“Champagne,” April said, because it felt like the kind of thing someone wearing emerald silk and an heirloom necklace would say.
The bartender slid a flute toward her with efficiency earned from years of serving people who tipped in hundreds.
Caleb’s smile shifted, still warm but now she could see the calculation under it, he leaned in, voice dropping just enough to feel like a secret “Apparently your ex put on quite a show.”
“Define ‘show.”
“I got Chad an audition. At the styling appointment. Told him I was scouting talent.”
“You—what?”
He shrugged, all easy charm. "Real audition. Real casting director." Caleb's grin went sharp. "Figured I'd see what happened when he didn't have his usual audience. Turns out? He bombed. Hard.”
“Let’s just say I’ve been getting texts. People are… entertained.”
April took a sip of champagne and let the bubbles distract her from the urge to ask for details. She didn't need to know. She didn't want to know. Chad's disasters were his own now, and she was done being collateral damage.
“Well,” she said, setting the glass down carefully. “At least someone’s having fun.”
Caleb’s expression softened, just a fraction. “For what it’s worth,” he said, “you look like you’re doing just fine without him.”
Something warm and dangerous flickered in April's chest. Not attraction—well, not just attraction. The kind that came from being seen as a person instead of a punchline.
“Thanks,” she said, and meant it.
He pulled out his phone. “Someone sent me the footage. Thought you might want to see it.” He glanced around theballroom, at the crowd, the noise, the quartet still playing its elegant threat of a soundtrack. “But it’s way too loud to watch it here.”
Caleb gestured toward the edge of the ballroom. "Come on, let's find somewhere quieter. You look like you could use a laugh."
April hesitated, then shrugged internally. If the universe was serving humiliation on a silver platter, she might as well watch.
THIRTEEN
Not Heartland Channel Appropriate
April
The hallway was quieter. Not silent—more like a silent night, where it's not actually quiet but it's pretending to be while you can feel all the little mice scuttling in the background making Christmas miracles happen, except the miracles were probably just rich people networking and the mice were interns fetching champagne.
Caleb’s hand stayed at her back as he steered her to the door and pushed it open like he owned it.
This was the part in the movie where the charming stranger leads the overwhelmed girl somewhere private and she realizes she’s been falling for him all along, except she’d known Caleb for four hours and was still deciding if this was a meet-cute or a heist.
The library was exactly what she should've expected: floor-to-ceiling shelves, leather-bound everything, a chandelier both smaller and more obscene than the one in the ballroom. The kind of room that whispered old money so loudly it might as well have been screaming.
The door clicked shut behind them.
The sound from the ballroom dropped to almost nothing.
Caleb pulled out his phone, held it up—
—and then set it down on the nearest table.
The screen stayed black. No footage. No audition. A prop he was done pretending to need.
This was the scene where the love interest reveals he orchestrated the whole thing just to get her alone, except in Heartland movies the orchestration usually involved Christmas lights and a town square, not lies about audition footage and a mouth that, based on the way he was looking at her right now, could violate broadcast standards.
"This was a setup!?" April said.
