Page 94 of Home Grown Talent

No answer.

“For fuck’s sake!” Panicking now, Mason charged after him. “Talk about overreacting.”

Owen spun around, his face blank and unrecognisably cold. “Overreacting?”

“All right.” Mason held up his hands. “Look, I’m sorry that I didn’t warn you, but I was going to, this morning. Except, when you arrived, you were so stressed out that I started thinking that maybe I shouldn’t say anything, in case I made it worse and then—”

“Warn me about what?” Owen interrupted angrily. “The fact that you’d decided to make me look like a fucking fraud on live TV?”

Taken aback, Mason said, “That’s not what—”

“You could practically see the supermarket label on that fucking pineapple! It’s obvious it wasn’t grown in a London greenhouse.”

“Nobody’s going to notice—”

“I noticed!”

Mason shook his head, fear tightening his chest. “Owen, come on. It was, like, thirty seconds of TV. Don’t worry about—”

“You don’t get it, do you?” Owen stared at him, and it was like being studied by a stranger, a cold and angry stranger. “You made me look like a fucking fake.”

“I didn’t.” Mason’s protest sounded weak, and his throat seized and clicked as he tried to swallow. “I didn’t know they were going to—”

“Bollocks!” Owen laughed without a trace of humour. “Didn’t you see yourself in the fucking greenhouse talking about ‘Owen’s pineapples’?”

“Okay, yes, but there was another part they didn’t show, and I…” He glanced warily back at the studio. Hazy sunlight reflected off the glass doors, hiding whoever was inside. For all Mason knew, a dozen people had their phones out. Misty might be watching. “Look, can we go somewhere else to talk about this?”

“No.”

The word was shocking in its curt finality.

“No?” The panic in his chest began to squeeze his lungs. “Come on, just let me explain—”

Owen backed up a step. “No. It’s done. It’s over.”

“What? You don’t mean…” Mason tailed off, horrified, because he’d never seen Owen look like that before. Blank, unmoved. Steely eyes watching him. “You’re blowing this way out of proportion,” he said, lifting a hand towards Owen, only to drop it in the face of his hostile expression. “Owen, come on. It’s just a fucking pineapple!”

“You lied,” Owen said flatly. “Do you understand that? You trashed my professional reputation for the sake of… of boosting your own career.”

Mason felt heat steal into his face, a crawling sensation. Like shame. And yes, it was true. He shouldn’t have gone behind Owen’s back to do the extra filming, but Misty hadn’t given him a choice. Not that he could explain that to Owen. But, Christ, it was such a minor thing. A fucking pineapple. “Owen, please,” he said desperately. “It’s not that big of a deal.”

If anything, Owen’s expression only grew colder. “You knew I didn’t want anything to do with that stupid pineapple crap. You knew I didn’t want to lie to the audience about my work.”

Scrubbing a hand through his hair, Mason said, “Look, I admit I should have told you about the extra filming, but I didn’t know Misty was going to edit it the way—”

“Screw Misty,” Owen spat. “You heard what I told her. You knew why I didn’t want to fake it. Do you just not care that I have a business to run, a reputation to protect? Christ, Mason, I have a team who rely on me for their jobs.”

“Owen—”

“Oh, I know that’s nothing compared to ten billion fucking Instagram likes,” Owen went on bitterly, “but to me, it’s everything. My business, my reputation. Fuck, my business is my reputation. And you—you trashed it. You stomped all over it like it doesn’t even matter.”

“That’s not fair!” Christ, he sounded petulant, but it wasn’t fair. And it wasn’t true. “They edited it to make it look like that. What I filmed was different—and I didn’t even know about the bloody pineapple in the studio this morning.”

Owen’s lip curled. “Come off it. You knew what Misty wanted, and you gave it to her. You lied for them, Mason. Do you understand that? You lied, and you made me a part of their lie.”

“It’s not a lie,” Mason shot back, angry now. “It’s a story. Why can’t you get that? We’re telling stories, Owen, not giving lectures—and people understand that. It only has to be an approximation of the truth.”

“An approximation of the truth?” A horrible look of understanding spread across Owen’s face. “Fuck, I’m not sure you even know what’s true and what’s not anymore. Or maybe you just don’t care.”