The cookies and cold brew turn on Dev, churning unpleasantly in his stomach.
Maureen claps her hands together. “It’s settled, then. Ryan, get the handlers to focus on the villain narrative. Skylar, have the cameras shift their attention to the girls until our star gets a little more comfortable. And Dev…” His boss looks at him, her tone losing a bit of its usual sweetness. “Charm him.”
* * *
“Are you okay?” Jules asks as they stumble out of the meeting.
“Of course I’m okay,” he says automatically, even as the words go full crazy rattle around in his head. “I’m always okay.”
Jules doesn’t push it. She follows him down a short hallway toward the museum showroom where Megan and Charlie are eating dinner amidst a collection of contemporary sculptures. As soon as Charlie spots them behind the cameras, he makes a get me out of here face at Dev, like he thinks this is a normal date, and Dev can text him with some fake emergency about his cat.
“What are we going to do, Jules?”
“Sit back and watch it burn?”
He shakes his head, scrubs a hand up and down his face, almost knocking off his glasses. “I know I can find a way to make him fall for one of these women if I can just get him to loosen the fuck up. I just need… I need… I don’t know. Something to… argh. It’s not usually this hard.”
Jules tilts her head and peers up at him with her usual look of concern. She opens her mouth, closes her mouth, then sighs. “Okay, fine. You want my actual advice on how to crack him?” She takes a dramatic pause. “Exposure therapy.”
“Which is… what, exactly?”
Jules points to Charlie and Megan. “Somehow, that fine-ass man sitting over there becomes an anxiety-ridden mess every time he’s in a high-pressure social setting. It’s as if the concept of dating triggers all his neuroses. And what do you do to treat an anxiety disorder?”
“I think he’s already on meds.” Jules raises an eyebrow. “What? I maybe went through his things in the bathroom. I’m his handler.”
“You’re unscrupulous is what you are. And no. I mean, I’m sure the meds help, but that’s not all.”
“I’m a therapy dropout. Just tell me the answer.”
Jules adopts a condescending tone. “You gradually expose the patient to the source of the anxiety to desensitize them. Charlie needs to go on dates without the stress of the cameras. He needs to be exposed to non-stressful dating scenarios.”
“Okay, I am not sure any of this is psychiatrically sound, but also, it’s kind of genius.”
She shrugs. “I know.”
“We have him go on practice dates,” he says, excited now, because yes, this could work. Charlie can’t date the contestants without the cameras, but they get time off after each Crowning Ceremony. “Jules, you could take him out on a date Sunday, just the two of you. Help him get more comfortable. Teach him how to relax.”
“Oh, I can’t be his practice girlfriend.” Jules pointedly adjusts her nonexistent breasts inside her crop top. “I’m too hot.”
“Not sure how that’s relevant.”
“It would be a Kate Hudson rom-com situation,” she says with a straight face. “He’d fall in love with me while we’re fake-dating. The season would be destroyed, and we’d both get sued. Is that what you want, Dev?”
He laughs, but when they look over at Charlie again, he makes eye contact with Jules and blushes, ducking his head toward his plate. So maybe she’s not entirely wrong.
“Shit,” is all Dev says. Because it is a good idea. And because Dev is the one who’s supposed to charm him.