Living the Fantasy

“Wow. She’s gorgeous.” She traced the woman’s face with a long, tapered finger.

Looking at the design, he made a quick decision. “I’m changing the cover design. Blondes are overdone.”

She glanced at him but didn’t comment. So he took a deep breath and plunged into his pitch.

“Winning Guinevere is a take on the King Arthur legend turned video game. Players can be anyone in the legend they want—knights, fair maidens, Merlin, King Arthur or Lancelot. They can even be Mordred if they’re so inclined.”

“The betraying bad guy?”

Ken nodded. “He’s there to muck up the works, so to speak. But the core of the story is between Arthur and Lancelot. Who will Guinevere choose?” He lifted the page to show her another picture. “That’s you. Guinevere.”

She peered down at it. “I don’t look anything like her.”

“But you feel like her. And besides, I’m changing her look to reflect you.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re not serious.”

“I am serious. I can’t express how important it is to have the right Guinevere. She will make the campaign that should launch the product that—” He cut off his words. He probably shouldn’t tell her that this one product could make or break his whole company.

“And you think I’m Guinevere.”

“I know it.”

She looked back at the picture in front of her. Then taking a deep breath, she turned the page, looking deeper at the product specifications. “The point of the game is to win…me?”

“You. Your love. Your gifts.”

“Seriously?”

“That takes on very specific meanings depending on the player’s score. Plus, if they work very hard and do very well, then they get a discount on the purchase of Winning II.”

“And kids will do that? Spend hours on the game just to get a game bonus that isn’t even real?”

“And a sales pitch for the next game. Yes, they will.”

She looked skeptical.

“Trust me. They will because the game is that good. But I have to get them playing the game in the first place. I have to get them started, and I have to show them you.”

“Me.”

“Yes, you. Beautiful, sexy as hell, but approachable. Someone who would bestow royal gifts. Someone who understands them and is worth the time and money.”

“But I don’t understand them. I don’t—”

He waved that aside. “You do know them, you just don’t realize it yet.” He huffed out his breath on a sigh. “Look, I know this doesn’t make any kind of logical sense, but I know what I’m talking about.” At least he prayed he did. “You’re Guinevere, and I’d like to hire you to spend the summer with me.”

“With you?”

He flushed, his mind going to all the wrong things. “I mean, on tour with the whole crew. It’s an entire summer of buses and hotels. You’ll get time off, I swear, but it’ll be in a different city each week.”

He pulled out the schedule to show it to her. Not surprisingly, her eyes widened in surprise. “That’s a lot of dates.”

“Like I said, at least one every week. We do a different step in the story in every city. We start with Arthur and Guinevere getting married at the first stop, but with Lancelot in the wings. Then the next week there’s affection from Lancelot. Next Merlin plays a hand. After that, there’s Mordred causing problems. It builds throughout the summer until there’s a showdown between Arthur and Lancelot.”

“Who wins?”

“You’re Guinevere. You get to decide.” Then he flashed her a grin. “Well, actually we’ll see how the fan choices go. We’ll be blogging and getting fan commentary throughout the summer. In the end, the fans choose for you.”

She smiled up at him. “That sounds like a lot of fun.”

“It is. Exhausting but fun.” He pushed another page forward and prayed that she didn’t flinch. “This is the pay schedule. We cover all expenses and travel. I’m sorry, but my company is being cut to the bone to do this launch. I’m afraid I can’t offer more than this.” It was a lie. For her, he’d pay a lot more. He’d find the money somewhere, somehow. For her.

She nodded slowly, chewing on her lower lip as she looked at everything.

“And, um, I’m sorry, but I think the agency will take a cut of that. Marilyn will insist on that. Even if you don’t have a contract with her right now, I did meet you here.”

“Yeah,” she said softly. “I can’t see Marilyn giving up her piece of this.”

He sighed. After agency fees, the dollars weren’t great. Not bad for a summer actor. Good pay, actually. But he had no idea what she made at the hospital. He probably shouldn’t have reminded her about the agency fees. Let her think she was getting the whole amount so she had more incentive to say yes. But he didn’t want to lie to her, even by omission. Still, he was very aware that he might just have blown it.

“You understand that this is all take-home pay,” he said. “We’re covering all expenses.”

She nodded.

He waited. There was nothing more to say, but God he wanted to. He wanted to beg her to say yes. And as he sat there watching her, seeing the curve of her face, the fullness of her breasts and the feminine arch to her back, he started wanting other things, too.

She flipped through the pages and started reading the contract, her lips pursed as she concentrated. He looked at her lips and starting thinking of other things. What she might also do with those lips. Of what he could do to her to erase the furrows on her forehead. Of what they might do together that had nothing to do with contracts and everything to do with a whole lot of naked wonderfulness in bed.

That’s where his mind went and it was wrong, wrong, wrong! He was her employer—or he wanted to be. So he forced his thoughts down a more professional track.

It took him a while.

“So,” he finally asked. “Is this enough to make you quit your job at the hospital?”

She shook her head slowly. “No.”

His heart sank.

“But for a summer leave of absence? Yes.”

4

THE NEXT FEW WEEKS PASSED in a blur for Ali. The first worry was that she couldn’t get a leave of absence from her job. That turned out to be the easiest task on her list. Depressingly so. It’s not that her boss tossed her out the door. The man just sighed, asked her if she was sure—she was—and then approved it. It was a measure of how underappreciated she was there.

At least her coworkers were sad. Especially as she passed off one project after another into their hands. Ali consoled herself with the thought that in her absence, her boss would realize just how much she did around there. She couldn’t bear thinking about the opposite possibility: that no one would even notice she was gone. That was just too depressing for words.

Then there was passing off her plants, getting Elisa to check in on the apartment, and lastly to convince her family she wasn’t insane. She failed in that last task. Her mother rolled her eyes and asked who could possibly want Ali as a model. Not the most supportive attitude, but Ali was committed now. And even if she wasn’t, there was something that kept her headed toward her bizarre summer: