Unscripted - A Celebrity Healing Romance PREVIEW

Three minutes to spare.

By Lucy Crowe’s private definition — practically late.

The glass doors of Seraph Entertainment slid open with a soft exhale of AC and Lucy walked through without slowing. Morning sun caught her hair for half a second — the lighter ends flared, then the building swallowed her whole. Her heels hit marble and kept their own rhythm, separate from all the office noise around her: clean, even, unapologetic. The charcoal suit fit her in exactly the right places. No give that might suggest anything else.

Her tablet already had everything she needed. Her assistant knew how Lucy operated.

Ariel Devereux.

She’d scrolled through his filmography on the Uber ride over — every magazine cover, every interview that went viral, every whispered piece of gossip circulating through the LA talent circuit. Midnight in Manhattan made him Hollywood’s golden boy. The Last First Date cemented his status as the industry’s most bankable romantic lead. The guy sold tickets — that part was inarguable.

Everything else?

Four agents in two years. Every split wrapped in “professional” language that barely covered the truth: he was difficult, demanding, and — according to the talent circuit’s whisper network — particularly resistant to being represented by women.

Lucy felt her jaw tighten. She released the tension before it became visible.

She’d dealt with worse.

Much worse.

The elevator opened on the seventh floor. Seraph’s conference wing — marble with thin gold veining underfoot, abstracts on the walls that whispered money instead of screaming it. Lucy walked through without slowing.

Ben Smith was waiting outside conference room three.

She recognized that posture immediately — suit hanging a little too loose across the shoulders, shoulder blades pulled inward, gaze fixed on the closed door.

“Hey,” he said when she got close.

The word landed like wet paper.

Lucy extended her hand. “Ben.”

He shook it without much conviction, then glanced back at the door. “Ariel might not be thrilled.”

She raised one eyebrow. Said nothing — enough of an invitation.

“He asked for the best agent.” Ben dragged a hand over his thinning hair. “A man. He put it in writing. Twice.”

Of course he did.

Lucy could practically see Angelica Reynolds reading that clause — those sharp blue eyes narrowing behind her desk as the full meaning landed. Angelica didn’t tolerate sexism dressed up as professional preferences. Not ever. She’d built Seraph from nothing, in an industry that cheerfully chewed through ambitious women and spat them out the moment they tried to climb.

Prove me wrong — that was Angelica’s operating principle. Someone challenged her judgment? She raised the stakes. Someone rejected her people on the basis of gender? She sent him the best person she had.

Who happened to be — much to Ariel Devereux’s unfortunate prejudice — Lucy.

“Did he specify why it had to be a man?” she asked, voice as level as a conference table before a meeting.

Ben shifted his weight.

“Says he works better with guys. That women in this business are too emotional, too fixated on the romantic image, not enough on career strategy.” He grimaced. “His words, not mine.”

“Ah. One of those.”

“Look, I’m not defending him.” Ben lowered his voice, even though the hallway was empty. “But he’s going to push back. Hard. He thinks personal charm is a substitute for basic decency. And when the charm doesn’t work, he gets sharp.”

Her tablet buzzed. A message from Victoria, head of PR:

Ready to resuscitate another fallen angel? This one’s got wings made of solid gold and a personality made of pure acid.

Lucy held back a smile. Victoria had always had a way with words.

“I appreciate the heads-up.” Her voice shifted slightly — that steel-wrapped-in-velvet note she’d spent years refining across negotiations with studios trying to lowball her clients. “But Angelica assigned me this for a reason. If Mr. Devereux has concerns about my qualifications, we can address them directly.”

“Your funeral.” Ben managed a thin smile. “Between us — you’re probably the only person at Seraph who can actually handle him.”

The conference room door swung open. A young assistant leaned out — tense, wearing exactly the expression Lucy knew well: someone who’d just realized what they’d signed up for.

“Ms. Crowe? Mr. Devereux is ready.”

Lucy straightened her blazer. Portfolio under her arm.

She’d worked with musicians who lost their minds over the wrong brand of still water. Actresses who demanded veto rights over every line of their script. A comedian who livestreamed his own police intervention and then asked his agent whether it helped his image.

How difficult could one rom-com actor be?

Ben knocked twice and pushed open the heavy oak door.

The conference room opened up in front of them — floor-to-ceiling windows, the LA skyline drenched in morning sun, furniture that cost more than most cars in the parking structure below. Seraph didn’t do anything halfway.

By the windows, on a cream leather sofa, sat Ariel Devereux.

One arm draped along the back, legs slightly apart, phone held at the angle Lucy recognized immediately. Scrolling. He was just — scrolling — for a meeting with a new agent.

He looked up.

Blue-green eyes — exactly like in the photos, except photographs hadn’t captured the temperature of that gaze. He slid his phone into his pocket in one unhurried motion and made a gesture toward Lucy that technically qualified as pointing but read more like waving someone out of his sightline.

“Ben.” The accent landed immediately — clipped British vowels pressed into an easy American cadence. “This is Seraph’s best agent?”

He stood.

One fluid movement and the conference room got a little smaller. At least six-two, shoulders filling a perfectly cut navy suit as though it had been tailored to his frame specifically — because it had. Dark blond hair catching the light, styled in that deliberately effortless way that always signals hours of a stylist’s work. A straight jawline, corners of his mouth slightly lifted, like everything he saw amused him just a little more than he was letting on.

He closed the distance. Extended his hand.

“Lucy Crowe.”

The grip was firm, purely professional. Not a trace of warmth. He released her hand and turned back to Ben — a barely subtle move, that nonverbal exchange between men conducted on the assumption that the woman in the room either wouldn’t notice or wouldn’t say anything.

Lucy noticed.

She always noticed.

“That’s right.” Her voice stayed calm, professional. “The best agent at Seraph. The CEO chose me herself.”

The muscle at Ariel’s temple jumped. Small, fast — but it was there. First crack in the perfect facade.

“The thing is, Ms. Crowe—” his brow furrowed, the irritation thin under a layer of British politeness — “I asked for a man." His gaze moved over her once more, without even attempting discretion. “And you are quite clearly not one.”

The words hung there.

Ben shifted near the door. Probably calculating the distance to the emergency exit.

Lucy held Ariel’s gaze. Didn’t blink first. She knew this type — men who mistook preferences for prejudice and dressed their sexism in corporate language, expecting everyone to go along with it for the sake of a quiet life.

“My gender is irrelevant.” Each word separate, like initialing each clause of a contract. “What matters is skill.”

“We’ll see.” He crossed his arms, fabric pulling across his shoulders. “I asked for the best.”

“Good agents know how to walk through fire.” She paused. “Or someone’s ego.”

That smile — the one from the movie posters, calibrated to the millimeter — appeared and didn’t reach his eyes by an inch.

“Fair enough. Let’s find out. I’ll assume Seraph knows what it’s doing.”

Lucy swallowed the comeback sitting at the back of her throat. The contract would look good in her portfolio regardless of what she thought about the man attached to it.

“Of course.” A small nod.

Ariel moved toward the conference table, trailing his fingers along the polished surface.

“Three months.” He turned, positioning himself so the window sat behind him. Someone who knew his angles perfectly. “If this isn’t working after three months, you’re out.”

He waited.

Lucy could see it in the stillness — one leg slightly forward, shoulders relaxed, the whole posture of someone who expects a particular response and already knows what it is.

“Fine.”

One word. No ornamentation.

Something shifted in his expression — brief, immediately gone. The corner of his mouth, maybe. Or the jawline that lost its certainty for just a second.

“Good.” Clipped. “I assume you’ve reviewed my contracts.”

“All of them.” She approached the table, set her portfolio down deliberately, opened it to the right page. “Including the Montblanc deal that’s bleeding money due to terrible brand positioning, and the franchise option that locks you into a sequel you — reading between the lines — have no intention of making.”

Ariel’s eyes narrowed. “Ben mentioned that.”

“Ben mentioned it three months ago.” She slid the breakdown across the table. “I already have a termination proposal drafted for Montblanc that protects against penalty clauses, and preliminary terms negotiated with the studio on the sequel.”

“Without consulting me?” Ice in his voice, arriving fast.

"Preliminary terms,” she repeated, level. “Nothing’s been signed. But if you’d prefer to spend the next three months starting from scratch instead of building on a foundation — we can do that too.”

The silence between them pulled taut.

Behind her, Ben cleared his throat.

“Right. I’ll, uh — leave you two to it.”

The door latch clicked.

Ariel studied her across the table — the practiced charm stripped away now. Something sharper underneath, which Lucy noted and filed for later.

“You’re confident.”

“I’m just good.”

The corner of his mouth moved. Barely — but it moved.

“Three months, Ms. Crowe.”

“Three months, Mr. Devereux.”

Her heels hit the lobby marble on the way out — a little harder this time, the rhythm faster than it had been going in. The parking valet handed Lucy her keys with a practiced smile she didn’t register.

She got into the BMW, pulled the door shut. The leather seat met her with a cool press.

She shut the door slightly harder than necessary.

"Three months, Ms. Crowe," she quoted under her breath, tilting her voice into his unhurried, clipped cadence. Her fingers closed around the steering wheel — she felt her own knuckles under the skin. She eased the grip. Then tightened it again.

“What an ass.”

The engine purred on. She hit the radio — something loud and sharp flooded the car and Lucy pulled out of the parking structure into the full noon glare of LA.

Wilshire Boulevard moved at its usual slow, indifferent pace. The palms swayed in the breeze with that particular detachment that trees have — they don’t care about your mood, your plans, or men who look at you like a bid they’ve already decided to reject.

The music hammered through the speakers and Lucy let it hammer.

Just wait, you British ass.

“Lu!”

Victoria appeared in the hallway — dark eyes already lit with amusement.

“You survived!”

Lucy’s expression landed somewhere between a grimace and a snarl. She dropped her portfolio on the nearest desk.

“God.” Short. “His Royal Highness.”

Victoria let out a laugh she tried to muffle behind her hand — it shook her shoulders anyway.

“That bad?” Her eyebrows moved in that specific way Lucy had memorized years ago. Then something shifted — unabashedly entertained, maybe a little bit impressed. “Okay but at least there’s something worth looking at. Girl. Wow."

Lucy’s look could have etched glass.

“He might be attractive. He’s still an ass.”

"Sure he is.” Victoria drew it out.

Skepticism dripped from every syllable. Her expression said everything — she’d already written the whole story in her head, with exactly the beginning, middle, and end that Lucy was going to serve her, and then categorically deny.

Lucy gathered her things and headed toward Angelica’s office.

Glass walls. The CEO at her desk, leaning over her tablet with the focused intensity that had become industry legend. Lucy knocked once.

Walked in.

“Why did you send me in there?” The words came out before she’d decided between professional and honest. “He is deeply unimpressed with me and we haven’t even started. I haven’t done anything yet and he’s already planning my exit.”

Angelica set down her tablet. Crossed her arms.

“Exactly.”

Lucy blinked.

“That man needs to learn that behavior like that is not acceptable here.” Angelica’s voice carried the weight of years spent managing egos that would make Ariel Devereux look minor-league. “He doesn’t get to choose his representation based on outdated prejudice. Not at Seraph.”

The pieces clicked into place with painful, crystalline clarity.

“You sent me in there to piss him off?”

“Yes.”

Angelica’s smile broke open — proud, unapologetic, absolutely certain of its own logic. The smile that had founded the company, signed eight-figure contracts, and never apologized for any of it.

Lucy felt something strange in her stomach. Admiration and despair, in roughly equal measure.

Of course.

Not a prestige assignment. A lesson — packaged with a contract.

“Show him you’re better than any male agent he’s ever had.” Angelica settled back into her chair. “Three months is enough.”

The sigh came from somewhere deeper than Lucy intended.

“Great.” The sarcasm landed with the finish of a good vintage.

“Off you go, chérie." Angelica waved her out — a general dispatching a knight, no doubt about the outcome.

Lucy picked up her tablet.

Lists started organizing themselves in her head — contract review, schedule restructuring, a detailed management plan for a man who had made it abundantly clear he did not want to be managed. Especially not by her.

The elevator doors closed and behind the glass, Los Angeles spread out — city of ambition, illusion, and people absolutely convinced of their own irreplaceability.

Lucy pulled out her phone.

Started typing the first note.

Challenge accepted, Your Royal Ass.