Page 133 of A Lucky Shot

Cass didn’t have a malicious bone in her body.

But there was one person who had something to gain from this being in the news.

Melanie’s fingers steepled under her chin, eyes narrowed and elbows resting on her desk. It couldn’t have been comfortable with the sharp ends of her manicured nails cutting into her skin. But it looked good.

At the end of the day, that’s what it always was about. What looked good.

All he could do was hope he looked as half as composed as his boss. Even if it felt like his guts were going to invert themselves onto the imported Persian rug under his feet.

Josh leaned forward in his chair, squaring his shoulders. “We agreed. No PR stunts.”

“It wasn’t a stunt. It was a strategy.”

“A strategy that no one agreed to.”

His stomach twisted in knots. His entire life, he’d avoided confrontations like this. The only way he’d lasted in law as long as he had was by snorting courage and drinking numbness.

And here he was, sober as a—well, sober as a judge—telling the woman who held his career in her hands that he wouldn’t accept it.

An exasperated expression crossed her face. “Scandal works. You think I wanted to show my tits on live streaming?”

“But you made that choice for yourself.Now your choices are affecting our film,” he said, throwing her words back at her.

“It might be our film, but it’s my money.”

“And it’s my team.” Josh tossed the printouts of photos onto her desk. Dawson and Cass. Him and Brynne. “No one agreed to this.”

Melanie gave a contemptuous shake of her head. “No one agrees to this. Once you reach a certain level of fame, you’re under a microscope. I love my husband, but you don’t think every headline that speculates when he’s trading me in for Mrs. Westwood Number Six doesn’t hurt? And you don’t think Brynne will be roasted every time she leaves the house with a zit? Do you think Dawson will get a choice if he’s on some random ‘Southern Gentlemen I Want to Bang’ top ten list?” A rough scoff escaped her throat. “It’s never ending, and if I’ve learned anything in this industry, it’s that you have to grow a thick skin if you want to get anywhere.”

“You’re right. The outside world is a piece of shit. We can’t control what happens outside these walls. But we can do everything we can to give people a safe space within them.” He willed his voice to remain level. “I promised Brynne a closed set. She was in tears when the photos of us showed up online. It took me hours to convince her to come out of her trailer. You made her feel unsafe, and you made me break my word.”

Cass had taught him that. To take care of his team. Even if that meant putting himself between his team and the threat. Fuck, like Dawson had, stepping between him and the grips. To stand up for the people who didn’t have the power.

For the first time, Melanie looked unsure. “She’ll get over it.”

“Maybe. And what about Dawson? He was in the room when agreed to let the story die. Now he knows you’ll go back on your promise the minute it’s convenient. And Cass—” he said, and his voice cracked. Fuck. So much for being stone cold and in control. He cleared his throat. “We didn’t even ask what she wanted.”

If this worked, he’d spend the rest of his life making it up to her.

“There’s a difference between fighting for an advantage and using people to reach it.” Josh drew a breath, heart hammering. “And I won’t work with someone who doesn’t understand that.”

One manicured finger tapped against her lips, eyes narrowing. After a long minute, Melanie spun her chair to face the picture window, the mountains obscured by the low-lying clouds. “Shit.”

Josh gripped his knees. Was that a now-I-have-to-fire-you “shit” or an I-hate-being-wrong “shit”?

Say something more eloquent than um. “What’s it going to be, Westy?”

Where the fuck is this coming from? Guess the fear of confrontation Band-Aid was ripped all the way off.

Melanie jerked her head around. The hard set of her eyes hadn’t softened, but a wry smile fought to take over her cool expression. “I suppose that’s better than what I’ve been called by other people.”

“Other people are dicks. That’s not how I talk to the people I work with.”

Anymore.

She drummed her nails on the desk. “You and I are going to disagree on a lot of things. A lot of things,” she emphasized. “I will make decisions you won’t like. But I promise that you, and anyone involved, will know about it. And I won’t ask anyone to do anything I wouldn’t do.”

A jet of air huffed out of his nose.

---