Page 54 of Lucky Star

Just then, I heard the clink of metal giving way, and my door being opened. I shrugged out of Cameron’s embrace before someone caught me wrapped in his arms.

“What the hell?” he sputtered as I jumped back.

Broderick stood in the doorway, shrewdly assessing the scene before him—me guilty, Cameron confused—and then leaned out into the hallway to make sure no one else was in the vicinity. Finding the coast clear, he quickly closed the door behind him. “You’re going to have to be more careful,” he scolded, a censorious note in his voice as he chastised us like children. “Folks are finally starting to buy Cameron and Jillian as a real couple.”

I looked down at my feet lest my boss see the mutinous look cross my face. I wondered how much more of this I could endure without going ballistic and toppling the whole precarious scheme to the ground.

“Everyone here knows Sarah and I were friends before all this. It’s not unheard of for friends to hug one another. And besides, the door was closed.” Cameron wrapped his arm around my shoulder and pulled me into his side. “I said I’d go along with this farce, and I will. But if I want to hug my fucking fiancé in private then I damn well will.”

My head shot up fast enough to give me whiplash. This was the first time he’d countermanded Broderick about the deception we were all engaged in. And he’d never, to my knowledge, defended our relationship. It was an admittedly small show of defiance, and if I had been in a less forgiving frame of mind, it might have been a case of too-little-too-late, but it was something for me to cling to during those nights he was out with a woman who wasn’t me.

“You’ll get your pictures” he continued. “And I’ll drop sly innuendoes about Jillian in interviews. I’ll continue to push your lies, but around friends, I’m not hiding my relationship anymore. It’s exhausting, not to mention it’s not fair to Sarah.”

Hearing him defend me repaired some of the hurt I’d been feeling. I took a long, cleansing breath, and willed away my waterworks. I could fall apart at home, but I would not cry at work.

“And I assume we’re among friends here?” he finished, a threat implied in his tone.

“Of course,” Broderick mumbled, rubbing his chin between his thumb and forefinger. “But I think it’d be good for you two to have some quiet time away from all this for a while.”

“That’s what we were discussing when we were interrupted,” Cameron responded, his body coiled for a fight.

I rubbed his back in calming circles. As pissed off as he might be at our boss, it wouldn’t do us any good for his temper to get the best of him now. That ship had long since sailed. “We were going to head up to Mendocino for a few days and lay low at a bed and breakfast,” I offered up before Cameron said something he might regret.

“Right.” Broderick walked over to my desk, plopped down in my chair, and spun around in fast circles. “Except, I’m thinking a bit further north. We need to be up in Vancouver in a handful of weeks anyhow, and we’re done with Cameron for now.” He stopped spinning and scanned my desk for a piece of paper. Finding it, he grabbed a pen and scratched out some words before sending the chair spinning again. “Rory still has a bunch of scouting to get through, and not enough time to see each location before we begin principle shooting. You should go instead. Both of you.”

I looked up at Cameron, raising my brow in silent question. While this trip would be Cameron’s first time in British Columbia, I’d been to Vancouver a couple of times before with Broderick and was happy to go back early. When Cameron shrugged, leaving the decision up to me, I turned to our boss. For once, the smile on my face wasn’t a forced one. “We’re game,” I said. “But I don’t want to spend all of my time running around the city applying for permits like you’ve had me doing here. I want two weeks off.” I’d spent probably three uninterrupted hours with Cameron during the past month, and I was willing to dig in my heels on this.

“Careful Sarah,” Broderick warned as he pulled his phone out of his pocket and swiped his fingers across the screen several times. “Eight days,” he offered, raising his eyes to meet my expectant stare.

“Ten,” I countered.

“Deal.” He stood and walked to the door. Before leaving though, his eyes flicked to Cameron, who stood with his feet braced shoulder-width apart, his arms locked tight across his chest. “You should leave tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll be able to keep a lid on him much longer.”

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