Juliette coldly produces two room key cards from her clipboard.
Blaze scoops them up. Stares. Counts. Stares again.
A thought is being born behind his eyes. I can see it crowning.
“Producers crash together.” He pockets one key and twirls the other between two fingers like a miniature baton. “I’ll take the other room. Gotta keep the ladies’ landing pad clear, bros.”
I’m sorry. What?
He points, as if pairing off lab partners. “That’s cool, yeah?”
All I hear is my boss’s voice.Blaze is our eyes and ears.
My stomach drops straight through the floor. Out of the corner of my eye, Cole’s jaw tightens—barely. I watch him run the same math, arriving at the same destination, half a second behind me.
“Sure,” we say at the same time.
Blaze tosses the key card and it skitters across the table, landing like a dare. I realize three things simultaneously:
One: I misjudged Cole and he knows it.
Two: Seal the Deal is my life now.
Three: I just agreed to share a room with my nemesis.
Chapter Four
Cole
The Bellwether is going to ruin me for all future shoots. This is a luxury hotel: the kind of place you bring a woman when you’re trying to prove you’re worth a damn.
Olive walls. Immaculate mahogany trim. Brass sconces throwing honeyed light. And carpeting so thick your footsteps get swallowed whole. It smells like cedar and the smug scent of people who think seven hundred dollars a night is pocket change.
I strut down the hall, gear bag slung over one shoulder, key card in hand. Not my first rodeo in a classy place like this(spoiler: it totally is).
Ivy walks beside me.
Silent.
Good. Silence means I can think.
I rewind the meeting in my head, cataloging my wins, clean and fast. Orson didn’t walk out, Blaze didn’t actually adoptanything. And “Seal the Deal” isn’t a liability; it’s a hook. Hooks are catnip for livestreams. Those first thirty seconds before everyone’s attention goes poof—that's where viral videos are made. I owned that room so yeah, she’s pissed.
Ivy walks in front of me, and I catch her scent of sweet and cidery apples. But there’s something sharper. Not ocean. Not perfume. Something clean… pool-adjacent.
Huh.
Noted.
Don’t do it, Cole. Do not inhale again.
SNFF-SNFF.
You idiot.
I stop at room 214. Swipe the card.
Red.
