"If that's what Will wants,” Dylan says with a shrug. “It may not be the savviest business choice, but it’ll be up to him."
My heart pounds in my chest and I have to grip the armrest of my chair to stop myself from saying yes and asking where to sign.
“What’s the catch?” Arabella asks, narrowing her eyes.
“Why does there have to be a catch?” Dylan asks innocently.
Arabella meets her question with a raised eyebrow.
“Okay, okay,” Dylan says. “I can see why you wouldn’t find it exactlyeasyto trust me, which is why I’ve had the contract written up for you and I want you to take it to your own legal team.”
She stands up and walks over to her desk, returning with a manila folder. “It’s all outlined here. We’ll donate a million dollars to a charity of your choosing. We’ll also cover the costs of the wedding, including receptions, up to ten million. I also want to film a primetime special to air on the Sunday before the wedding. It’ll include an at-home look at life in the palace, and a growing up in Paradise Bay thing. That’ll really give people a sense of who each of you are, which will whip them up into a frenzy for the big event. We’ll be showing reruns ofPrincess in the Wildthe entire week as well so the audience gets a chance to watch you fall in love all over again. And I’d never cross you again, not when Will is so key to the network. I need him towantto come back to ANN under his own terms, and he certainly will never do that if I mess this up.”
Is it me, or is Dylan making a lot of sense?I open the folder and Arabella leans in so we can both read it.
“Tell you what,” Dylan says. “I'm all out of energy drinks, so why don't I pop down to the cafeteria and grab myself one and give you two a moment to look this over and talk."
We sit silently waiting until the door closes. The second it does, Arabella turns to me. "Okay, we have to take this deal, Will. Can you imagine? You could be free of herpermanently, never having to go back again, and we gain more than two years of our life back."
I shake my head, terrified that this is going to all go sour very soon. “I don’t know. If there's anything we've learned from Dylan, it's that she cannot be trusted."
"The legal team can tie up any loose ends. We’ll have a clause put in that ifanythinghappens that is to our dissatisfaction, we can rip up the entire contract,” Arabella says, her eyes wild with excitement. "This is it, Will. This is what we've been waiting for. We can finally buy a house or…or two houses. Maybe one here and one on Santa Valentina Island. We can start our life together. We can actually wake up in the same bed every morning and fall asleep in each other’s arms each night. Oh! And have breakfast and suppers together, and well…all the other meals on weekends. We can binge watch Bridgerton and do all sorts of things thatnormalcouples do. We won't have to go months at a time settling for our sad little phone calls. And what if we film the pre-wedding special at the resort? Your family will get a ton of free publicity! They’ll be thrilled."
“But, are you sureyour familyis going to be okay with this? I mean, they probably have some sort of long-standing agreement with another network or something."
Shaking her head, Arabella says, "At the end of the day, my family just wants me to be happy. They know how difficult the last six months have been for us, and they’ll be glad to not have to foot the bill for the whole thing. It’ll be super helpful as far as taxpayer perception goes. As far as I'm concerned, this is a no-lose situation." Arabella grins, looking more excited than I've seen her in a long time.
“Okay," I say, relief filling my veins. "When she comes back, we give her a maybe, based on your family’s legal team’s advice."
As if on cue, Dylan walks back into the room. Instead of sitting down, she walks over to her minibar, opens the door, and starts emptying her suit jacket pockets, in which she has somehow managed to cram four cans of Red Bull. When she finishes loading them into the fridge, she shuts the door, and turns to us with an expectant look. "Well? Are you ready to make the best deal of your lives?"
“Maybe,” Arabella says, lifting her chin at Dylan. “We’re willing to take it to our lawyers.”
Dylan claps her hands together. "Yes! This is going to be the beginning of anepicpartnership. I am going to elevate you to the status of the most popular royal couple on the planet and you are going to elevate ANN to the most-watched nature channel in all of Europe, the UK, and North America, excluding Michigan — they're pretty big on OLN over there." She walks around behind us and puts one hand on each of our shoulders.
"Well, we certainly have no desire to be the most popular royal couple," I say. "But the rest of what you've offered sounds mildly interesting." I do my best to sound slightly disinterested.
Dylan ignores my comment and yells, "Here we are! The dream team. Together, we are going to do epic shit." Clapping her hands so loud that Arabella and I both wince, she says, "Okay, I have much to do. If we’re going to pull off the wedding of the century, I'm going to take your maybe as a yes and move ahead with the plans until I hear otherwise, so I need to get straight to work."
With that, she spins on her heel and walks toward her desk, effectively dismissing us.
A few minutes later, Arabella and I are settled into the back of her limo, enveloped in a sense of excitement. "Could this really be legit?" I ask.
“I think so,” Arabella says.
“Iwantto get really excited about this, only I’m a little concerned this could crash and burn."
"Get excited, Will," Arabella says, leaning her head back against the seat and grinning at me. "It's in her best interest to make sure everything goes smoothly because this time,you and Iwill have the upper hand. Trust me, I’m going to see to it that nothing can possibly go wrong."
Chapter 7
You Can’t Make an Omelette Without Cracking Some Eggs…
Arabella
Well,that was easy. It took me all of about ten minutes to convince my family and the advisors that having ANN produce the wedding was a sound idea. Literally as soon as the phrase ‘fully paid for’ came out of my mouth, Phillip Crawford was on the phone with legal. I’m sure he was dreading the usual questions about taxpayers having to foot the bill on yet another royal event (which they don’t, but they think they do), so being able to announce that a private entity is accepting responsibility for this one? Huge win for him. He’s going to be the smuggest royal advisor ever at that press conference.
Four days later, we have a contract, complete with us having ultimate control over major production decisions. The only thing left to do is set the date, fill it in on the contract, and sign.
