Page 50 of Romance Is Dead

Two years later

The woman tore down the hall of the film studio, scanning the nameplates of each room as she passed. Her feet thudded against the linoleum, the flickering fluorescent lights overhead lighting her way through the dark hallway.

She was looking for a specific person: the CEO who not only made his workplace a living hell but also helped the devil himself steal the souls of his lead actresses. Turning a corner, she spotted it. She’d made it to the right place.

“Come out, come out wherever you are,” she called, coming to a stop outside of his office.

She threw open the door. The camera didn’t follow her.

Instead, it caught their silhouettes as she crept across the room, startling him where he sat at his desk.

He leapt up, ready to flee, but it was too late — she tore out his throat, sending blood splattering onto the opposite wall as his screams cried out before fizzling to nothing.

“And cut!” I stood up behind the camera. “That’s a wrap, people!”

The actress came out of the room, breathing hard but beaming.

“Did we really get it in one take?” she asked, wiping the sweat from her brow.

“We sure did. You killed it.” I chuckled at my own pun.

“Hell yeah.” She gave me a high five before leaving set to change out of her now-bloody costume. I took a deep breath, savoring the feeling of wrapping my first film — the first one I’d directed, that is.

The media frenzy after Chloe was identified as the mastermind behind the House of Reckoning killings was intense.

At first, production considered moving forward with the film, thinking all the buzz might translate into big bucks at the box office.

But it soon became clear that the public wouldn’t react kindly to the studio profiting from murder, and the production stayed scrapped.

Natasha, predictably, did not react well.

She started speaking to any media outlet that would have her, bemoaning the failure of the movie and blaming scaredy-cat execs for not releasing the film.

When she let it slip in one interview that she’d resorted to leaking photos of her own cast to try to boost publicity, her lawyer quickly forbade her from talking to the press any further.

She responded by having a very public meltdown and quitting the industry altogether.

Chloe also loved speaking to the press, trying to build her image as a poor little girl from Alabama who had wanted to be a star and was brainwashed by all the sin of Hollywood. The trial was a lengthy process, during which Teddy, Mara, and I all had to testify.

Eventually, she was found guilty on all counts and sentenced to life in prison. She even wrote a memoir about the ordeal, titled Mother, May I Flirt with Fame? I immediately pre-ordered it.

Teddy went on to star in the reality show as planned, but not as a contestant.

His name had so much buzz attached to it that the producers didn’t bat an eye when he requested to appear as the show’s bartender instead.

He was in every episode, doling out relationship advice that none of the contestants took as he served them gallons of margaritas, which they did take.

As for me, I took a long, hard look at my life once the chaotic aftermath died down.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, I didn’t feel sad that the movie wasn’t going to see the light of day.

But I realized that I would miss creating stories and bringing characters to life, even if I wouldn’t miss the stress and scrutiny of being in front of the camera myself.

So I started writing. At first, I didn’t know what, exactly.

But I spent the next month in a fever, writing the first draft of what would become the script for Soul to Keep .

It took a while to iron out its edges, to figure out what I was trying to say.

But when I finally typed “The End” on the final draft, it had morphed into a story about the lengths people will go to for fame — and what it costs us in the process.

When I called to ask Chloe’s permission to base one of my characters on her, she agreed as long as I promised to use her real name.

Now, I climbed the stairs to the apartment that Teddy and I shared, weary but satisfied with the day’s work. I slipped the key into the hole and opened the door, trying to decide which pajama pants I would grab once I got inside. Definitely the plaid flannel, I thought.

Opening the door, I was met with softly flickering candlelight and the smell of something delicious simmering on the stove. Teddy poked his head out of the kitchen.

“How’d it go?” he yelled.

“Perfect.” I kicked off my shoes and tossed my bag to the ground. “It’s officially a wrap.”

“That’s amazing!” He emerged from the kitchen, wearing an apron with the nude torso of a beer-bellied man on the front. “I have something for you.”

“Oh yeah?” I expected him to be making a sexual innuendo, which I wouldn’t have complained about, but instead he was holding a small statue.

“Here you go. Congratulations on wrapping your first movie!”

It was a small, shiny, faux-bronze statue of a baseball player, the type given to seven-year-olds after their first season of the game. At the base was a small plate engraved with the words “World’s Best Director.”

“Oh my gosh, thank you!” I wrapped an arm around his shoulders and pressed a kiss to his cheek. “I love it.”

“I wanted to get you something that looked more like an Oscar,” he explained sheepishly. “But they were out.”

“That’s ok. I love it.” I couldn’t take my eyes off it. It was random and silly and so, so thoughtful — just like Teddy. My heart swelled and I thought there surely wasn’t enough room in my body to fit the love I had for him.

He paused, watching me closely. After a few moments, I got the feeling he was waiting for a reaction I wasn’t giving him.

“Um, what?”

“Quinn, did you look at it closely?”

I frowned, looking down. “Yes, of course. It’s a super cute little baseball man, like the night we spent on the field! I love him!”

He sighed, crossing his arms. “Maybe look a little closer.”

I held it up to my face, unsure what I was supposed to be looking for.

I knew my eyesight was bad, but surely there was nothing I could be missing?

But then I saw it — looped around the baseball player’s bat was a ring.

Specifically, a white gold band with a large solitaire diamond flanked by two smaller, but equally perfect, white stones.

The noise I emitted could only be described as a shriek.

“Do you like it?” Teddy asked, clearly pleased with my reaction.

“What is this? What is this?! What does it mean?!”

Teddy gingerly took the statue from my hands and removed the ring. And then, like something out of an honest-to-God romantic comedy, sank down onto his knees. My heart hammered in my chest, and I started fanning my face like a Regency romance heroine. I couldn’t believe this was happening.

Fanning. My. Face. Ridiculous.

“Quinn. From that first day on set, I knew there was something special about you. Yes, even as you stormed up to me and told me I was a selfish asshole.”

My cheeks burned. “Sorry about that.”

“I knew that there was something in you that ignited a feeling in me that I’d never felt before.

Because even when you were insulting me right to my face, all I could think about was how pretty and charming you were.

And then you went on to prove to me, time and time again, that I would never meet another person like you.

That I never wanted to meet another person like you. Romantically, that is.”

I gulped.

“And then, like the heroine of some goddamn superhero movie, you came and saved me right when I needed you.”

I smiled, thankful that he was generous enough not to mention that I had been the very reason he was captured in the first place.

“The last two years have been amazing, more amazing than anything I could have dreamed for. Even when you elbow me in the ribs when I start to snore. I can’t imagine living without you. Will you marry me?”

“Yes!” I jumped into his arms as he rose to his feet, wrapping my legs around his waist in a move I’d only ever seen on The Bachelor but which it turned out can work in real life too. “I do. I mean, I will.”

Teddy grinned under my kiss and slipped the ring onto my finger. Somehow, he’d bought a ring that fit me perfectly on the first try.

But that was also just like him: fitting me perfectly, even without trying .