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‘It means we’re pivoting,’ Marcus said rapidly. ‘We’re doing a joint panel. Both of you on set together in Studio D. Two minutes.’
Robin blinked. ‘What? Why can’t we just both go in one after the other?’
‘That studio is booked solid after Sienna’s time slot, and we don’t have a spare,’ Marcus said rapidly.
‘You don’t have a spare?’ Sienna asked, appalled.
‘Studio D is the spare. So it’s either a joint panel right now, or one of you doesn’t get interviewed at all.’
‘Absolutely not,’ Sienna said instantly. ‘My contract explicitly guarantees a solo interview. We agreed on completely separate segments. I’m walking out. I’m leaving right now.’
‘Sienna, please—’
‘No, Marcus! You promised—’
‘Hey,’ Robin interrupted, stepping between Marcus and Sienna. She forced her voice to sound breezy, throwing up her hands like it was the most absurd thing in the world to get worked up over. ‘Sienna, come on. It’s no big deal.’
Sienna turned to her, dark eyes wide with utter shock. ‘No big deal?’
‘Yeah,’ Robin lied smoothly. ‘Why not record together? It’s just a video podcast. We answer a few questions about Gemma’s chamber of horrors, clear our names, and leave. What’s the worst that could happen?’
Sienna searched Robin’s face. For a long, tense moment, the room held its breath.
Finally, Sienna let out a ragged exhale, her shoulders dropping an inch. ‘Fine,’ she whispered, her voice tight. ‘Let’s get it over with.’
Fifty-Four
Sienna sat under the dim lights of Studio D, looking at her knees like they could save her from her fate. But they just sat there, being knees.
The studio clock on the wall flipped to 7:00 pm, and the red ON AIR light flicked on.
At the head of the low table, Carrie Caden, the presenter, smiled into her desk mic.
‘Welcome back to Off the Air, where we unpack the stories, disasters, and public humiliations behind media’s biggest scandals.’ Carrie began, her voice low and dry. ‘Today we’ve got Sienna Vance, former host of Dating by Design—’
‘Hello,’ Sienna said, precisely two inches from her microphone.
‘—and Robin Croft, former host of Meet-Cute.’
‘Hiya,’ Robin piped up.
‘Now,’ Carrie continued, peering over the top of her reading glasses with acerbic warmth. ‘We’re talking about the infamous Head vs Heart podcast, produced by Violet Audio. Which, as anyone with a social media account probably knows, didn’t actually reach its conclusion six months ago. It ended rather prematurely during its infamous polygraph episode.’ Carrie paused for effect. ‘Half the internet thought it was a staged PR stunt, and the other half spent months debating on Reddit whether subjecting your employees to lie detector tests is actually a breach of human rights. So, before we break down how you two ended up locked in a room together, strapped into the polygraph... why did you two decide to do a series of recorded dates in the first place? Because the official press release said it was a “groundbreaking social experiment in modern intimacy.”
Robin snorted loudly. Sienna was glad to hear any kind of a laugh from her. She’d looked like she was going to jump out the window when Robin had first entered the greenroom.
‘It wasn’t a decision we made,’ Sienna said flatly.
‘It really wasn’t,’ Robin agreed, leaning forward. ‘It was…’ She groped for the right words.
‘It was corporate blackmail,’ Sienna cut in smoothly.
‘From the mind of Gemma Bates,’ Robin echoed with a grim nod. ‘What happened was, we had a bit of a disagreement on a panel at Audio Fest—’
‘You shouted at me in front of hundreds of people,’ Sienna noted, staring straight ahead.
‘You told a girl from Bristol she’d die alone in Madrid!’ Robin clarified, irritated.
‘I told her not to move in with a woman she’d known for three weeks!’ Sienna declared. Despite the prickle of nervous heat under her collar, she was oddly happy. After six excruciating months, dropping back into this effortless friction felt weirdly comforting. The bickering was instinctual.
