by Marni Mann
The photographer was the first person to dip into his pocket, and then they all followed.
The room turned silent.
I stood in a towel, the only one in here who wasn’t holding a phone, hoping someone would glance up so that they could tell me what was going on.
Finally, I caught eyes with the makeup artist, and I mouthed, What’s happening?
She seemed nervous, hesitant, and extremely uncomfortable as her stare moved to the photographer’s assistant, who wore the same expression on his face. Then, slowly, the makeup artist walked over to me, holding the phone out so that I could see the screen.
A celebrity alert had come through, the message in a bright red box with white lettering.
It had my name on it.
It had other words that I couldn’t comprehend.
Words that couldn’t even be possible.
“We’re shutting down the set!” one of Dior’s representatives yelled across the room. I could tell she didn’t want to turn in my direction but finally did and said, “We’ll reach out to your team if we decide to reschedule.” She quickly glared at the photographer. “You’re off the clock,” she said to him. Then, she pointed at the lighting crew. “Turn off the lights, and get the set cleared before we’re billed for another hour.”
Not a single person in here would look at me.
I heard the sound of their feet moving across the concrete floor and the snap that the lights made when they were shut off.
Is this really happening?
I needed answers.
I needed the alert retracted and an apology that was a mile long.
I needed to sue whoever had aired this because they certainly didn’t have their facts straight, and they’d confused what they saw or heard or had in their possession.
I wouldn’t do what they were accusing me of.
Not ever.
I couldn’t stand here for another second.
I squeezed the front of the towel, so it wouldn’t fall and rushed into the hallway and into the dressing room where I threw on my clothes and shoes. Holding my bag over my shoulder, I bolted out the door and found my car in the parking lot, shoving myself inside and scrambling to find my phone.
There were so many texts, so many social media tags, so many alerts now coming through from every site, even the news channels, that my phone was slow to load. When I finally got to the Home screen, I went to my call log and hit the number for Tim, the manager who had been with me since the start of my career.
“James,” he said as he answered. “I just got in my car, and I’m driving to you right now. You’re still at the photo shoot?”
The photographer walked out the same door I’d come through, and he scanned the lot until our eyes met. During the shoot, he had looked at me like I was a piece of art. Now, he wore a dirty, smoldering smirk.
I glanced away, a wave of nausea passing through me. “Tim, what the fuck is going on?”
“I don’t know. I found out the same time you did.”
“This can’t be right. It’s impossible. I didn’t do it. Do you hear me? I didn’t do it. Make them take it back. Make them retract that alert from every person’s phone before my entire life is ruined.”
Several seconds of silence passed before he said, “I’ll do everything I can.”
6
Brett
I checked the itinerary my assistant had emailed me and forwarded it to my team, so they knew my schedule for the next several days. I’d be arriving in LA tomorrow around noon, spending the first few hours in meetings, and then the chef I’d hired would cook dinner for James and me at my place. The next two days would look the same. Depending on James’s availability, I would either fly back the morning of the fourth day or the fifth.
She had no idea when I was coming.
I liked it that way.
And what I would like was finally getting another taste of her, of a body that I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about since I got back from Miami. I really didn’t want to wait another day. I wanted her right now. On top of my desk. With her pussy rubbing against the glass, so her wetness would leave a mark that I could lick off when we were done.
Shit was changing between us.
She was no longer just a girl I’d brought home from the bar and fucked. We’d been talking every day, and we’d video-chatted—something I didn’t even do with my goddamn family.
During this visit, I had a feeling I’d have to be more open with her. She’d want to know about my past. My last name. Where I worked. And that meant I’d have to tell her I wasn’t a practicing attorney even though I kept my license active.
I’d have to tell her the truth—that I worked in the industry, that one of the things holding me back was her age, that I just wasn’t sure if I was the right guy for her.
That coming on to her had nothing to do with signing her to The Agency.
There were agents at our old office in LA who would have done that—hooked up with potential clients to get them under contract. James’s agent was one of those people.
I wasn’t.
I didn’t need to give someone my cock to get them signed.
I just hoped James believed that.
Industry people were guarded, cautious, because everyone wanted a piece of them.
The piece I wanted had nothing to do with her career.
There was a knock on my door. Before I could call out and ask whom it was, Jack, Max, and Scarlett walked in, each taking a seat in a chair in front of my desk. Whoever was in town and at the office usually tried to meet up at the end of each day. My office was the meeting ground since I stocked the most booze.
Scarlett handed us each a piece of paper that showed the new revenue totals, broken down by department. Now that Smith had officially joined our company and BMW was a done deal, I was in the lead.
I set the paper down on my desk and said, “Got anything to say, Jack?”
He shrugged as he continued to stare at the sheet.
“Why are you suddenly so quiet?” I asked him, winking at Scarlett. “The last time we talked about this, you had a whole lot of shit to say. Maybe you’re just trying to calculate how many million I’m ahead of you? Here, let me help. It’s about twelve, and by the time my team processes all of their pending contracts, we’ll be over fifteen.”
“You got me.” Jack put his hands in the air. “Fair and square. There’s no way Max or I will get even close to that number.”
“Fucking-A, Brett, you killed it,” Max said. “How the hell did you keep us from finding out about Smith?”
“My team knows how to keep a secret.”
Both guys looked at Scarlett.
“What did he bribe you with?” Jack asked her.
She straightened her jacket and crossed her legs, trying to look innocent when she was far from it. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
When I’d come to her with the idea of keeping the guys in the dark, she’d told me she’d process the contracts herself, so her team wouldn’t rat us out. That wasn’t Scarlett’s job; she was just doing me a favor, so I’d offered to give her half of the bet.
She didn’t want it.
What she didn’t know was that she was getting all of it.
And, because I knew she wouldn’t take the cash, I was going to buy her something with it that she couldn’t return.
“Bullshit,” Max said. “You’ve been in on this the whole time.”
“Max, that would mean I was choosing a favorite, and you know I love you all equally.”
She played them so well.
“Pay up,” I said to Jack and Max.
“I’ll bring the cash in tomorrow,” Max whined.
“Same,” Jack added.
I went over to the bar in the back of my office. I took out four tumblers from the cabinet and poured several fingers’ worth in each one. Then, I carried them back to my desk and handed them out as I said, “Are any of you going to LA this week?”
Fuck.
Two of Max’s clients had concerts in the LA area this week, so I’d had a feeling he’d be headed that way, too.
“I need you to sleep in a hotel for the nights you’re going to be there.”
All eyes were now on me.
The Agency owned the condo in LA where we all stayed whenever we were in town. We’d bought a place with four bedrooms, so it was large enough to house all of us if we ever needed to be there at the same time.
A smile came over Max’s face as he set his glass on top of the desk and leaned against it to get closer to me. “Tell me, Brett, why do I need to stay somewhere else? Are you bringing someone there you don’t want me to meet?”
That was obvious.
And anyone in this room could answer that question.
If James and I were in a relationship or I didn’t mind the whole world finding out that she and I were fucking, I’d just stay at her place. But the paparazzi were camped outside her goddamn driveway, and the second I pulled into it, we’d be outed.
“Listen…” I paused for a second, thinking of the right way to say this. They were going to give me so much shit about her age and dump on me so hard for robbing the cradle, and I didn’t want to hear it. But, since the blows were going to be unavoidable, I had to just get it over with. “I’ve been talking to—”
I was cut off by the sound of an alert coming through everyone’s phones.
Jack and Max were the first ones to look at their screens.
“Oh, man,” Max said.
“Dude, are you fucking serious?” Jack gasped.
Scarlett lifted her cell off her lap. As I watched her read the screen, I sat back in my chair and sipped my scotch, appreciating that I now had more time to figure out how I was going to tell them.
“She’s the last person I expected to do something like this,” Scarlett said.
“Whom are you talking about?” I asked, knowing they’d tell me, so I wouldn’t have to dig in my pocket to get my phone.
She looked up, our eyes connecting. “James Ryne has a sex tape.”
My fingers squeezed the fucking glass so tight, I thought it was going to shatter in my hand. “What did you just say?”
Jack and Max were staring too hard at the screen, their mouths open, eyes so goddamn wide that I wanted to punch all four back into their sockets.
“The man is yet to be identified,” Scarlett said, “but the woman is definitely James.”
James has a fucking sex tape?
I reached across the desk and yanked the phone out of Scarlett’s hand.
“Hey!” she shouted as I took it from her. “Give that back.”
I ignored her, gripping the cell in my palm, reading the headline that was at the top of her phone.
BREAKING NEWS:
James Ryne and an unidentified man star in a sex tape.
America’s sweetheart is now America’s sultress.
Rage.
That was all I could feel.
It was coming in through my pores and making my entire body shake.
I wanted to take all of their phones, drop them in my trash, and set the motherfuckers on fire.
But, since I couldn’t, since that would make things too obvious, I looked back at the screen and kept reading.
James Ryne, eighteen-year-old star of the recently released Winter’s Forgiven, and an unidentified man have been caught having sexual relations. Ryne is called by name several times throughout the sixty-two-minute video, and close-up shots of her face more than prove it’s America’s sweetheart. Ryne was previously in a five-year relationship with Abel Curry, whom she met on the set of Let it Go. Ryne and Curry confirmed the end of their relationship six months ago, and Ryne hasn’t been linked to anyone since then. Reps from Ryne’s camp have yet to respond.
Story still developing…
I set Scarlett’s phone on the desk and pushed back in my seat, staring at the empty glass of scotch. I would need ten more fingers’ worth to calm me down, or my fist would be going through one of these walls.
“Wow,” Max said, his eyes still on his screen.
I could only imagine what he was wowing about.
I reached toward the edge of my desk and clamped it between my fucking fingers to stop myself from grabbing it out of his hand.
If they saw my anger, they’d know.
If I said anything about the sex tape, I wouldn’t be able to hold back my feelings, and they’d know then, too.
“Holy fuck,” Jack said.
My teeth ground together while I watched them stare at the video of the girl I’d been thinking about nonstop.
Of the girl I was supposed to be with tomorrow.
Of the girl who had been fucking some other guy this week.
7
James
Me: We need to talk.
I waited for the bubbles to appear on Brett’s side of the message, but they never did. At least, not in the five minutes I’d been waiting for them. And they didn’t within the next ten minutes either.
He always responded within thirty minutes.
Always.
So, that was how long I’d wait.
But thirty minutes came.
And went.
Forty-seven minutes.
An hour and twelve.
Now, I knew he’d seen the video.
Me: You there?
Another hour passed.
I couldn’t move.
I couldn’t leave the inside of my closet.
There weren’t any windows in here, so they couldn’t see my tears. They couldn’t hear my screams.
It used to just be the paparazzi I hid from.
Now, it was the whole world.
Everyone thought they knew me because they’d seen me naked.
They knew nothing.
I would kill right now to have the warmth from my mother’s hug, the feeling of her arms around me. I would do anything to have my father’s hand rubbing my back. But they were gone, killed in a car crash when I was fifteen.
Without them, the only thing that would ease some of this pain was the sound of Brett’s reply.
Maybe he hadn’t seen the video. Maybe he’d been in court all day. In meetings. Playing golf. He hadn’t seen my text because maybe his phone was in the locker room at the gym, but now, he was walking in to shower, and he would hear it ringing and answer.
Maybe. Oh God, maybe.
I opened the call log, hit his name, and waited for it to connect.
One ring.
Then…voice mail.
I didn’t make it past one.
He couldn’t even let me have two rings.
I hung up.
I didn’t want him to hear me crying in a message.
So, I opened his text box and typed.
Me: Please call me back.
I looked above me at the racks of clothes. They hung around the inside perimeter of my closet, stopping for a large shoe area and a case for purses and then wrapping around the rest of the room. I was in a corner, on the floor, a section of dresses hanging over me. I reached up and twisted the fabric around my fist. The silk felt cool against my skin. The wool felt scratchy. The velvet almost stuck to me.
Silk, wool, velvet.
Silk, wool, velvet.
My chest was pounding. There was an ache in my head, like a lightning bolt, that shot through my skull every few seconds.
Why?
“Why!” I shouted. “Why did this happen to me?”
I twisted and twisted and twisted and pulled with every bit of strength I had.
Hangers snapped.
Dresses ripped.
Metal banged on the hardwood floor around me.
I didn’t care.
I felt nothing, except silk, wool, and velvet.
I picked it up in handfuls, setting it on top of me until I was completely covered. Until the only thi
ng left was my face.
I filled my hands and dumped the rest over my head.
I wanted darkness.
I wanted it to swallow me.
8
Brett
I left my car at the office, too fucking buzzed to drive it to my place, and had the company driver give me a lift home. When I got inside my condo, I dropped my briefcase at the door, grabbed a bottle of scotch from the bar and my tablet from the counter, and collapsed on the couch.
I didn’t know how I’d made it through the last few hours while the guys watched some more of the tape, and Scarlett had eyed me as I tried to keep my fists calm.
She knew me too well.
She always observed, unlike the other two.
I was sure she’d call my ass out soon.
Especially since I’d lied to Max, and I knew she’d seen right through it. I’d told him that an email came through, and I had to cancel my trip to LA. He must have forgotten about the hotel I’d asked him to get because he hadn’t brought it up again. Regardless, I wasn’t getting on that fucking plane.
While I’d sat in my office, the guys watching some of the video, I’d felt every goddamn minute that passed. I’d had to force myself not to tear the phones out of their fingers.
Knowing they had seen James naked made me fucking crazy.
Knowing another guy had had his hands on her skin and his cock in her pussy made me even crazier.
I liked her.
I liked her a hell of a lot more than I wanted to admit.
So, why the hell was I torturing myself by putting my tablet on my lap with the celebrity alert on the goddamn screen?
I had to watch it.
I had to see her with my own eyes before I reacted.
I unscrewed the bottle of scotch and swallowed down several mouthfuls, resting it on my knee while I clicked the video link at the bottom of the article.
Advertising popped up. Those fuckers were probably spending five grand a click to have their product appear before the soon-to-be most-viewed sex tape in the world.