Baird winked and I grinned, relieved he wasn’t holding the past week against me.
My colleague cleared her throat in annoyance, and I had to unlock my eyes from Baird’s dreamy dark ones. Becky’s expression was all pinched and uptight. “This way. Both of you.”
We fell into step behind her, and I reached out to slow Baird down. As soon as we were far enough behind her, I whispered, “I’m sorry I’ve been MIA. When it … when it comes to my mum, I tend to get stuck in my head about it. But I’ve been a shit … friend. Especially after you were so good to me.”
Baird shrugged. “Hey, no worries, babe. I get it. You dowhat you gotta do.” He gestured with his head for us to continue after Becky.
I frowned because there was something off about his blasé response. Something almost dismissive—and Baird was never dismissive with me.
Then again, I supposed I deserved it. I’d been dismissive with him.
Feeling even more out of sorts, I forced myself to smile as we strode into the marketing meeting room to find Hilary and two other assistants.
“You both look great.” Hilary straightened from tapping at her tablet screen. “We want you to know how delighted Pennington’s is with how successful the campaign has been so far. We dropped the link for the preorder for the dress you were wearing at the nightclub, Maia, and we’re sold out before it even hits the store.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Wow.”
“Exactly. Wow.”
“It helps you made the dress look like a million dollars.” The male marketing assistant, Kal, I think his name was, gave me a shy, boyish smile.
“True.” Hilary studied us. “Now … are you sure you won’t engage with some of these chat show requests? Not even a podcast?”
I shook my head.
Baird gave an impatient jerk of his chin. “Where’s the production team? I’ve got shit to do.”
Surprised by his agitated tone, I searched his profile, trying to read him. Was he still mad at me?
“The team are filming footage of the outside and inside of the store. While they do that, we wanted to run over some things.” Becky tapped on a tablet and then turned the screen to us. There was an image of a stunningivy-covered castle. “This is Almondbrae Castle just outside of Kirkliston. It’s where you two are getting married.”
Confused, I tentatively took the tablet to scroll through the photos. The venue was absolutely stunning but way more over the top than I’d ever pictured for my wedding. “I thought we were supposed to film our hunt for a venue.”
“You will.” Becky shrugged. “But you don’tactuallyget to choose. Almondbrae is the only luxury wedding venue that has an opening in August. They had a cancellation, so we got a discount. Your wedding date is August 27, by the way.” There was a spiteful glint in her eyes, like she was enjoying the fact that I didn’t have a say in my wedding date or venue.
Honestly, what the hell had I done to piss her off so much?
I looked down at the tablet, my throat tight, because suddenly this was all so very real. I was going to marry a man who didn’t love me, all for the sake of my career because my colleague was quite possibly a sociopath and had chosen me as her target for destruction.
If someone else had told me this was happening to them, I wouldn’t believe it.
“All good.” Baird shrugged. “Now can we get on with it?”
“We also want to discuss adding a few more filming dates to the schedule.” Hilary perched her elegant bum on the desk and crossed her arms over her chest. “Our team and the film production team feel like with the level of interest in you two, we should throw in some fun stuff to keep people engaged. Not just blatant promotion of our products.”
“Like?” I asked warily.
“Like footage of you living your lives together. Perhaps we could film you on dates.”
“But interesting ones,” Becky threw in unnecessarily.
“Bungee jumping.” Baird suddenly looked animated. “Why don’t we film us going bungee jumping together? I’ve always wanted to do it, and you said you wanted to have a bit of adventure.”
I gaped at him. What the hell? “Bungee jumping?”
“Or skydiving.” He waggled his eyebrows at me a wee bit maniacally.
What the … okay, something was going on with him.
