgment of his fame and just claimed it was lovely to meet him. Which it wasn’t, but he was hardly the first furious person she’d ever encountered, and she usually knew how to handle this sort of situation more skillfully.
After over a decade as an emergency services clinician, she’d better know.
“Please call me Lauren.” In hopes of defusing the situation, she made certain her tone was calm and pleasant. “What would you prefer I call you? Mr. Woodroe? Alexander?”
Compared to evaluating incoming ER patients, ones who arrived amid mental health crises and often departed without necessary resources in place to help them survive, this job—this fraught moment—should be a cakewalk. It was both temporary and unlikely to result in trays flung at her head while security guards came rushing into the fray.
It was even less likely to leave her brokenhearted and dangerously close to the end of her mental and physical rope.
“Alex, I suppose.” He cast a critical eye over her. “Is this your first day on set? Because I would have remembered seeing you before.”
That was likely a veiled insult, one she didn’t need to acknowledge. “I arrived over the weekend, so this is my third day on set. We must have been in different areas of filming before now, because I don’t remember seeing you either.”
And she would have, even hazy with jet lag on her first full day in Spain.
He was memorable. In a much better way than she was.
So was the entire, enormous set. As her exhaustion had eased and she was able to grapple with her surroundings more coherently, the network’s brazen, high-stakes gamble on Ron and R.J. had left her increasingly agog. The head of an actual network had given men like them control over thousands of people and millions of dollars? Really?
Carry yourself with the confidence of a mediocre white man. Whenever she heard that phrase, she always, always thought of Ron.
No wonder the show went off the rails as soon as E. Wade’s existing books had all been adapted. Once the showrunners had to forge ahead using their own ideas, everyone involved was screwed. Inevitably.
Still, the scope of the enterprise and the expertise of the actors and crew impressed the hell out of her. She wasn’t a fan of the show or her cousin, but she’d readily admit that.
Alex drummed his fingers against his tunic-covered thigh, his quiver of arrows at his feet. “So tell me, Lauren, what would you do if—”
“I have to go,” Ron interrupted. “I’ll leave you two to get acquainted. Lauren, you’ll stay in his trailer while he’s working, and I reserved you the room connected to his at the hotel. Anywhere else he goes, you’re with him, and you eat all meals together. Understood?”
As this was the fourth time she’d heard Ron’s plan, she didn’t especially need the peremptory reminder. He’d been a spoiled brat of a boy, convinced of his own genius and prone to teasing the most vulnerable children—including her—until they cried, and he evidently hadn’t changed much.
“Yes,” she said. “I understand.”
Telling her parents about Cousin Ron’s cruelty had only upset them and caused her mother to argue with Aunt Kathleen on the phone. Eventually, she’d spared everyone the distress and begun pretending she enjoyed her cousin’s company, and now she was paying the price for her dishonesty.