Falling Into Love with You (The Hate-Love Duet Book 2) by Rowe, Lauren (grave mercy .TXT) 📕

to tell you or anyone else. But, screw it. I’ve already told Aloha and I don’t want to keep this from you any longer.”

My stomach twists. “Okay.”

Laila takes a deep breath. “I kept this from you because I didn’t want to burden you with it, or make you change the way you acted on-camera. I thought if you knew what I’m about to tell you, you might act differently on-camera, in a way that didn’t seem natural.”

“Spit it out, Laila.”

She bites her lip and exhales. “There’s a termination clause in my contract. A buy-out clause, by which the show can send me packing, at their sole discretion, at any time, without prior notice, by paying me a hundred grand.”

“A hundred grand? Jesus, Laila. No.”

She nods.

“A hundred grand is peanuts to them!” I whisper-shout, running my hand through my hair. “No wonder you’ve been so stressed out about what Nadine said yesterday.”

“I’m obviously on the chopping block, especially after we didn’t deliver today.”

“You should have told me about this the minute Nadine left my dressing room last night, Laila!”

“I didn’t want to force you to do anything you didn’t want to do. Plus, I thought I could handle this on my own. But after today, when you were so sweet to me and I didn’t have the heart to be anything but sweet back to you, I realized I can’t do this alone. Everything depends on me delivering ‘Vintage Savage and Laila’ tomorrow. It’s my last chance to hit a homerun before the long break. After shooting was over for today, Nadine popped into my dressing room while I was changing and made it clear she was pissed about our ‘happy couple’ routine today. She didn’t say this, explicitly, but her demeanor made me think they’re going to fire me during the break if we don’t hit it out of the ballpark tomorrow, exactly like she’s requested.”

My heart feels like it’s exploding. “They can’t fire you. They’re contractually obligated to let you perform in the finale, remember?”

“Okay, so maybe they’ll invite me back to let me sing. Yet another chance for huge ratings.”

“But we’re picking four teams tomorrow. The whole audition process has been built around you being one of the judges.”

“That’d be an easy fix. They could fire me during the break, say we broke up and I didn’t want to return to the show. And then, they’d parcel off the contestants on my team to the three remaining judges and finish out the season with three judges, like always. Just think about the ratings if they did all that, Savage! They’d have a self-created ‘scandal.’ A big ‘mess’ they’d have to scramble to fix. Don’t you think everyone would tune in to see that? Not to mention, to see how poor Savage is doing after his breakup with Laila? I haven’t slept a wink since Nadine talked to us in your dressing room, and I’ve looked at it from every angle. I’ve decided I’m not paranoid. They’re going to fire me during the break, Savage. I can feel it. Unless we deliver what Nadine asked. And even then, I might be toast, regardless.”

“Well, fuck that. I won’t let them fire you,” I say, my jaw tight. “If that’s what they ultimately decide to do, then I’ll tell them I won’t do the show without you.”

Laila’s face melts with affection for me. She touches my cheek gently and smiles ruefully. “Thank you, but I’d never let you do that. You’re contractually obligated to do the show. You’d have a lawsuit on your hands.”

“I don’t care. I’m not doing the show without you, Laila. That was a basic condition of me doing the show. Doing it with you.”

“No, it wasn’t. You agreed to do it, long before you knew I’d be anything but Aloha’s one-episode mentor. Plus, the whole reason you signed onto the show was for Mimi. And that reason still stands today, more than ever.”

I feel flooded with panic. But I manage to say, “Okay, let’s not panic here. I’m not supposed to tell you this, but I know something you don’t. Something that proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt, they won’t fire you, whether we deliver ‘Vintage Savage and Laila’ tomorrow or not.”

She looks at me hopefully, her blue eyes wide and brimming with hope.

I glance toward the front of the vehicle, to make sure our driver and bodyguard can’t overhear me, despite the loud music. And when it’s clear they’re enmeshed in their own conversation, I return to Laila and grab her hand. “There’s a dangling carrot in my contract, baby. They’ll pay me a fat bonus—a quarter mill—if I get down on bended knee and propose to you, right after we perform our duet in the finale.”

Laila gasps. “No.”

I nod. “They didn’t want me telling you about it, to ensure you had an ‘authentic reaction’ on-camera. And, honestly, I’ve never told you about it, anyway, because there’s no way I’m going to do it. But the mere fact the bonus is hanging out there proves you’ve got nothing to worry about. Why would they offer me a bonus to propose to you in the finale, if they’re not planning to keep you around until the finale?”

Laila’s shoulders slump. The hope in her eyes a moment ago fades. Clearly, she doesn’t find my logic as compelling as I do. “I don’t think we can rely on that clause to protect me, honey. I think they’re preserving themselves all sorts of potential storylines, depending on what happens, from week to week. You know, hedging their bets. If I’m still around for the finale, then maybe you’d choose to earn that bonus. But if they don’t keep me around, then that’s fine, because they’ve got a Plan B that will work, too. That’s what Rhoda told me they do on The Engagement Experiment, all the time. She worked on that show with Nadine for five seasons, remember? When she came to the house and spilled all the tea,