Page 41 of The CEO I Hate (The Lockhart Brothers #1)

MIA

I held my breath. The tension in the room throbbed like a heartbeat, all eyes on Lyle as he read through the final script of season two. I’d just turned in the last of the edits after a hasty dinner.

Kait’s eyes were closed, her hands pressed to her mouth like she was sending up a silent prayer, while Tanya was curled up on her chair like a spring under pressure.

If Lyle didn’t say something soon, she was likely to shoot off into space.

Ash, meanwhile, was snoring gently under the conference table, completely unbothered by the career-level decisions unfolding above his head. I envied him for it.

“Well?” I said when I reached the point where I couldn’t take it anymore.

Lyle threw his hand up and hushed me.

It took every ounce of my self-control not to roll my eyes. I needed him to say something. Were we spending an all-nighter here to get this done?

My eyes lifted to Paula’s. She gave me a shrug, her lips twitching.

In the end, Paula technically had final say on the script as showrunner, but we all knew the real approval we needed was Lyle’s if we wanted to keep production on track.

It was a screwed-up little hierarchy we were dealing with, but we’d made the best of it so far, and we were almost to the finish line.

Jerome paced behind Paula, too wound up to keep to his seat. The only person who was anywhere near calm was James Singh. Though, I didn’t expect him to care that much. He didn’t have as much invested in this show, in this season, in the storytelling, as we did.

“Lyle, we need to know if we’re working late tonight,” I said, doing my best to keep my voice light. “You have to say something. Good or bad, I don’t even care at this point. Just tell us what we’re doing.”

Lyle looked up from his laptop screen, his gaze shifting around the room, from one writer to the next, as the tension threatened to strangle me.

“It’s good,” he said after a beat.

I let out the breath I’d been holding. “Good?” I almost couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Good as in…it’s finished? You’re putting your stamp of approval on it?”

“I am,” he said. He plucked away at his keyboard. “It is now in Paula’s inbox.”

“Holy shit,” Jerome said, stunned. He pressed his hand to his forehead. “Does this mean we’re officially done?”

I opened my mouth to say something, but the words caught in the back of my throat.

Was this really over? Had Lyle—the type-A, overly-picky control freak—actually said okay?

There was no way he didn’t have one hundred more nitpicky notes for us to address, but he’d said it was good , and that was basically the equivalent of handing us an Emmy as far as Lyle was concerned .

“Oh,” Kait said, before releasing something between a laugh and a sob. She stood up and threw herself at me. I caught her, unexpected laughter bubbling up from my chest as we hugged. “We did it!”

Suddenly, the room erupted into celebration. Jerome whooped and high-fived Paula.

“Fuck yeah!” Tanya cried, spinning around on her chair.

Even Lyle cracked a smile.

Ash jolted awake at the noise, scrambling out from under the table with a startled bark before blinking at us like we were the unprofessional ones.

“Relax,” Jerome said, laughing. “We’re not on fire.”

Ash huffed, clearly unconvinced, then wandered over to Kait and me, tail wagging cautiously like he was trying to figure out what all the fuss was about.

Jerome came toward me as Kait released me. “Hell yeah, girl,” he said. “We kicked fiery ass!”

“We sure did!” I said as he squeezed the air out of me.

Everything was a blur of hugs and laughter and handshakes, and then…

slowly…an edge of sadness infiltrated our good mood.

None of us had actually expected Lyle to approve the last script today, but now that he had, it finally dawned on us that our work was done, and it was time for our crew to break up.

Until there was official news that VeriTV was pursuing a third season, which wouldn’t happen until we had the initial season two viewer numbers, this was the end of the line for us.

Tanya, Kait, and I got caught up in a sort of three-way hug, and I had to blink back tears.

I hadn’t expected to walk away from this experience with such great new writer friends .

“So,” Jerome said. “I say we celebrate this weekend. Like big time, black out, throw all our cares away.”

“You know what?” I said. Because seriously, why not? Liam and I were over. Work was over. What did I have to lose? “I’m in.”

Jerome cheered. “I know a great little space.”

Tanya wrinkled her nose. “Not Lavish again,” she complained. “Anywhere but there.”

“What happened at Lavish?” I asked, immediately intrigued.

“It’s where she and her ex broke up,” Jerome stage whispered.

“Ah,” I said, feeling that hit a little harder today. “Fair enough. My bestie co-owns the Scarlet Parlor,” I offered. “She’d be happy to host. Might even be able to finagle some free drinks out of her.”

“Shut up,” Jerome said. “Why am I just finding out about this now? I love their burlesque shows!”

“I’ll run it by her tonight and keep you posted,” I said.

I left the three of them to chat that over while I made my way to where Paula and Lyle were talking. When I drew closer, Paula excused herself. Working with Lyle had gone better than I’d anticipated, so I supposed the least I could do was shake his hand.

In a weird turn of events, I’d ended up learning a lot from him about how to set up multi-season plots and arcs and create suspended drama. But he’d also taught me a lot about how not to run a writers’ room. All in all, some very good lessons.

“Guess this is it,” I said. The moment was bittersweet—saying goodbye to VeriTV but also wanting to say goodbye, for personal reasons.

“Guess so,” he said. “I enjoyed working with you, Mia.” Lyle thrust his hand out in my direction. I shook it .

“Really?” I said, raising an eyebrow. “We’re done now. You don’t have to pretend to be nice.”

“When have you known me to ever pretend to be nice? I’ve never hidden the fact that you’re a major pain in my ass,” he agreed. “But you did some excellent work. I can’t deny that. I’ll keep your name in mind if anyone asks me to recommend a writer,” he said as he released my hand.

I let his words settle over me. From anyone else, I might have taken them as just insincere—the kind of “we’ll be in touch” or “let’s do lunch sometime” platitude people said when they wanted to be politely dismissive.

But as Lyle had pointed out, he wasn’t polite.

And difficult as he could be, Lyle was an industry veteran with lots of connections.

A recommendation from him genuinely could open doors for me—and he wouldn’t have offered unless he meant it.

Best of all, I knew he’d made the offer because he valued my writing, not my body.

“Thanks, Lyle,” I said, surprised. “I really appreciate that. It was definitely a learning experience.” For better and worse. “Guess maybe I’ll see you around?”

“You just might,” he agreed.

I nodded and turned to pack up my notes and computer. Leaving the working relationship on that note felt pretty good. We’d been partners, and while the process hadn’t exactly been smooth sailing, we’d delivered on the job in the end. There was a lot to be proud of here.

“Text me later, Mia,” Jerome called on his way out the door. “About the Scarlet Parlor.”

“I will,” I said, heading out myself a few minutes later. I made my way through the building, Ash trotting after me. I passed the hall leading to Liam’s office, and I peered past Carl to Liam’s door. It was closed, and I couldn’t tell if he was inside or not. I kept walking.

Ash didn’t. He stopped at Liam’s hallway, padded over to the closed office door, and sat. Not whining, not barking. Just waiting, like he knew exactly who was behind it.

I carried on.

Whether he was there or not, what did it matter? Liam had made himself scarce since our breakup, not bothering to check in nearly as much on the writers’ room, which was probably for the best. I hadn’t told Jerome, Tanya, and Kait about Liam and me—but they had told me they’d known for a while.

Apparently, we hadn’t been as discreet as we’d thought, and Kait had seen us playing footsie under the table.

And they had made it very clear they were on my side once they realized the relationship had come to an end.

Tanya had gotten in the habit of staring at him like she was imagining how she’d dispose of his body.

And if that didn’t scare Liam then he was a fool, because Tanya was the one who plotted most of our murder scenes, and that girl was creative .

So no, I hadn’t seen much of Liam lately.

And no doubt, that was for the best. There was nothing I needed to say to him.

Not even that I missed him. Because what did it matter if my heart sped up at the thought of seeing him?

Nothing changed the fact that loving him was too hard, too painful, when I couldn’t count on his love in return.

This—finishing up with End in Fire , saying goodbye to the writers’ room, parting ways with VeriTV—was all for the best.

I hadn’t planned on celebrating alone tonight, but I found myself at the Scarlet Parlor anyway. One drink , I told myself. One drink would be enough to unwind and congratulate myself on a job well done .

And frankly, I just wanted some company. Someone to fill the Liam-shaped hole in my chest. I was trying not to weigh Jake down with my breakup woes since he was currently going through his own, so my best option was Sophie.

I walked across the club, waving her down on stage before taking a seat. It was early on a Wednesday, and the club was fairly quiet. She lifted her hand to acknowledge me, gave some orders to one of her dancers, then skipped down the steps and over to the bar.

She ordered a couple drinks from Ollie, then carried them over, setting a vodka cran in front of me.

“Here,” she said. “I considered just getting the whole bottle, but I wasn’t sure where you were on the post-breakup timeline. Are we getting blackout drunk yet?”

“Maybe this weekend,” I said. “I’ve got a couple writer friends who want to celebrate finishing the writing on End in Fire .”

“Oh, Mia,” she said, squeezing my hand. “You didn’t tell me you were wrapping up with that already.”

“I actually didn’t realize we were finishing up tonight. Sorta slipped my mind with everything.”

“Well, I’m happy to host. Tell your friends we’ll roll out the red carpet for them.”

“Jerome will love you for that,” I said. I sipped my drink. “But tonight, I’m being good.”

She snorted at me. “I’ll be the judge of that.” She held her hand out. “Give ’em here.”

“I mean it,” I said even as I handed over my keys. “One and done tonight. ”

Sophie tucked the keys into her corset. “Doesn’t have to be. You have no reason to need to be up in the morning now, and the night is young.”

“It’s a Wednesday.”

“And you’re a free woman,” she pointed out. “You can do whatever you want.”

I rolled my eyes. “All I want to do is go to bed and get a proper night’s rest. I feel like I’ve spent every night this past week crying myself to sleep.”

“That’s how it starts, babe. Then we move on to drinking and sticking obscene things to his Porsche.”

I snorted.

“Other than all these great revenge schemes,” Sophie said. “What is your plan now that you’ll have all this free time?”

I sighed. I’d barely had a second to think these past few months. Now that I was done with End in Fire , I could put all my focus on Heart and Hustle .

“I’ve got some more book promo stuff to do.” The release date for the print run was right around the corner. “I still haven’t arranged any sort of release day event. I was hoping to reach out to a couple of indie bookshops to see if any of them are willing to host.”

“You know I’d totally let you do it here,” Sophie said. “We definitely have the space. You could do a little Q&A on the stage. Though I’m not sure it’s an appropriate venue for your target audience.”

I laughed into my glass. “Can you imagine the looks of horror on parents’ faces when they rock up with their teens here?”

Sophie smirked. “Feels like an untapped market. ”

“What? Indie bookstore by day and burlesque club by night?”

Sophie shrugged. “I’m a businesswoman. I could make it work.”

I shook my head, smiling. “While you’re doing that, I’ll also be helping Jake out with his PT.”

“Oh, is physical therapy a go?”

“Yeah, he’s healed enough from the last procedure that the surgeon didn’t think there was any reason to put it off.”

“Even with the fall on his birthday?”

I nodded. “He’s been cleared to go ahead with everything, so now that Gabrielle isn’t around, I’ll be on PT duty.

You know, driving him to his appointments, making sure he’s actually doing the at-home exercises.

” He was always lazier about those. “I’ve also been poking around with some ideas for a new speculative script.

So I foresee many late writing nights in my future. ”

Sophie sipped her drink. “And that all sounds great,” she said. “Really. But what are you doing about yourself ?”

I frowned, my next sip going down hard. “I don’t understand the question.”

“About your broken heart?”

“Oh, that .”

“Yeah, that pesky old thing,” Sophie said, tapping me on the nose.

“I don’t know,” I muttered. “Wait for it to heal, I guess.” What else was there to do?

I’d been broken up with before. I knew how this process went.

But for some reason, this pain felt deeper.

Liam had carved out a space for himself in my heart, and patching that up again was going to take time.

“And keep hustling in the meantime. Until my heart can catch up. ”

“Sounds like the story of my life,” Sophie said, clinking her glass against mine.

I sighed. “It’s certainly the story of my webcomic.”

“At least you’ll never run out of content,” Sophie said.

I laughed. It was humorless and sad. “God, life sucks sometimes.”

“I’ll drink to that,” Sophie said, and together we toasted.