Page 98 of The CEO I Hate

I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Good?” I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Good as in…it’s finished? You’re putting your stamp of approval on it?”

“I am,” he said. He plucked away at his keyboard. “It is now in Paula’s inbox.”

“Holy shit,” Jerome said, stunned. He pressed his hand to his forehead. “Does this mean we’re officially done?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but the words caught in the back of my throat. Was this really over? Had Lyle—the type-A, overly-picky control freak—actually said okay? There was no way he didn’t have one hundred more nitpicky notes for us to address, but he’d said it wasgood, and that was basically the equivalent of handing us an Emmy as far as Lyle was concerned.

“Oh,” Kait said, before releasing something between a laugh and a sob. She stood up and threw herself at me. I caught her, unexpected laughter bubbling up from my chest as we hugged. “We did it!”

Suddenly, the room erupted into celebration. Jerome whooped and high-fived Paula.

“Fuck yeah!” Tanya cried, spinning around on her chair.

Even Lyle cracked a smile.

Ash jolted awake at the noise, scrambling out from under the table with a startled bark before blinking at us like we were the unprofessional ones.

“Relax,” Jerome said, laughing. “We’re not on fire.”

Ash huffed, clearly unconvinced, then wandered over to Kait and me, tail wagging cautiously like he was trying to figure out what all the fuss was about.

Jerome came toward me as Kait released me. “Hell yeah, girl,” he said. “We kicked fiery ass!”

“We sure did!” I said as he squeezed the air out of me. Everything was a blur of hugs and laughter and handshakes, and then…slowly…an edge of sadness infiltrated our good mood. None of us had actually expected Lyle to approve the last script today, but now that he had, it finally dawned on us that our work was done, and it was time for our crew to break up.

Until there was official news that VeriTV was pursuing a third season, which wouldn’t happen until we had the initial season two viewer numbers, this was the end of the line for us. Tanya, Kait, and I got caught up in a sort of three-way hug, and I had to blink back tears. I hadn’t expected to walk away from this experience with such great new writer friends.

“So,” Jerome said. “I say we celebrate this weekend. Like big time, black out, throw all our cares away.”

“You know what?” I said. Because seriously, why not? Liam and I were over. Work was over. What did I have to lose? “I’m in.”

Jerome cheered. “I know a great little space.”

Tanya wrinkled her nose. “Not Lavish again,” she complained. “Anywhere but there.”

“What happened at Lavish?” I asked, immediately intrigued.

“It’s where she and her ex broke up,” Jerome stage whispered.

“Ah,” I said, feeling that hit a little harder today. “Fair enough. My bestie co-owns the Scarlet Parlor,” I offered. “She’d be happy to host. Might even be able to finagle some free drinks out of her.”

“Shut up,” Jerome said. “Why am I just finding out about this now? I love their burlesque shows!”

“I’ll run it by her tonight and keep you posted,” I said.

I left the three of them to chat that over while I made my way to where Paula and Lyle were talking. When I drew closer, Paula excused herself. Working with Lyle had gone better than I’d anticipated, so I supposed the least I could do was shake his hand.

In a weird turn of events, I’d ended up learning a lot from him about how to set up multi-season plots and arcs and create suspended drama.But he’d also taught me a lot about hownotto run a writers’ room. All in all, some very good lessons.

“Guess this is it,” I said. The moment was bittersweet—saying goodbye to VeriTV but alsowantingto say goodbye, for personal reasons.

“Guess so,” he said. “I enjoyed working with you, Mia.” Lyle thrust his hand out in my direction. I shook it.

“Really?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “We’re done now. You don’t have to pretend to be nice.”

“When have you known me toeverpretend to be nice? I’ve never hidden the fact that you’re a major pain in my ass,” he agreed. “But you did some excellent work. I can’t deny that. I’ll keep your name in mind if anyone asks me to recommend a writer,” he said as he released my hand.

I let his words settle over me. From anyone else, I might have taken them as just insincere—the kind of “we’ll be in touch” or “let’s do lunch sometime” platitude people said when they wanted to be politely dismissive. But as Lyle had pointed out, hewasn’tpolite. And difficult as he could be, Lyle was an industry veteran with lots of connections. A recommendation from him genuinely could open doors for me—and he wouldn’t have offered unless he meant it.

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