Peerless Perverted Actor Has a Celebrity Harem?!

Park had been knocked down by a car once. Jessie was managing something broadly comparable from the opposite side of a table, only considerably prettier about it, and taking her time.

"Afraid?" he repeated, dragging his attention back up to her eyes with effort he did not entirely bother hiding. "No."

Her gaze dropped briefly to his hand; Park realised his fingers had closed around the edge of the table, and released it.

"I’m respecting engineering," he corrected.

"Very tightly from the looks of it."

"The engineers deserve support."

Jessie smiled into her wineglass.

’Damn woman,’ Park thought. ’She knows. Of course she knows what she’s doing to me perverted soul.’

She had known for most of the day, in fairness, because Park had never been subtle when he wanted a woman to understand she had his attention. He looked without turning it into some creepy little performance, smiled every time their eyes met, and had cheerfully followed every intimate pose she suggested during the photographs.

And Jessie would have been lying to herself to claim the curiosity ran in only one direction.

Park was new, so beautiful enough to be suspicious about, funny without seeming desperate for the laugh, shameless without turning vulgar every ten seconds, and strangely comfortable around people whose surnames had reduced grown men to stammering.

He did not act impressed by her status, which was refreshing, he seemed a great deal more impressed by her dress, her legs, and the view down her neckline whenever he believed she was looking elsewhere.

’That is also refreshing hot... I think I would love to get to know him more. Maybe even more?’

More usefully, Emmeline showed noromantic interest in him whatsoever, and Jessie had spent most of the day quietly testing that theory.

And even her friend herself had told her to lean into Park in pictures, wrapped an arm around his waist, held his arm, looped both hands round his neck, and during some pictures pressed close enough that her breasts had flattened against his side, his chest when she hugged him and even posed in that almost-kiss pose as she looked up into his eyes and sweet-looking lips as she pretended to fix his collar and yet Emmeline had not produced the smallest flicker of jealousy about any of it.

’Quite the opposite.’

She had kept telling them to move closer.

’The two of them are obviously close—extremely close, possibly—but there is nothing romantic underneath it all.’

Which meant the road ahead looked pleasantly open.

Jessie lifted her glass and took a slow sip.

’Interesting how this is going to be,’ she thought.

***

The private booth seated only the three of them. Quinn and the remaining staff had taken a table inside the main restaurant, close enough to respond and far enough to grant their employers privacy.

Park had located Quinn through the glass partition twice now.

Both times she had been looking somewhere else, and the somewhere else had been suspiciously specific. She had positioned herself with a clean sightline to their booth and had then spent the entire meal declining to use it, which was quite a remarkable decision for a woman paid to keep her eyes on him.

Her posture was immaculate.

Her water glass had not moved; every so often her attention swept the room in a slow professional arc that took in every exit, every server, every other diner, and passed over the glass box containing Park and a girl in a backless dress without pausing.

’She’s furiously jealous,’ Park thought, with enormous satisfaction. ’She’s sitting up there being furious in complete silence and she’s going to go home and be furious about it privately and she will never in her life admit that any of this happened.’

The food itself was in careful waves of steak, roasted vegetables, glazed potatoes, delicate side dishes, fresh bread, sauces presented in small bowls, everything arranged beautifully enough that Park very nearly felt guilty about attacking it with a knife. Nearly. After a lifetime of cheap food, guilt stood no real chance against good steak.

He and Emmeline were halfway through a serious argument about his social media when Jessie finally joined in.

"You know," she said, cutting into her steak, "his agency might ask to handle his socials anyway." She lifted the bite, took it between her lips, chewed, and looked between them. "So why are you two arguing about it like divorced parents deciding who gets custody of Igram?"

"We’re not arguing," Emmeline said.

Park looked at Jessie. "We’re arguing."

Emmeline kicked him under the table softly.

He felt it through his new trousers and looked faked deeply offended. "Violence again?"

"Stop making me sound difficult."

"You threatened to test the tower windows using my body."

"That was different."

"How?"

"We weren’t eating."

Jessie laughed and reached for her wine.

Emmeline turned toward her. "He hasn’t chosen a proper stage name yet, either."

"I chose one."

"You suggested one."

"That’s how choosing works."

"You thought of yesterday morning before your shoot finished."

"And?"

Emmeline ignored him entirely and addressed Jessie. "We had Nathan Park, Nate Park, Park Nathaniel, and Nathaniel Park. He likes Nathaniel Park."

Jessie looked at him for a moment, testing the name against his face.

"Nathaniel Park is better."

Park smiled. "Thank you."

"It sounds original without sounding fake," she went on. "Nathaniel is memorable, Park keeps it simple, and it gives people options. Fans can call you Nathaniel, or Nate, or Park, depending on which version of you they’ve decided belongs to them."

Park pointed his fork at her. "See? She understands branding."

Jessie smiled at him, softer than before, and Park mouthed a silent thank you across the table. She answered with the smallest possible nod, and something quietly passed between them that Emmeline was too busy considering the name to notice.

"Nathaniel Park," Emmeline said, sitting back. Park waited. "It could work," she admitted.

"Of course it is going to work."

"But your username has to match, and you won’t be able to manage the accounts properly, will you?"

Park and Jessie both shook their heads in agreement.

Emmeline narrowed her eyes. "That was very fast."

Park swallowed a bite of steak. "I know myself."

"I have seen his current social accounts. If you give him these, he’d post once every four months," Jessie added, "disappear entirely, then resurface at three in the morning with a blurry photograph of the moon."

Park looked at her. "That sounds artistic."

"That sounds unemployed."

Jessie turned back to Emmeline. "Why don’t you manage them?"

Emmeline lowered her fork. "Like you said, his agency might want the official accounts. And also—"

"I want you to do it, Em," Park said.

She paused, and for one small second the smugness went out of her face entirely. Then she recovered and lifted her chin. "I was about to say I’m busy."

Park nodded with enormous understanding. "Right. Of course."

Emmeline blinked.

He turned toward Jessie. "What about you? You seem talented, responsible, beautiful, and already frighteningly invested in the minds of the empire’s people to know what they want and—"

"Hey!"

Emmeline’s voice came across the booth fast enough to make Jessie burst out laughing.

Park turned back slowly.

Emmeline looked personally betrayed. "I was kidding."

"Oh?"

"Of course I’ll manage them."

"But you’re busy."

"I’ll make time."

Park held a serious expression for precisely two seconds before he and Jessie both cracked, and Emmeline worked out exactly what had just been done to her.

Her eyes narrowed. "You bastard."

Park reached across the table and ruffled her hair again, destroying the section she had repaired after the lift. "There she is."

"Stop touching my hair."

"I was kidding too," he said, smoothing it down badly. "I knew you’d come round."

"You did not."

"I absolutely did."

"You were going to hand my job to Jessie."

Jessie raised her glass. "I would have accepted."

"Traitor."

"I’ve known you for years. You should have seen it coming."

Park sat back, thoroughly pleased with himself. "Then it’s settled. Em manages Nathaniel Park."

Emmeline slapped his hand away as he reached for her hair again. "I control the captions."

"Within reason."

"I choose which pictures get posted."

"Uh-oh."

"I delete anything embarrassing."

"Define embarrassing."

"Anything you like."

Park stared at her. Jessie laughed into her wine. Emmeline smiled sweetly and picked up her fork.

He looked from his sister to the endless city beyond the glass, then down through the transparent floor at the several hundred metres of nothing holding all of them up.

’So far:

He had died face-down on a pavement with a hundred and forty in his account. Since then he had been resurrected, awarded a broken System, discovered a family, been undressed while unconscious, spent an unspecified but genuinely alarming fortune on shoes and clothes, and eaten lunch in a glass box suspended over the largest capital city he had ever seen.

Somehow, handing Emmeline control of his social media still felt like the most dangerous decision he had made all day.

Through the partition, entirely by accident, he caught Quinn looking.

She did not look away this time.

She held it for a full second—flat, unimpressed, and absolutely aware that he had spent the last hour sitting across a small table from a girl in a dress with no back to speak of—and then returned to her professional sweep of the room as though nothing whatsoever had occurred.

Park picked up his glass to hide the grin.

’Oh, Guard Queen,’ he thought. ’You are in so much trouble.’

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