He stormed out before Professor Dunderson could even do his usualcalm downhands andnow, nowtypes of words. She was left staring at the empty space he’d left, thinking of him saying he would make it not be. As if something else seethed underneath, just waiting for him to set it free.
Ten
She kind of thought they had gotten away with it at first. She exited the stage in a businesslike fashion, after straightening his jacket in a way that seemed like something an assistant would do. And then Joan mentioned that she was that very thing, and she knew everybody there would probably look this up.
They’d find out who she was.
Discover what she did for a living.
It was all very neat and tidy and explainable.
Yet somehow she still had this sinking feeling in her stomach. It was the reason she almost forced Louisa to go out onto the stage, even though Miller saw and surreptitiously shook his head in the fiercest way she could imagine. Like he had already had enough of these shenanigans, and would not stand for any more of them.
And even though she knew how much they needed the shenanigans, she hadn’t insisted. Shecouldn’tinsist on anything right at that moment. Because sure, Lesley with aYdid air quotes aroundgirlfriendas she said goodbye to Louisa, and yes, Louisa laughed when Daisy toldher she’d be needed again, and true, a lot of people were looking at them in this very amused way now.
But Miller was already probably fuming over everything she had hurled at him. And she had already made herself very vulnerable by hurling it—after all, she had accidentally revealed how much he could hurt her, if he wanted to. So it didn’t seem like a good idea to push her luck. To back him into a corner. To force him to think about what had probably just happened, and what it might mean.
And doubly so once they were walking back to the car together, side by side.
Because the thing was, she expected him to absolutely roast her.
But it was worse than that: he didn’t say so much as a word.
Not a single snide comment about what a hash she had made of everything. Not one cruel aside about how soppy she was over things he had once said. He didn’t even ask her a slightly derisive question about it, likeYou really worry so much about something I think?He just walked beside her in silence, like after the singing and the meal at Plain and Hearty, only worse. More intense somehow, in a way she couldn’t quite identify. All she knew for sure was that it seemed to get bigger and bigger and hotter and hotter until she simply had to steal a surreptitious glance at him.
Only to find him doing the same fucking thing.
He waslookingat her. He tried to dart his gaze back away before she could see it, but she saw it all the same.In fact it was still lodged in her brain, after they went back to staring ahead at the doors out of the place. The way he had almost beenpeeringat her, like someone trying to look through foggy glass for a person they had lost in a crowd.
Eyes almost wide.
Eyebrows a little higher than usual.
He is watching you warily, just in case you want to spring another emotion on him when he least expects it, her mind suggested. And that seemed to fit so well it made her cringe. It made her panic, and want to take it all back, or say sorry, or something, justanythingthat would make it stop.
So how was she supposed to raise all the rest of it with him?Oh hey, so I know I just dealt you maximum emotional damage, but also I think we may have to pretendI’mthe love of your life?That just sounded completely deranged.
Even though it was increasingly looking like this was the case.
Her phone was now constantly vibrating against her butt.
It was like having a really depressing sex toy in her back pocket.
And of course she knew the reasons for it. She could almost see Beck’s texts without even looking:Are you super certain that you posing as his paramour is the best idea, I thought the super secret plan was to hire someone?Or Alfie’s:Blink twice if this animal has blackmailed you into this.Or Hazel’s:Look when I said a fake relationship is a fun way to solve problems I meant for people who aren’t mortalenemies.Or Kelsey’s:Jesus Christ boss I know you wanted the company to grow but this is going to be ridiculous.
And it only got worse when she did steal a look at what was going on, and found her inbox overflowing with something else entirely. One of the emails was from CNN. Another three news stations had somehow found her phone number and texted her.Because I’m their contact anyway for anything to do with Caleb Miller, she internally groaned.
But there was nothing she could do about it now.
She just had to find a way out of it. Leak something to some garbage outlet that suggested she wasn’t his beloved at all, maybe. Or manipulate the details so they seemed like something else entirely. Like when she’d been working for an A-list rock star, and had somehow managed to turn him pooping himself in a McDonald’s into him having a vendetta against the place for burning his nan with an overheated apple pie.
He’d gone from brown pants to national hero overnight.
And that wasn’t even her most impressive achievement. No—her most impressive was definitely making sure that everyone who tried to crush Mabel Willicker had fallen flat on their faces. All those little misogynists and fatphobes—oh, she’d worked hard to make sure they got shut down.
She could work hard to shut this down, too.
Quietly, so maybe Miller didn’t even ever have to know about it.
