Driving through rural Connecticut, Bobby Roode realised that he was going to be early for his meeting. Today was the first time he had been invited to Lucy Thorne's house, which was why he had left himself plenty of time to make the unfamiliar journey. Half an hour before the agreed time of ten AM, the satnav in his rental car told him that he was five minutes away from his destination.
Due to having a busy afternoon of meetings scheduled with business associated who not connected with WWE, Lucy had announced that the creative meeting that was planned for the morning would have to take place at her home. As far as Bobby knew, he and Charlotte were the first members of the active roster to be invited out there. His inquisitive side was looking forward to seeing what the boss's house was like.
Another thing Bobby was looking forward to was talking about the romance angle that was imminently getting underway between him and Lucy. The week before, his push had started when he had entered the Royal Rumble match at number three, and had lasted all the way until the final three, going nearly an hour in the match. His heel turn, however, was not yet coming into effect.
Since Charlotte's proposal had been agreed to, there had been some dithering and confusion about how to start putting the idea of the supposed Roode – Thorne relationship across to the audience. Resolving that question once and for all was one of the items on the agenda for the upcoming meeting.
"You have reached your destination," the satnav announced.
Bobby saw a gateway just up ahead, on the left side of the road. The huge black metal gates were standing open. He turned his car in, and proceeded slowly along a driveway which took him through some tall trees. There was still no sign of the house.
The driveway curved to the right, then the scene opened up before Bobby. He was driving into a large courtyard which had a fountain in the centre of it, currently not in operation since there was half an inch of snow on the ground and the water would be frozen. Across the courtyard stood Lucy Thorne's mansion. It was a two storey Georgian style building with a dormer roof that looked like it had been recently replaced or refurbished. Off to the right of the courtyard was a detached triple garage. Bobby found himself wondering what ridiculously expensive cars might lie behind those three doors.
"Very nice," he muttered to himself as he parked up near to the grand entrance that had stone pillars either side of it to hold up the porch roof. He made sure to leave room for Hunter, TJ and Charlotte to park when they arrived. There had been no tyre tracks in the snow on the driveway, so he knew for sure that he had been the only person to travel to or from the house since the overnight snowfall.
"Jesus Christ," Bobby said when he stepped out of the car, a blast of freezing cold wind hitting him right in the face. Wanting to get back into somewhere warm as soon as possible, he rushed towards the front door.
Just before Bobby reached the house, the large wooden door opened. An attractive woman with long brown hair stood in the doorway, but it wasn't Lucy Thorne. For a second, Bobby felt on the back foot. Was he at the correct house?
"Good morning. You're here for the meeting with Ms Thorne?" the woman assumed in an English accent, helping Bobby out. He was talking to the hired help. Thorne actually had a maid working for her, even though that probably wasn't the right term, he thought.
"I am," Bobby confirmed, his breath visible in the cold. He decided it was appropriate to introduce himself. "Booby Roode."
"Please, come in," the woman replied, standing aside to admit him. She apparently did not consider her own introduction to have any relevance.
Bobby walked into an expansive entrance hallway, finding it furnished and decorated in a more modern style than the exterior suggested. He got the impression that the whole place had been gutted and started over when Thorne and her now ex-husband had bought it. "Lovely place, this," he commented appreciatively.
"Yes," the woman agreed, accepting the fact for what it was. "Please, follow me. The meeting will be taking place in the great room."
Walking along behind her across the hallway in the direction of the rear of the house, Bobby found himself smiling and shaking his head slightly. He had never heard of a room in a house being called a great room. Combined with some of the clearly very expensive artwork on the walls he was walking past, it was already a demonstration of how the other half lived. While he was a long way from poor, and had a house that a lot of people would be envious of, this was a completely different ballgame altogether. Everything was spotlessly clean, too, as well it should be if Lucy had staff working for her.
The woman pushed open a door and walking into the room beyond. As she did so, she announced Bobby's arrival. "Bobby Roode is here, Lucy."
Bobby might have noticed the fact that at home Lucy didn't mind being referred to informally if it hadn't been for the fact that his mind had been blown as soon as he walked into the room. The great room was no exaggeration, but what had really astonished him was that almost the entire wall opposite where he was standing consisted of a truly enormous window. The view from it was breath-taking. Snow-covered rolling hills stretched as far as the eye could see, without so much as a single building anywhere in sight. It looked like Thorne's own piece of paradise.
"Wow," Bobby said emphatically as he turned to greet the boss, who was approaching from the far end of the room, where she had been sitting in a comfortable chair in front of a roaring fire that had the room delightfully warm.
"This was the first room I saw when we viewed this place," Lucy said with a smile that conveyed her pleasure at his reaction. "I stood and looked through that window, and I decided right away this was the place." Reaching Bobby, she offered her hand. "Thanks for coming. It's good to see you."
"Thanks for the invite," he replied as they shook, even though it had really been an instruction to come, not an invite.
"Sorry to have to drag you out here," Lucy said, seeming to actually mean it. "Sometimes running multiple businesses makes this kind of thing necessary. I'm sure you understand."
I wouldn't have a fucking clue, Bobby thought, but chose not to say. It wasn't just the fact that he was talking to the Chairwoman of WWE that made his usual wisecracks come less easily. There was also the fact that he found her ridiculously attractive, to the point where he felt a hint of shyness. Maybe it was the power. Maybe it was money. Maybe it was her considerable natural beauty. Maybe it was all of those things. Whatever the reason, he found Lucy hot as hell, and was definitely not going to complain about working the romance angle with her.
"I'll take your coat," the woman who had met Bobby at the door offered.
"Thanks, Jo," Lucy said to her as Bobby handed the coat over. "Some coffee would be good."
"Coffee coming up," Jo confirmed.
"Join me by the fire," Lucy said, another instruction disguised as an invite.
Following the boss across the room, Bobby noticed as he had done many times before what a sweet ass she had. It was obvious even when she was wearing suit pants. The thought occurred to him that someone had recently divorced this woman. Was he fucking mad? Bobby wondered.
But then, he knew from personal experience that marriages could fail between people who loved each other. His own marriage had broken down six months earlier, with the divorce becoming official just before Christmas. How nice that had been, he recalled, feeling a moment of sadness. At least there was one thing he had in common with Lucy.
"Have a seat," Lucy said as she sat back down in her chair, snapping Bobby out of his thoughts.
"Thanks. Sorry I'm a bit early," he said as he took a seat on one of the chairs opposite her. There were four of them arranged around a low table, which had some documents strewn across it. "I didn't know how much the snow might affect the journey time. The roads are quite clear, though."
"Nothing to apologise for," Lucy replied easily. Her gorgeous blue eyes held Bobby's, and he had to actively tell himself to stop thinking about her looks before he made an asshole of himself. "I was just reading up on the notes for the meeting," she explained. "Besides, the others will be here any minute."
"Really nice place you've got here," Bobby commented, looking around the great room. There was a large wooden table at the end of the room he had entered from, capable of sitting six people. He assumed that was where the meeting would take place.
His eye was attracted by a large painting of a World War Two era aircraft. He recognised it as being the same type of plane as the one that Lucy had arranged to fly over the stadium in England where the British Invasion pay-per-view had taken place. He recalled her saying something about her grandfather having served on those planes during the war.
"It's a good painting, isn't it?" Lucy said quietly, having seen where he was looking.
Bobby nodded. "It really is, especially for someone whose artistic talent goes as far as drawing a house as a rectangle with four windows, a door and a chimney on the top."
Lucy gave a single laugh at his joke, but there was genuine amusement in it. "Same," was her simple comment.
"I recognise it," Bobby said, meaning the plane. "It's the one you had fly over in England. You said your grandfather served on them, right?"
Lucy nodded. "It's an Avro Lancaster. They were used for the bombing of Germany, France, etcetera during the war. My granddad's plane, like hundreds of others, was shot down over Berlin with the loss of everyone on-board."
"Sorry," he said genuinely, looking her in the eye.
"Thank you. I just feel it's important to remember them, you know?"
Bobby realised she meant everyone who had died during the war. "I agree. Definitely."
"Hunter is here, Lucy," Jo announced as she walked back into the room, carrying a large tray with a pot of coffee, some cups and pretty much anything else that might be needed to fix everyone's version of a perfect brew.
"Thanks, Jo," Lucy said, getting up for her next greeting, scooping up her paperwork in a swift motion. As she got up, she motioned for Bobby to follow. Apparently it was time for them to convene at the table. He found himself thinking it was a shame. He would have liked to have chatted to her for a while longer.
First Lucy, then Bobby exchanged greetings with Hunter before sitting down at the table, the two men opposite the boss, who dumped her papers on the table in front of her and began making small talk by asking Hunter about how his drive out had been. Since Hunter had shown no reaction at all to the jaw-dropping view, Bobby assumed he had been out here before. That would also explain Jo using only his first name, and knowing his preference for coffee without asking.
By the time Jo had fixed three drinks, there had been a loud knock on the front door. Lucy glanced at her watch and said, "Good. At this rate we can start early."
As Jo hurried off to answer the door, Hunter spoke to Lucy. "I have good news. We've finally all agreed on a strategy for the Thorne/Roode relationship angle. Hopefully you'll be able to sign off on it today and we can get it started."
Charlotte and TJ's voices came from out in the hallway, introducing themselves to Jo. They had apparently arrived together. Everyone scheduled for the meeting was now in attendance.
"That sounds promising," Lucy said to Hunter as she rose to greet Charlotte and TJ.
Shortly, more greetings, handshakes and pleasantries had been exchanged – Lucy and TJ both commenting on the view - coffee had been fixed, and TJ had a laptop open in front of him to type up the minutes of the meeting as they went along. He had chosen the seat next to Lucy, with Charlotte sitting beside Hunter.
"Right then, to business," Lucy said. "Hunter just told me he's confident you've now got something I'll be happy with regarding this romance storyline. I really hope so, because I wasn't impressed with what you pitched last week."
There was no humour in that comment, giving Bobby the distinct impression that the previous week's discussion about the men's storylines had gotten a little heated.
"We went back to the drawing board, taking your comments on-board," TJ said.
"Alright then, take it from the top," Lucy instructed.
"The idea now is to try and convince the audience that your relationship with Bobby is not an angle, but a reality."
Lucy glanced at everyone around the table. Her interest had been piqued by that. She wasn't the only one. Bobby was surprised, and listened eagerly while TJ continued.
"The plan all along was to turn Bobby heel and get heat on him over the fact that he's sleeping with the boss to get ahead. What if, rather than that being the case with his character and your character, we can get people to believe that Bobby is really getting a push because he really is seeing you?"
"Yeah, that's good," Lucy said slowly. "So we don't get kayfabe heat on him, we get real heat on him and let that serve our purposes. I like that. Tell me how you plan to go about it."
Hunter had just taken a sip from his coffee. He set the cup down and handled the answer. "Step one would be to leak a supposed rumour that Bobby Roode and Lucy Thorne are dating. Since you're both currently well liked, it'll be believed and positively received, in my estimation."
"Seems likely," Lucy agreed with a nod.
"Step two is that we start pushing Bobby hard. We get him in the main event scene on Raw ASAP. It won't be long before the internet smarks start making a fuss about it."
Bobby knew that if the creative meeting had been taking place at WWE HQ he would not have been in attendance for this discussion about his own creative. He would have been summoned later, to replace Charlotte, when the time came for the women's division to become the focus of attention. For that reason he sat there and listened, keeping his mouth shut.
"Come on then, Charlotte," Lucy encouraged. "This was your idea to begin with; let's hear from you. How are we going to convince people I'm dating Bobby? Safe to say it's going to take more than some arsehole tweeting rumours around the place."
Charlotte giggled at that turn of phrase. It also brought a smile to Bobby's face.
"We convince them that Bobby's dating you by, uh, having Bobby date you," Charlotte said.
Lucy's eyes narrowed slightly and she looked at Bobby with kind of expression that said, "Am I going insane? Surely she didn't say that?"
Bobby shrugged in response, as mystified as she was.
"Let me explain," Charlotte said hurriedly. "We don't want people to think this is an angle, alright? So, we need to convince them that it isn't, even though it is. People need to see you 'dating.' I'm talking about having you arrive at arenas together. I'm talking about leaking out a picture of the two of you talking backstage at an arena or whatever from time to time. I'm talking about you having dinner together at a busy restaurant where you're almost certain to be noticed. I'm talking about you going to a movie premiere together. Anything like that, really."
Everyone could see that the idea was a slam dunk. Lucy was smiling broadly. "I love it. That's some top level deception. It'll be like working for MI6 or something. You're saying Bobby and I will do everything a couple would do, obviously without actually being a couple."
"Well, not quite everything," Hunter quipped, drawing laughter from everyone.
TJ spoke next. "For a start, you'd need to act like a couple who aren't all that keen for it to be known that you're together. If we go from nought to one hundred instantly and you start throwing it in everyone's faces, it's going to look weird – out of character."
"Yes, that makes sense," Lucy agreed. "You all know how reluctant I was to become an on-screen character, but now? I'm actually looking forward to this. It sounds like a lot of fun to try and trick people like this. I think we've finally cracked it."
"Yes!" Charlotte said happily. Her first big idea was going to come to fruition.
"You've done good work on this," Lucy told her.
"Thank you. That means a lot."
While the chatter had been going on, the cogs in Bobby's mind had been turning. "If I may, I have an idea," he offered.
"Of course," Lucy said, with an encouraging hand gesture.
"Charlotte mentioned us arriving at arenas together for Raw. You fly back Monday nights to be in the office Tuesday. Why don't we change around my office days to Tuesday and Wednesday instead of Thursday and Friday? That way, people will see us in airports together. I'm just thinking it's another way to backup what's already just been said about having people see us together."
"It's an excellent idea. Charlotte, any objection to switching your office days around, too?"
"No, not at all," Charlotte replied quickly, wanting to do anything necessary to support her big project now that the Chairwoman was happy with it. She knew that if it worked out well, a lot of the credit would be hers.
"Then we have a plan. TJ, mark this as approved," Lucy instructed.
"You've got it," he responded, a smile on his face.
To everyone's surprise, Lucy got up and said, "Bobby, come here. Let's see if we look like a convincing couple."
With a laugh, Bobby walked around the table to her and stood beside her. Wanting to be respectful of the boss above all else, he avoided touching her.
"Put your arm me or something, for fuck's sake," Lucy said with great humour. Everyone laughed as she went on. "No one's going to think we're a couple if you stand about like a spare prick at a wedding."
Bobby moved closer to Lucy and put an arm around her slender waist. At the same time, she put an arm around him, holding him tighter than he had imagined she would. His nostrils filled with the wonderful scent of her perfume, and he felt himself getting aroused. It was impossible for a hot-blooded man not to. Maybe this angle was going to be harder than he had imagined?
"How do we look?" Lucy asked the three still sitting at the table.
"Oh my God," Charlotte said, her hands over her mouth. "You look great together!"
A/N: Thank you so much to everyone who reviewed last time. The reaction was overwhelming!
We've heard the final idea for the angle, so what do you think of it? Will Lucy and Bobby be able to convince the fans that they are in a relationship? In addition to the ideas we heard, do you have any suggestions for things they could do together to sell thier 'relationship' to the audience? I'll shout out anyone who leaves an idea that I go on to use.