Work In Progress (Red Lipstick Coalition #3) - Staci Hart Page 0,33

used to tell famous men who needed an image overhaul to join the military or get married. Rock Hudson married his agent’s secretary when whispers about his sexuality caught fire. Too bad your agent’s assistant is already married,” she joked.

Theo and I exchanged a charged glance, the gears behind our eyes whirring and clicking in synchronicity.

Married. That was something I hadn’t done before. But who could it be? No models, no actresses. I needed someone I could trust, a counterbalance to my image, someone to make me look good. Someone sweet, innocent, virtuous. Someone like—

Ma’s smile fell. “Oh, no.”

“I know a girl who could save my book and my reputation.”

Theo’s eyes widened. “Oh, no.”

But I smiled, hope igniting in my chest along with a psychic tingle of rightness in my guts. “Oh, yes. Think about it. Think about it for just one second.”

He did. I saw his resignation and felt a subsequent surge of triumph.

“You heard Steven. No romp with a Victoria’s Secret model is going to save me. I’ve gotta go big. Like, married big. The gossip columns will go insane. It’s the best I’ve got—they want to know who I’m dating, who I’m with? What if I give them a wedding?”

“When Steven said commitment, I don’t think he meant that kind of commitment,” Ma said, her face drawn.

“Picture it,” I started, gripping the reins on my enthusiasm. “Thomas Bane meets shy, sweet, awkward book blogger. She’s the little white lamb to his big, bad wolf. The light to his dark. The sweet to his salty. She smiles and kisses the babies with him. She’s innocence embodied. Their romance is fast and fierce, and swiftly, they marry. Pictures all over the internet. Her sweet face over a stockpot of soup in a homeless shelter. And while we junket, we work on my story, which we were already going to be doing every day. She could save me. She could save all of us.”

Theo frowned, even as he agreed. “She’s the quintessential good girl. And the story…you dating the Egglette heiress, the gentle, unassuming book blogger who hates your books? I mean, we can sell that. We can sell it hard. But…” He pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes clamped shut. “Can she even speak over a whisper? Could she appear in public without having a coronary?”

I smirked. “Maybe she’ll swoon. So long as I catch her, she’ll be fine. Plus, think of the photo ops.”

He gave me a look. “And how the fuck do you plan on convincing her to marry you?”

My cavalier smile faded. “My charm and good looks?”

Theo’s look somehow flattened and hardened simultaneously.

I drew a heavy breath and twisted my hair back so I could think. “She doesn’t need the money, but, man, I wish she did. She’s trying to…well, get out of her shell. I can help her with that. She wants to be a fiction editor. I wonder if I could get her a job with a publisher. Not that any of them are impressed with me right now.” I swiped a hand over my mouth, thinking through my connections at the Big Five and crossing every name off the list as soon as it came to mind.

“There’s an option,” Theo said, his voice worn.

Ma waited expectantly. Theo looked like he was about to detonate a bomb if he cut the wrong wire.

“What, Teddy? What is it?” Ma asked.

“You’re not gonna like it,” he said definitively.

My eyes narrowed. “Why don’t you tell us and we can decide together.”

He steeled himself. “You told me Janessa offered her an editing internship in exchange for a story on you. That’s the only bait you’ve got.”

“She wants the story,” Ma said, her voice trembling and small. “Tommy, you’ve gotta give it to her.”

Theo and I protested simultaneously and in decibels that rendered us almost inaudible.

Ma shook her head, holding her hand up for us to hush. “I mean it. For years, you’ve kept everything quiet, played it close to the vest. Give her your story. Our story. She has an open mic at the newspaper, and you know what? The story will help save you, too.”

I shook my head right back at her. “No. Putting my love life on display is easy—none of that is real. Pretending to be what they want me to be? It’s not real. But they don’t get me. They don’t get you. I won’t do it. I won’t fucking do it.”

“But what if you have to?” she asked. “Tommy, I love