The Passionate One: A Billionaire Bride Pact Romance

by Lewis, Jeanette

  She swung her legs to the floor and reached for a sculpture on the side table. “This is nice, is it one of yours?” It was a knot, bigger than her fist, made from one continuous rope of glass. She turned it over and over, following the glass as it twisted until she reached the end.

  Matt was always bringing home pieces he made at his studio, Morgantown Art Glass. Erin had an owl he’d made on the dresser in her bedroom.

  “Just a warm-up piece,” Matt said as he got up from the couch. “How about one of Matt’s famous mug brownies?”

  “Sounds perfect.” She returned her attention to the glass knot. She loved the weight of it and the way the glass slid smoothly through her fingers. “What are you working on now?”

  “Christmas ornaments,” he said as he took two mugs from the cupboard and began measuring out flour, sugar, salt, and cocoa powder.

  “How are they going?”

  He put butter in the microwave to melt. “Okay, nothing very exciting. But, it pays the bills ... mostly.” Matt and Erin kept no secrets from one another: she knew the glass studio wasn’t as profitable as he’d wish, and he knew her acting wasn’t as profitable as she’d wish.

  “Hey, what were you just telling me?” Erin reminded him. “You’ll get there some day too. Your work is amazing.” She held up the glass knot. “This is really cool.”

  “You can have it and I’ll make you a dozen more if you want.” Matt poured the butter into the mugs and stirred. “And I’m only telling the truth. You will get there someday and when you’re a huge star, I’ll tell all the tabloids how you used to try and smother yourself with my couch pillows.”

  She laughed. “Well, I’m telling the truth too; you’re very talented.”

  He put the mugs in the microwave and turned to give her a grateful smile. “How was the wedding?”

  “Good,” Erin shrugged. “Beautiful bride, handsome groom, pretty dresses ... what else can you ask for?”

  “And I take it he’s loaded?” Matt knew about the Billionaire Bride Pact.

  “Of course.” Erin made a face. “So now Nikki’s going to live happily ever.”

  “Money doesn’t guarantee happily ever after,” he murmured.

  Erin got up from the couch and went to Matt’s fridge. “Please tell me you have whipped cream.”

  “In the back.” He took the brownies from the microwave as Erin emerged victorious with the can. She baptized her brownie in a mound of whipped cream, ending with a curly flourish on the top.

  “Hey, how about a brownie with your whipped cream?” Matt teased.

  Erin’s only response was to add more.

  “What’s your rehearsal schedule like this week?” He asked as they took seats at the kitchen counter and dug into the brownies.

  “Busy. We open in three weeks. Oh ... before I forget, I saw Mrs. Brinkerhoff in the laundry room last week. She’s going to visit her son and didn’t have anyone to dog-sit for her, so I told her we could do it.”

  Matt swallowed a bite of his brownie. “There are three things wrong with that sentence. ‘Mrs. Brinkerhoff’ ... ‘we’ ... and ‘dog-sitting.’”

  “C’mon, she’s a sweet old lady and she doesn’t have anyone else. All we have to do is stop in a couple of times a day to make sure the dog’s got food and water, maybe take it on a walk once in a while. No big deal.”

  Matt sighed and raked his fingers through his hair. “You know, usually when you say that, I find out it’s actually a very big deal.”

  “When have I ever done that?” Erin scoffed.

  “Uh ... Chelsea.”

  “I thought you’d forgiven me for Chelsea.”

  When she was between shows, Erin took hourly jobs with flexible schedules so she could work around auditions. Chelsea had been her coworker at the mall and Erin had impulsively offered to help her move ... only to learn she was the only one who’d offered to help. She’d enlisted Matt, whose mood had darkened considerably when they arrived with the truck to find Chelsea still in bed and only partly packed. Erin tried to ignore his dirty looks as they threw Chelsea’s belongings in boxes.

  “Just because I forgave you doesn’t mean I forgot about it, “Matt said loftily. “And how about the time you offered to give that guy you met at auditions a ride home, only to find out he lived in Wooster, Ohio, and was creepy besides?”

  Erin flinched. The pimply kid named Jasper had seemed nice enough while they’d waited their turns to audition. He’d asked for a ride home and she agreed, not realizing until later that Jasper conveniently neglected to mention he lived over three hours away. He’d ridden the bus to the audition, but was very happy for a free ride home.

  She hadn’t noticed the outline of the knife in his pocket until they were in her car. She’d sent Matt a frantic text and had picked him up at the studio to ride along. Matt had had to go back to work afterward and was so tired, his concentration had slipped and he’d suffered a bad burn. Erin knew the burn wasn’t directly her fault, but even more than a year later, she still had a prickling of guilt about the silvery scar on his forearm.

  “This is different,” Erin protested. “We already know where Mrs. Brinkerhoff lives and she isn’t moving. Will you help me, please?” she put on her most winning smile.

  He sighed. “When do we start?”

  “You’re the best,” Erin beamed. “She’s leaving Sunday.”

  “Then my only other question is which movie do you want to watch tonight?”

  A night with movies, brownies, and Matt was about the best thing she could have asked for. By the time Erin went back to her own apartment, she felt much better about the missed audition.

  **

  Chapter 4

  Matt arrived at the studio the next morning to find his little brother, Corben, already there. The furnaces were roaring, immediately blasting any chill from the autumn air. They’d filled the day tank with glass pellets the night before and Corben stood at its open door, his face ruddy in the glow as he collected a gather with a blowing pipe.

  Matt hung his jacket on the hooks near the open door that separated the showroom from the studio. When he stepped inside, the noise increased immediately. The furnaces were already loud, but add in the dozen or so large fans they had to keep the temperature bearable, and the noise level was somewhere around a dull roar.

  Corben stepped back from the furnace, his eyes fixed on the ball of molten glass on the end of the pipe. He turned it, watching the way the glass moved, gauging whether it was ready to work.

  Their father had founded Morgantown Art Glass thirty years ago, only three months after Matt was born. He sometimes wondered if their shared beginning was one reason he felt such a connection to the place.

  Or maybe it was because he’d grown up here. He remembered being a little boy, standing at the window between the studio and the showroom and watching in awe as his father created art from nothing more than sand mixed with a handful of soda ash and lime. Of course, the exact ratios were a bit more exact, but to a six-year-old, it was magic.

  He’d started working in the studio when he was ten, but only as the janitor. It wasn’t until he turned thirteen that his dad allowed him to start working with anything dangerous. Corben was three years younger and had eagerly joined the team, taking over the cleaning tasks while Matt turned his attention to the glass.

  Matt glanced at the wall opposite the furnaces where several pictures of their father hung—posing in front of the studio with Mom, pulling a gather from the furnace, sitting at the bench shaping a piece. His obituary hung next to the last photo along with the article from the local newspaper about the car accident that had taken his life. The pain in Matt’s chest when he thought of his dad still sometimes burned as hot as the furnace.

  Corben let the gather drop back into the pool of molten glass at the bottom of the furnace and turned to Matt.

  “That look okay?” Matt asked.

  “Yep. Ready to go.”

  They were working on a commission from th
e mayor’s office—two hundred Christmas ornaments of clear glass, circled by accent bands of red, green, and white. Not the most exciting project, but Matt was grateful for the work. As any artist knew, commission was a magic word when it came to keeping the lights on.

  And fuel ... and supplies ... and equipment.

  His father had built the studio for the same reason his sons kept it—the art, not the money. But Matt saw the bills piling up month after month and knew the future of the business was nearly as fragile as the glass it produced.

  **

  Chapter 5

  “Welcome back, Erin,” Director Mona Stephens extended several typewritten pages toward her. “Jerome made some changes while you were gone.”

  Erin stifled a groan as she took the papers. She’d had her lines memorized weeks ago, but the playwright, Jerome Kirby, kept making so many changes that she shouldn’t have bothered. One of the dangers of working with a brand new play, she supposed. Hopefully the glory would make up for the grief when they took it to Broadway.

  No one really knew how realistic Broadway was. Several big-time New York producers had come to sit in on rehearsals and would probably be coming for opening night, but Jerome, Mona, and Sean, owner of the Azure Company, all maintained a tight-lipped silence about the play’s prospects.

  Based on the life of novelist Charlotte Brontë, the play was set from her teenage years to her death at age thirty-eight. But instead of merely being biographical, the script delved deeply into the creation process, showing how personal tragedy drove Charlotte’s retreat to her imaginary worlds. By the end of the show, the lines between fantasy and reality were so blurred, Charlotte couldn’t tell them apart.

  Erin had the lead role and as Charlotte, she relished the opportunity to portray this fragile, intelligent woman, whose writing had been so ahead of her time. Her favorite part was at the end of act one, when Charlotte confronts Constantin Heger, her unrequited love. Erin had worked endlessly on Charlotte’s emotional outburst, seeking to capture the complexity of her feelings. She was close, but still felt a struggle to do justice to the moment.

  “The rewrites aren’t too bad this time,” Jocelyn whispered from her seat on Erin’s right. As bad as the constant changes were for Erin, Jocelyn had it worse. She played Charlotte’s fictional character Jane Eyre, but since she was also Erin’s understudy, she had to learn and relearn Erin’s part along with her own.

  “That’s a relief,” Erin muttered as she thumbed through the new pages. She was relieved to find Jerome had left her favorite scene alone.

  “So, we have not quite three weeks until we open,” Mona said, calling the cast to order. She was a tall woman with creamy caramel skin and a bright crown of silvery hair which she wore in shoulder-length corkscrew curls. Her pronounced bone structure and dark, shadowed eyes gave her the look of a tall, fierce bird.

  “Yeah, can someone please tell Jerome?” Jacob Tuttle, Erin’s co-star, said sourly. “How are we supposed to build a cohesive show when he keeps changing everything?”

  Mona fixed him with a look. “I have been in shows where the writer changed a key scene at intermission. And we learned it and performed it without complaint.”

  Jacob had opened his mouth to say more, but seemed to think better of it. He sat in sullen silence, his eyes fixed on his script.

  “Any other questions?” Mona asked briskly.

  “When do we get the stage?” asked Sasha, who played Emily Brontë.

  “The set designer promised me access at the beginning of next week. Until then, we’ll have to make do.” Mona swept her hand around the rehearsal room where folding chairs and other pieces of furniture had been pressed into service as the set. “Let’s start at the top of act two,” she said, moving toward the wall where her table was set up. “Erin, mark it with Jocelyn the first few times to get the new blocking.”

  The actors took their places and launched into the scene.

  Despite her frustration over the constant changes, Erin couldn’t help feeling a wave of excitement. She loved performing, but in truth, this was why she loved acting—this process of becoming someone else, of developing a living, breathing person completely separate from her, even though they shared the same body. There was nothing like it in the world.

  They worked throughout the morning with only a quick coffee break. At noon, Quincy, the stage manager signaled for the lunch break. “Thirty minutes, people,” he announced loudly. “Which means you cannot be back until ...” he consulted his watch, “twelve thirty-three.”

  Erin rolled her eyes. According to union rules, every actor must get thirty minutes for lunch, which had somehow come to mean every actor had to spend exactly thirty minutes, not one second less, off the stage and out of rehearsal areas. It felt a bit like those days at camp when everyone had to stop swimming and get out of the water—completely out of the water—for five minutes at the top of every hour. You couldn’t even dip a toe in or a lifeguard would blow a whistle.

  The memory brought other memories of camp Wallakee flooding back: Holly and Summer giving makeovers; Taylor and Lindsey sneaking food from the kitchen for their late night parties; and of course she and Kynley entertaining them all with songs and skits ...

  “Erin, are you listening?” Jocelyn’s voice cut through her daydreams.

  “Sorry.” She grinned sheepishly. “Lost in thought.”

  “Wanna get some lunch at the deli?”

  Erin nodded, and they walked the three blocks to the Bridgeport Deli, a staple of Morgantown. Some of the other cast members were already there; they motioned the two girls over, but after an apologetic wave, Jocelyn led the way to a secluded booth in the corner.

  They ate in silence for a few minutes, then Jocelyn put down her turkey wrap and gave Erin a serious look.

  “What?”

  “There’s a rumor Jacob’s going to be replaced.”

  Erin almost choked on a bite of her chef salad. “Three weeks to opening? No way.”

  Jocelyn shrugged. “It happens. My friend Vicente is an ensemble dancer in The Lion King on Broadway, and he knew a guy who was fired two weeks before he was supposed to take over as Scar.”

  “Yeah, but that’s an established show on Broadway,” Erin pointed out. “They have understudies for the understudies, not to mention standby and swing performers. There are tons of people who could step in at the last minute to take over. We only have Mitchell, and he’s a mess.”

  Jacob’s understudy was a mediocre actor at best, still didn’t know all his lines, and had missed more than his fair share of rehearsals. Everyone knew the only reason Mona cast him was because his grandparents were big donors to the theater.

  Erin’s insides twisted like one of Matt’s glass knots. Jacob played the dual role of Edward Rochester and his inspiration, Constantin Heger. If Jacob left, she would have to start over from scratch, building chemistry with a new actor.

  But there was nothing she could do about it. Maybe someday when she was a huge star, she could have a say in casting, but for now she was stuck. “Did you get your final fittings done?” she asked instead. The costume department was working overtime to get everyone’s costumes finished by dress rehearsal.

  “Yes. The corsets are still horrible though,” Jocelyn sighed.

  “Corsets are always horrible,” Erin said. “I have a fitting scheduled for after rehearsal today and I’m hoping it doesn’t take long. I still have to go grocery shopping, unpack from my trip, and do laundry tonight.”

  The conversation moved on to other topics until their break ended and they joined the rest of the cast for the walk back to the theater.

  **

  Chapter 6

  “Give it up, Matt,” Corben said. “You’re so deep in the friend zone that she’ll probably ask you to be her maid of honor.”

  Matt chucked a baby carrot at him. It bounced off Corben’s arm and went skittering across the room. “You’re supposed to be giving me hope,” Matt said as he got up to retrie
ve the carrot. They had dragged folding chairs into the showroom for lunch and if they left a mess, they would definitely hear about it from Ma.

  Corben took a long swig of soda. “I don’t know what to tell you. I mean, if it’s supposed to happen, don’t you think it would have by now?”

  “I hate that saying.” Matt scowled.

  “All the same,” Corben said, unruffled, “you’ve been after this girl for, what, over a year now?”

  “Two years,” Matt admitted sheepishly. He dropped the carrot into the garbage and took his seat again.

  “And people say I’m stubborn,” Corben said.

  Two years wasn’t that long, was it? Matt was a patient guy. He hadn’t been looking for a relationship when he’d first met Erin in the parking lot of their apartment building. At first, he’d been content to become good friends. Not only was she gorgeous and fun, she had a larger-than-life personality that demanded attention. Her energy was infectious and he loved to watch how her eyes sparkled when she grabbed on to a new idea and ran with it.

  Eventually, his feelings grew to something deeper, but her’s didn’t. Every time he broached the subject, Erin shut down faster than the DMV at quitting time. She claimed they had no chemistry.

  But they did. Well, chemistry the way he defined it, not the way Erin defined it. To Matt, chemistry meant balance. Like how sand was just sand until a little bit of ash and lime turned it into the perfect batch of melted glass. It was like that for him. As hokey as it sounded, Erin made him feel ... whole, complete.

  But to Erin, chemistry meant explosions. It meant dumping a handful of Mentos into a glass of Coke and jumping back to watch the show. She wanted fireworks.

  Could he ever give her what she wanted? And would she ever give him the chance to try?

  “So I’m in the friend zone,” he said to Corben. “What do I do about it?”

  “Besides giving up?” Corben asked. When Matt nodded, he rolled his eyes. “You’ve got to break the stereotype.”

  “Meaning?”