Falling Into Love with You (The Hate-Love Duet #2) - Lauren Rowe Page 0,18
of things, but jaded ain’t one of them. I’ve seen this bubbly, sunny side of Laila many times during the tour, but never with me. Always with someone else, from afar. And I must admit, finally getting to experience Laila’s happy, sweet side, up close and personal, is making me forget I’m annoyed that the show is exploiting my valuable image and name to promote a cringey-ass dating show without my consent.
“Ooooh!” Laila coos, sprinting into the next room. “I’d know this kitchen anywhere. Ha!” She addresses the producer. “Remember that time those two guys from Jenny’s season had that food fight in here?” She snaps her fingers, like she’s trying to come up with something.
“Damian and Gregory,” Rhoda replies, without missing a beat.
“Yes!”
Rhoda chuckles. “I worked on The Engagement Experiment that season. I even got mashed potatoes in my hair during that famous food fight.”
“Shut up!” Laila shrieks, clearly enthralled.
The producer nods. “True story. I worked on that show five seasons—one through five, before getting promoted to help Nadine launch a certain singing competition that turned out to be the network’s biggest hit, ever.”
Laila grabs the woman’s arm like she’s gripping a flotation device during a plane crash. “Rhoda, you have to tell me every juicy detail from your five seasons on The Engagement Experiment. I have to know everything you know!”
The producer giggles. “I can’t tell you everything. I’ve signed an NDA.”
“Okay, just tell me this: was the food fight real—or did the show tell Damian to throw that first blob of mashed potatoes?”
“I really can’t say.”
“Shoot. That means it was fake?”
“I can’t say.”
Laila pulls at her hair comically, like she’s a patient in an insane asylum. “Gah! I need to know! Please, please, Rhoda, come over here after work one night this week to hang out with me, so I can get you to spill all the tea. Thanks to my NDA, I wouldn’t be able to tell a soul anything you tell me, right?—but I have to know everything!”
The woman looks thoroughly charmed by Laila, the same way everyone is when she turns on her mesmerizing charisma to full blast. “Okay, okay,” the woman says, holding up her palms. “You make an excellent point about your NDA. I guess, since you’re bound to secrecy, I could come over to tell you a few behind the scenes tidbits.”
Laila hoots and dances and whoops from the depths of her soul, and I know, deep in my bones, this producer is now putty in Laila’s pretty palm. And there she goes again, I think. Adding to her collection of insta-friends.
After a bit more chatter about the stupid dating show, we continue the tour. The producer opens a large, industrial-sized refrigerator, which makes Laila gasp at its neatly stocked shelves.
“As you can see,” the producer says proudly, “we’ve stocked the fridge with everything you both mentioned you like snacking on.” She looks at me. “And we got all the ingredients you requested to make tonight’s meal, too, Savage.”
“Tonight’s meal?” Laila gasps out, her blue eyes wide. “You’re cooking tonight?”
I wink. “I’m making you my grandmother’s cioppino. I figured I should replace your false memories of our first date with some real ones.”
Laila raises an eyebrow, perhaps understanding my ulterior motive here. When we talked about our fictitious first date, I told Laila our meal ended midway through with me eating her out and fucking her on her kitchen table. Surely, she knows that’s my plan for tonight.
“Oooh, make sure you two look at each other exactly like that in front of the cameras tomorrow,” the producer says. “That’s sexy, guys.”
We look away from each other, our faces flushed, and the tour continues. We head into a large living space with a glorious ocean view and a baby grand in a corner. Squealing happily, Laila makes herself at home behind the piano and plays the first few bars of one of her biggest hits. And, of course, as usual, her voice sends goosebumps skating across my skin.
When she stops playing, Laila leans forward and hugs the piano. “I love you,” she purrs, making the producer and me chuckle. She adds, “I’ve always wanted one of these. The sound is so full and rich.” She sits up and sighs happily. “I feel like Anne Hathaway in The Princess Diaries.” She looks at me. “Have you seen that one?”
“No.”
“Then, put it on our list! We’ll watch it after Beauty and the Beast and the high school one you mentioned.”