Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 95609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 95609 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 478(@200wpm)___ 382(@250wpm)___ 319(@300wpm)
“There is so much to fix. I could take this whole place back to its Gilded Age…” She stops and frowns. “What do the tunnels have… He’s at the hotel. That’s the same hotel we found him at. He came over here after the filming was done? How did he get from the basement?” She snaps her fingers. “Servant stairs. Where’s the hidden door? No, wait. Let me see if I can find it myself.”
I’m glad she’s having fun. She’s up on her feet, running her hands over the walls.
“He wanted to tell me a couple of things and get our stories straight since it’s not great that we met before the show. Technically that’s against the rules, but the producers decided since we hadn’t planned the meeting, it’s okay to move forward. Lucky me.”
“It’s here.” She knocks on the wall and nods. “Hollow. Where’s the mechanism? Ah, there it is.” She pushes lightly, and the door swings open. Harper turns my way, her eyes wide. “Anika, are you telling me an actual king showed up in your room last night via secret passageway and he kissed you? Like how was this not the lead story? You’re crazy about this guy. Did he turn out to be a douchebag? Ivy thinks he’s got big douche vibes, but Heath thinks he’s cool. Lydia is already looking into him. We had a meeting and everything.”
The last thing Luca needed was to have Lydia get interested in him. “I don’t think Luca’s going to be filling out any of her shockingly invasive forms.”
Lydia says she’s found a couple of matches she would like to explore with me, but I’m unsure. What if there isn’t a man out there for me? Isn’t that the real fear? That there’s no one out there. No soul mate. No magical one. Just a life spent wishing for someone to share time with, to build something with.
Harper studies the doorframe. “I wouldn’t count her out. Lydia can be persuasive. And Ivy says she’s working on a way to get on set. She’s real pissed I found a way but wouldn’t smuggle in a laptop so she could Facetime us. Where the hell would I shove a laptop? Also, it’s a good way to get my ass fired, and it looks like you’re here for a while.”
“Don’t you have a job?” It’s not a question I need the answer to. Harper inherited her father’s construction company when he passed. She’s been working crazy hours for years.
“I already stopped by. We have three jobs going here in Manhattan, and all three are running perfectly,” she assures me. “I check in with my foreperson every day. Don’t worry about that. So Luca sneaks all the way over here to kiss you?”
“No, he snuck over to talk to me.”
“How did he know you would be in this room?” Harper can be an extremely logical person. I know what she’s doing. She’s looking at the situation from every angle. “Also, how did you manage to snag a room of your own? From what I can tell, they’re not using any of the rooms on the third or fourth floor. They’ve got you all crammed in on two. It looks like this one is set up for three of you.”
“Forcing us to live together makes for better drama. I’m surprised they haven’t moved someone in here. Luca figured out where they would put me and then eliminated my would-be roommates at the first elimi…” If I’m staying, I need to get on board with production protocols. “…king’s choice ceremony.”
Harper’s nose wrinkles. “That’s terrible. But so interesting. He knew about the tunnels, knew he could get here, and he made sure you were alone.”
“Like I said, it doesn’t look good if everyone thinks the show is rigged. I haven’t told anyone but Joe and Christy that we know each other. That’s the director and his assistant. The producers know, but they said it’s fine and I’m supposed to keep my mouth shut about it.” I’m supposed to do that about a lot of things, but it occurs to me that Harper might be helpful. Since I’ve been displaced from the PA pool, I can’t trust that Joe’s going to treat me the same way. So far he’s been very much a gentleman around me. Even today, he didn’t berate me for my clothes, nor did he give me the whole “you could be so pretty if you would only show some skin and smile more” vibe. But that might be different with someone he would consider far below him on the power ranking. Like someone in construction. Harper’s a gorgeous woman and my opposite when it comes to looks. I’m short and curvy. She’s tall and athletic. I’m blonde. She’s got raven dark hair. She might be his type. “So you’re going to hang out for a while?”