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“I haven’t told you his name.”
“The answer is no.”
“How about I tell you who it is first, then you decide.”
“You can tell me the name, but I’m still a no.”
“Grady Radcliffe.”
ChapterNineteen
Reese wasn’t sure if she loved or hated the idea. Sure, she trusted Grady and she did know him, but taking this kind of step? Pretending to be his girlfriend? And for how long? Did he even know about this little scheme John had cooked up? And what would he gain from it? Reese saw no upside for him.
“Have you told him about this?” Reese asked.
“I discussed it with him briefly last night. And before you ask, yes, he was receptive to the idea, but he told me to talk to you about it first.”
Reese closed her eyes and tried not to smile. Even though she hadn’t known him long, it was typical of him to put her first. “I don’t understand. I see what I get out of this. A super nice guy with a ton of fans who is dating the pariah. I get how that helps my tarnished image, but what about Grady? What does he get?”
John shifted a bit in his seat. Reese didn’t understand why this was making him uncomfortable.
“He gets two things: One, he’s going into the last year of his contract. The higher his profile, the more attention he receives. The more attention he receives, the more he gets paid. As for the second reason, Grady has a reputation for being a bit soft. We think that dating you would show that he’s hardening up.”
Reese wrinkled her nose. In amongst all that was a carefully worded insult. “That doesn’t sound positive at all! Are you suggesting that he’dharden upbecause I’m so cold? Or because of my recent scandal?”
“A bit of both,” John said diplomatically.
Reese wasn’t sure what to do with that. “Basically, I’m bad cop to his good cop.”
“Not necessarily,” Marnie said, jumping in again. “You had a massive following before this unfortunate incident happened. And a lot of those people still love you. Think of you and Grady more as a power couple.”
Reese paced the condo, absorbing all of this. It wasn’t adding up. “But we aren’t a couple. I’m not sure I can pull it off.”
Daria smirked but said nothing.
“If what we saw in the workout video is any indication, you’ll have no problem with it,” Marnie said. “Our PR team is going to come up with a few ideas for photos to post to social media. And when the time is right, we want the two of you to go out to dinner, hang out in more public places, that kind of thing. Have a dinner party with friends. You know, what couples do. Like what you and Cam used to do on the ice. We want people to start speculating before we make it official. The point of this exercise is to divert people’s attention from the whole Jennifer situation.”
“And you think that will work?”
“I’m certain it will work,” John said. “Daria is going to contact you in the next few days with some ideas. When the time is right, we launch our campaign.”
“And how long do we have to keep this charade going?”
“I’m not sure. Until the Jennifer issue is settled.”
“Settled? Is that days, weeks, months? I need something definitive.”
“We don’t know,” Marnie said. “Ideally, a few months. But as we all have learned, Jennifer can be quite unpredictable.”
“A few months? Of pretending to be Grady’s girlfriend?”
“What’s the big deal?” Daria said, jumping into the conversation. “He’s gorgeous and the two of you obviously have chemistry. It’s all over the video.”
Why were they all ganging up on her?
“Fine, I’ll mull this over. Can we move on?”
They wrapped up and Reese showed them out. She checked her watch and knew that Grady wouldn’t be home from his workout yet, so she called Cam instead. Since they’d retired from skating, he’d started working for his father’s construction business. Cam served as his accountant, a degree he’d worked on all throughout their skating careers.
