Willa sat at her home office desk, a steaming mug of chamomile tea cradled in her hands, and stared at her laptop screen. In the corner, a small square showed her own face—poised, professional, a calming smile plastered on her lips.
It was the face she wore as armor. Beside her, a much more interesting square remained dark, waiting.
Her heart gave a little tap-dance against her ribs, a rhythm that was equal parts anxiety and anticipation.
This was it. The planning call for the Sterling wedding.
The Newport affair. Her golden ticket.
The wedding that, if she could pull it off, would land her a feature in Bridal Bliss magazine and solidify her business for years to come. All she had to do was successfully orchestrate the nuptials of Anastasia Sterling, a twenty-four-year-old heiress whose reputation preceded her like a tidal wave of tulle and tantrums.
Her phone buzzed on the desk. A text from Caleb.
Caleb: You ready for this? Got my flak jacket on.
A real, unforced smile broke through her professional veneer. She quickly typed back.
Willa: Flak jacket? I’ve got my entire emergency bunker prepped. You just have to point and shoot. I’m the one who has to talk her out of demanding a unicorn for the ring bearer.
Caleb: Don’t give her any ideas. My producer would love that. Too bad unicorns aren’t real.
Willa: Anastasia Sterling might consider that a minor logistical hurdle.
Just then, Caleb’s square on the video call flickered to life. He was in his own apartment, a space that looked surprisingly minimalist and tidy for someone who spent his weekends documenting chaos.
He wore a simple grey t-shirt, his hair slightly rumpled, and the sight of him, casual and familiar, sent a ridiculous jolt of warmth through her. He gave her a small, tight smile that was just for her—a silent acknowledgment of the absurdity they were about to face together.
“Grant,” he said, his voice a low rumble through her speakers. “Voss.”
“Ready for battle?” she asked softly.
“Born ready,” he deadpanned, but his eyes were serious. “Just remember, we’re a team.”
Before she could respond, two more squares lit up. One revealed a woman with a severe blonde bob and a diamond necklace that could likely fund a small nation—Mrs. Sterling.
The other showed Anastasia. She was undeniably beautiful, with wide, doll-like eyes and a pout that had probably been perfected since infancy.
She was wearing a silk robe and sipping from a glass of what looked suspiciously like champagne at eleven in the morning.
“Willa, is it?” Anastasia said, her voice a bored, airy drawl. “And you must be… the camera person.”
Caleb’s eyebrow twitched. “Caleb Voss. Videographer.”
“Right. Well, let’s get to it. Mother and I have a tasting at one.” Anastasia waved a dismissive hand.
“I’ve emailed you the vision board. It’s less of a ‘board’ and more of an immersive aesthetic mandate. Did you review it?”
“I did, Anastasia,” Willa said, her customer-service voice clicking into place. “It’s ambitious and beautifully curated. The ‘ethereal ocean glamour’ theme is very clear.”
“Good. So, first things first. The processional.” Anastasia leaned closer to her camera.
“I want doves. A flock of them. Released from antique cages by cherubic little boys the moment I step onto the aisle.”
Willa’s pen froze over her notepad. She could already picture it: bird droppings on a Vera Wang gown, panicked guests swatting at wings, a scene straight out of a Hitchcock film.
“Live doves can be… unpredictable,” Willa began gently.
“They are beautiful, but they can pose a logistical and, well, a sanitary challenge. Perhaps we could explore symbolic alternatives? Exquisite feather motifs, or…”
“No,” Anastasia cut her off. “I want the feeling of flight. Of freedom. I want real, living creatures. It’s biophilic.”
Willa’s phone buzzed again.
Caleb: Biophilic? I don’t think that word means what she thinks it means. She’s going to get pooped on.
Willa fought to keep her expression neutral, a heroic effort of facial muscle control.
“Of course. We can certainly research licensed animal handlers who specialize in… avian event artistry. We’ll look into it.”
“See that you do,” Mrs. Sterling added, her first contribution to the call. Her voice was like ice chips clinking in a crystal glass.
“Next,” Anastasia continued, scrolling through a tablet. “The champagne fountain.”
“A classic choice,” Willa said, relieved to be on safer ground. “We can source a beautiful three or four-tiered model…”
“I was thinking taller.”
“Oh?”
“Taller than a person. I want it to be a statement piece. Something… architectural. People should have to reach up to get a glass. It’s about aspiration.”
Willa’s smile was beginning to feel like a hardening mask. She pictured a tipsy groomsman trying to scale the thing like King Kong.
Her phone buzzed.
Caleb: Aspiration or a liability lawsuit? I’m going to need a waterproof housing for my camera.
Willa: (texting under her desk) Focus. You’re supposed to be my emotional support videographer.
Caleb: This is emotionally damaging. This is documentary gold.
Willa’s fingers paused over the screen. Documentary gold.
He was joking, of course. It was their shorthand for the industry’s insanity.
But for a split second, the phrase snagged on something in her mind. She pushed it away. He was on her side. They were a team.
On screen, Caleb had adopted a look of intense professional interest.
“From a visual standpoint, Anastasia, a feature of that scale would be magnificent. We’d just need to ensure the venue has the proper structural support and that we manage guest flow around it carefully to prevent any accidents.”
Willa shot him a grateful look. He’d translated her internal panic into practical, professional concerns, backing her play without undermining the client.
This was their new dynamic, forged in the fires of a Wyoming family brawl and solidified over a shared bottle of whiskey. They were a well-oiled machine.
“Finally, for now,” Anastasia said, sighing as if the effort of planning her own six-figure party was exhausting, “the florals. I want hydrangeas. But not just any blue. I want the exact color of the Aegean Sea at dusk. The shade just before it turns black.”
“That’s a very specific and poetic request,” Willa said carefully. “Florists can do wonders with dyes, but nature has its limits. Perhaps we can find a shade that’s very close…”
“Close isn’t the same,” Anastasia pouted. “It needs to be exact. Figure it out.”
The rest of the call was a blur of similarly impossible demands: a string quartet that could play a Metallica cover for the recessional, a Michelin-starred chef to be flown in from Paris to personally hand-decorate three hundred petit-fours, and a request that Caleb’s final video be edited to “feel like a Terrence Malick film, but, you know, happy.”
When Anastasia and her mother finally signed off, Willa and Caleb remained in the video call, two silent squares on a screen. Willa let out a breath she didn’t realize she’d been holding for an entire hour. It came out as a low, weary groan.
“Wow,” was all Caleb said. He ran a hand through his hair. “Just… wow.”
“‘The exact color of the Aegean Sea at dusk,’” Willa mimicked, dropping her head into her hands. “What does that even mean? Is she a poet? A Bond villain? I can’t tell.”
Caleb laughed, a genuine, deep sound that made her stomach flutter.
“I think my favorite was the champagne fountain. Taller than a person. She wants to create a sticky, boozy waterfall in the middle of a priceless Newport mansion.”
“Don’t forget the live doves,” Willa moaned, peering at him through her fingers. “My Bridal Bliss feature is going to be an ornithological horror story.”
“Hey,” he said, his voice softening. “We’ll handle it. You’ll find a way to gently talk her down to a tasteful, non-pooping alternative, and I’ll film it so artfully no one will even remember she wanted a bird infestation.”
“We?” she asked, her own voice quieter now.
“Yeah, we,” he confirmed, his gaze steady. “We’re a team against the coming storm. And this storm’s name is Anastasia.”
There it was again. That feeling of solidarity, of being perfectly in sync.
It was more intoxicating than any champagne fountain. For the last few weeks, since Wyoming, this feeling had been a low, steady hum beneath the surface of her professional life.
His texts were the first she looked for after a client call. His opinion was the one she trusted most on vendor choices.
In the face of this Bridezilla, he wasn’t the cynical observer she’d first met; he was her foxhole buddy, her partner.
She looked at his face on her screen—the way his eyes crinkled when he almost smiled, the intensity of his focus. She trusted him. Completely.
From his apartment, Caleb watched her expression soften, saw the genuine gratitude in her eyes, and felt a familiar, sickening lurch in his gut.
We’re a team. He’d said it, and he’d meant it.
Every word. He admired her more than anyone he’d met in years. He wanted to protect her from the Anastasia Sterlings of the world, to help her succeed.
But as he watched her, another voice, the one that sounded a lot like his producer, chimed in his head.
‘This is the narrative tension, Caleb! The sincere believer versus the soulless consumer! The contrast is perfect! You need to get her on camera talking about these absurd requests. Get her real, unfiltered reaction.’
He pictured it: a tight shot on Willa’s exhausted face, her voice-over confessing how soul-crushing these demands were, intercut with footage of Anastasia tossing out impossible orders like confetti.
It was powerful. It was the core of his documentary.
And it was a profound betrayal of the woman on his screen, the one who was looking at him right now as if he were her only ally in the world.
The weight of it—the duplicity, the impending train wreck he was both orchestrating and dreading—settled on him, heavier than ever.
Their alliance, this easy, wonderful thing that had started to feel like the most real part of his life, was also the very thing that made his secret a monstrous, unforgivable lie.
“I have to go,” he said abruptly, his tone shifting. “Got to… prep some gear.”
Willa’s smile faltered slightly at his sudden change. “Oh. Okay. Well… talk soon?”
“Yeah,” he said, his eyes avoiding hers. “Soon.”
He ended the call, plunging his screen into darkness. He was left alone in the quiet of his apartment, the echo of their shared laughter still hanging in the air.
He was her teammate, her partner, her ally. And he was filming the whole thing for a project that would tear her world apart. The storm wasn’t just Anastasia. The real storm was him.