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She cast aside the bathrobe right there—after all Josh had seen everything she had last night—and got dressed. He buckled the shoes for her, kneeling at her feet while she used the makeup applier, which worked perfectly. Micki flicked a glance at the mirror on the wall. This was what she had to go with, but the effect wasn’t bad.
“Maeve, I owe you,” she said. Grabbing Josh’s wrist she towed him out of the suite and to the crew gravlift. Grateful they only had to descend two levels, she stepped into the gravstream, Josh right next to her and descended. She took deep, cleansing breaths while she slowly floated to the correct level and by the time Josh handed her out of the gravlift on Level C, she was composed and ready. The AD was standing in the hall fidgeting anxiously and as soon as she saw them she yelled, “They’re here!” and then immediately shepherded them toward the ISD complex.
“Two minutes to spare,” Josh said quietly.
“Thanks to Maeve.” Micki saw the holos of the familiar broadcasters waiting on the set to do the interviews and she took another deep breath. Most of the questions would be for Josh, since he was the celebrity and the person being featured but she’d be right there, in the glare of the interstellar star making cameras. The ratings were reliably sky high for these interviews. Her dreams might come true this time and this gig might be her big break after all, just a bit delayed.
After the interviews, which went well, she and Josh parted ways temporarily. He insisted he had to at least take a cursory interest in business matters, despite what he’d told his family about stepping away temporarily. Micki wanted time to regroup and think hard about what she was doing with him. One night after a big win was probably okay but did she want to get seriously involved with a man so far above her place in life? He’d never said anything about continuing to see her after the competition was over.
She wished she could talk to Tassia about it but ironically the Comettes were having an all day rehearsal. Struck by a brief stab of loneliness, Micki wished she was back with the troupe. ISD was challenging and uncomfortable. But reaching for something more, a future beyond endlessly touring with the Comettes required taking chances. Embracing risks.
And getting deeply involved with Josh Benfield, generational billionaire scion, was the biggest risk of all.
“It's too late,” she said to her mirror in her tiny quarters on Level 14. “I listened to my heart and I’m in too deep already. Heartbreak ahead, no doubt.” Josh would be hard to recover from.
She’d taken a long shower, washed her hair and changed into casual clothes during the day and now she headed up to Level A, to meet Josh and go over their next dance. They were meeting in his suite because the subject of show three was required to be an emotional one and he didn’t want to discuss his family in range of the ISD cameras. Micki could relate to his reluctance. ISD was ruthless about using juicy soundbites on their ‘candid’ moments segments.
Butterflies took wing in her gut as she arrived at the portal to his suite. She hoped the evening was going to end the same way last night’s had but she needed to be prepared for rejection. Maybe Josh had been satisfied with one night. Realizing she was dithering and making herself anxious, Micki triggered the access request but as the door opened, Sydni bustled out, carrying an armload of data files and juggling her handheld.
Micki stepped back to allow the assistant to pass. “Hey, Sydni.”
The other woman paused, looked her over from head to toe and sniffed. Wordlessly she walked away, leaving Micki staring after her.
Bitch. Obviously she’d made an enemy there but Sydni’s attitude had been apparent pretty much from the beginning. She regarded Josh as her territory. Micki didn’t think he reciprocated the feelings in any way and might even be unaware of them. Men could sure be oblivious sometimes. But it added to Micki’s private stack of worries.
“Are you coming in?” Josh asked, standing in the doorway, laughing. “Or are we meeting in the hall?” He reached out to bracelet her wrist and draw her closer, inside the suite. As soon as the door was closing, he was kissing her, tongue licking the seam of her lips, pressing for more.
Micki abandoned all her common sense and responded fully, holding him close, rubbing against his full-blown arousal, pushing against the fastener of his pants. “Pleasure before business?” she asked as he picked her up and headed toward the bedroom.
“Sounds like the perfect agenda to me,” he said. “I can’t keep my mind on anything else when I’ve got you here in front of me. Last night was…special.”
“For me too,” she said, gazing into his warm brown eyes. “We do have to discuss the dance later though.”
“Later,” he said, nuzzling her neck and beginning to remove her clothes.
The next few hours passed in a blur of passion for Micki and then they ordered dinner, which they proceeded to eat in bed, feeding each other decadent morsels and having fun.
“Seriously though,” she said after the dessert was gone and they were savoring a bottle of excellent wine. “I can’t dream the next dance for us unless I get answers to my questions.”
Josh made a face and sipped his wine. “I loathe discussing my family.”
“I sympathize but you chose to be in this competition so you’re stuck.” She grabbed her handheld off the nightstand and summarized his own words, “You said you wanted to be in ISD because your mother loves the show. You talked about how wonderful she was in the emo package for the show.”
“Total bullshit,” he said. “She’s cold, hard hearted and self-absorbed. She and my father have an excellent business arrangement, no love lost. My brothers and I grew up with nannies, servants and robos. We siblings became a tight unit because we weren’t going to survive otherwise.”
“So basically you told the ISD interviewer what you knew the show wanted to hear.”
With a wary expression, he nodded.
“I can’t make a winning dance out of that.” Micki chewed her lip, thinking hard.
“What was your mother like?” he asked. “Maybe we can make the dance about your mother and we won’t tell anyone the truth.”
“She was the opposite of what you were describing—she was warm, caring, supportive. I lost her too young and then…” Micki realized where this line of conversation was taking her and cut herself off. She never discussed her childhood with anyone. Josh wouldn’t understand the choices she’d made in order to stay alive. Wagging a finger in front of his face, she said, “Uh uh, we’re not going to cheat. Besides if we did, your family would know it was all lies.”
He shrugged. “My mother would be surprised but she’d lap it up, especially if we win. My brothers would figure I did it to be competitive. It’s necessary to tug the audience’s heartstrings with this number, right?”
“If you want votes. Does she ever watch the show or was that a lie too?”
