“I know,” she said.
He laughed.
“I didn’t mean it like that.” Sadie poked him in the side. “I wasn’t trying to pull a Solo on you. I just meant, I get it. It’s the same for me. All these years, I’ve tried to convince myself that I was remembering it wrong. That, because you were my first, I had romanticized everything and looked back on our time together with rose-colored glasses or something. I told myself what we had couldn’t possibly be as amazing as I remembered it. And I was right.”
Bo nodded at first but then halted as what she’d said registered. “Wait, you were?”
“Mm-hmm.” He heard the grin in her voice even before she sat up and faced him. “It wasn’t as amazing as I remembered…” She bent her head, brushing her cold nose against his. “It was even better.” Sadie brought his hand to her mouth, pressing a kiss to his knuckles. “I’d been so young, then, so very young and naïve. I couldn’t possibly understand what we had. Nor fully appreciate the way you made me feel.”
“And now?”
“Now I do.” She turned his palm up, pressing more kisses over the rough calluses at the base of his fingers, sending shockwaves of sensation up Bo’s arms and down his spine. “I understand how special what we have between us is. How it feels when you move inside me. How it feels to be with you. Nothing compares to you.”
His breath caught. Her words were a sweet sting, piercing his chest. “My little abeja.” Bo pulled her to him, unable to put into words all the things he wanted to say. All the things she made him feel.
So he showed her instead.
* * *
As the gray light in the loft warmed to a pale gold, Bo stirred again. It had to be past six by now. He’d put it off long enough. Time to tell her. Sadie was going to find out about the leaked video one way or another, and he’d rather she hear it from him.
“Abeja.” He nudged her gently. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Sadie didn’t speak, just tilted her chin and gazed up at him. Waiting. Listening.
“The kiss, the one on set. It’s out.”
“Out?” She struggled to sit up, tucking the blanket around her bare shoulders. “Like out on the internet out?”
He nodded. “There’s video footage.”
“How bad?” Sadie closed her eyes, as if not being able to see him would make what he said better.
“Bad enough.”
Grimacing, she cursed under her breath. “There’s got to be somebody on the inside doing this. Someone on the crew.”
“That’s what I think too.” Bo sat up, impressed that she was keeping her cool right now. She was pissed, but it was a controlled anger, her temper in check. “We need to figure out where the leak is coming from.”
Sadie got to her feet, holding the blanket close and scooting toward her clothes. “Come on.” She tossed his jeans at him.
Bo dragged them on under the blanket, motivated by temperature more than modesty. “Where are we going?”
“To send out the bat signal.”
CHAPTER 26
BY TEN A.M., after speedy showers, a speedy drive into the city, and a speedy pit stop to feed one miffed mustached feline, Sadie was seated next to Bo in Meg’s office. The PR maven had sequestered them in what she referred to as her war room and immediately began pulling up footage of the hallway embrace for review.
“My goodness, Bo. You really got a good handful there,” Meg observed.
Sadie’s cheeks tingled with heat. Both sets of them.
When the clip ended, Meg clicked the file closed and opened a series of other documents. “Okay. Here’s the damage we’re looking at,” she began, pointing to some graphs. “Sadie, your popularity appears to have increased. People either feel bad that your coach—”
“Stunt coordinator,” Bo corrected.
Meg held a hand up to him, starting again, “People either feel bad that your stunt coordinator is taking advantage of you—”
“I wasn’t taking adv—”
Meg’s hand popped up again. “People either feel bad that your stunt coordinator is taking advantage of you.” She paused, turning to glare at Bo through the panes of her glasses, daring him to interrupt again.
For once, he opted to skip a dare.
“Or they cheer you on for going after what you want, female empowerment and owning your pleasure and all that. Or, frankly, people just think it’s hot and like watching you two go at it.”
Meg pulled up another graphic. “And these trending hashtags are directly linked to you. Well done.”
Sadie scanned the words, #GoingforGold, #GrabbingtheGold, and #HotAssGold. “Who comes up with this stuff?”
“Hot Ass Gold,” Bo murmured, reading it out loud.
“Don’t you dare laugh,” she warned him.
“He shouldn’t be laughing,” Meg agreed, pulling up a fresh set of data. “Because while this little mall make-out session has been good for you—”
“It’s been terrible for me,” Bo groaned.
This time Meg let the interruption slip. “Indeed.” She adjusted her bow tie and tapped a graphic on her screen. “People take issue with seeing a big, strong, bearded dude manhandling a sweet young thing.”
“Manhandling. Why does everyone keep using that word?” Bo wondered. “And she’s thirty for Chrissakes.”
“Hey!” Sadie objected.
“Sorry.” He glanced at her. “I didn’t say that to mean you’re old, just that you’re not young.”
“Should I get you a shovel?” Meg quipped.
A-plus on the sarcasm, lady. Sadie knew she liked this woman. She raised her eyebrows at Bo, wondering if he was going to dig himself out of the hole or bury himself deeper.
“All I was saying is that we’re basically the same age,” Bo tried again. “I’m not robbing the cradle here.” He turned to Meg. “We’ve been dating since we were kids!”
Meg cocked her head, and Sadie swore it was like a bird spying a tasty meal. “What’s this now?”
“We met when we were little,” Sadie explained. “His family, um, worked for mine, and we spent a lot of time together during the summer months.”
“Tell me more,” Meg ordered, dark eyes bright as she pushed her thick-rimmed glasses up her nose.
Sadie glanced at Bo. He shrugged.
Together, they began to tell Meg their story.
* * *
That night, Sadie called for an emergency session of Monday Margaritas. Off with her duke in England, Bonnie was out, obviously, and Delaney wasn’t up for dealing with driving into the city, but Cassie and Ana agreed to meet. Which was good, as Sadie missed Ana and she really needed to talk to Cassie. With just the three of them, their usual booth felt huge.
By the time they’d finished the first round, Sadie had brought them up to speed.
“Meg Fay is effing brilliant, you know that, right?” Cassie asked. “She’s one of the best public relations managers in the city, maybe even the best.”
“She wants us to come on your show,” Sadie said.
“Absolutely,” Cassie agreed. “I can shuffle around a few things and get you a spot. I just need to clear it with Therese.” She wrinkled her nose. “We might have to get Tiffany involved too, seeing as this is all entertainment and social media news.”
“Isn’t she the one who tried to sabotage your career, Cass?” Ana asked.
“Yep.” Sadie nodded. “She tried to make Cassie look like a fool on live TV.”
“She had some help with that part,” Cassie reminded them, lips pursing. “And it all worked out in the end. I took a negative story and made it a positive.” Cassie flicked her straw at Sadie. “Which sounds exactly like what Meg is doing for you.”
“Meg said she plans to use our history to spin the relationship out to be an epic love story rather than Bo just looking like a perv.”
“Hashtag: Grab the Gold,” Ana chortled.
“Hashtag: My friend is about to get her face smashed in the g
uac,” Sadie retorted.
“I told you, Meg is brilliant,” Cassie continued, ignoring Ana and Sadie’s little skirmish. “The romance angle is going to be great for your movie. Everybody loves a good happily ever after.”
“Here, here!” Ana raised her glass.
“That reminds me, before I forget, I met the Fair is Fair author.”
“Valerie Rose?” Cassie perked up. “She’s a literary sensation. Twenty-three years old, debut novel snags high six-figure deal, immediately optioned by a big studio.”
“Well, she’s also very sweet and loves your book closet segment.”
“She does?” Cassie beamed, face shining with pride and excitement.
Sadie smiled too. Cassie had worked so hard to get to where she was now. Risked a lot. Sadie admired that. She hoped to emulate her friend. Like Cassie, Sadie had walked away from a job that was comfortable and safe so she could chase a dream.
Cassie had caught her dream. Sadie hoped she could do the same. Fair is Fair was done filming, aside from the occasional retake or vocal track to record, Sadie’s job would now be marketing. Interviews and appearances to help build the buzz. The spin Meg put on the story about Sadie and Bo helped keep the needle moving toward the positive side, but Sadie would have preferred her relationship with Bo was kept out of the public eye. Thanks to that video, though, privacy for her and Bo was going to be impossible. And now that the file on their history was open, Sadie feared what else people would find if they kept digging. None of this would be a concern if it hadn’t been for that leak, and Sadie was determined to find out who had been trying to sabotage her.
“So, how do we figure out who let the video leak in the first place?” Sadie asked, poking at the lime in her second margarita. “Or who provided any of the other details for the stories that 411 ran on me?”
“Let me do some digging,” Cassie offered. “I’ve got plenty of contacts in that sector from my reign at ChiChat as social media queen. I bet I can find out who wrote the articles.”
“That’s who wrote them, which sure, that person sucks, but whatever,” Ana noted. “What about the source?”
“That might be a little trickier, but still possible. If I can nail down who the reporter is, we might get them to spill, but unlikely. Unless it’s court ordered, they usually don’t like to reveal their sources.”
“Sleazeball code of ethics?” Ana snarked.
“Something like that.” Cassie leaned forward, voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. “But I might be able to get in through the back door.”
“Sounds dirty.” Ana sipped her drink, eyebrows wiggling.
“Everything sounds dirty to you.” Sadie elbowed her friend, then asked Cassie, “What do you mean?”
“Track the payment,” Cassie explained. “Figure out who 411 bought the video from.”
“Wait.” Surprised anger flashed through Sadie. “Someone made money off that?”
“Are you kidding?” Cassie blinked at Sadie as if she was from another planet. “Sites pay big dollars for this kind of thing. That clip that went viral last week, of the actor losing his shit in a parking garage? I’m betting $5k, easy.”
Sadie sucked down the rest of her drink. She sat back, tequila thrumming in her veins, fueling the rage burning inside her. Someone had fucked with her life, and Bo’s too. Put both their careers and reputations on the line, for money.
And she wanted to make them pay.
* * *
It had been three days since the footage leaked before Bo decided he was ready to face Vic. The hallway video from the shoot had been released on Sunday morning, and by the time he and Sadie had made it to Meg’s “war room,” it had been viewed and shared and reblogged or whatever it was people did with this shit more times than he wanted to think about. Meg’s counter story, the one of their “epic love” had hit sites on Monday night, and now, on Thursday morning, three days later, the story had gone international. Meg was thrilled.
But when Bo told Vic about the steps that had been taken to handle the bad PR, his partner seemed nonplussed.
“They shifted the spin on this.” Bo pulled up some of the sites that had been running the story. “See? Instead of a villain, I’m a hero.”
Vic glanced at the stories but remained categorically unimpressed. “I’m glad your reputation has been cleared. But the fact remains that you acted unprofessionally on a job site.” The older man’s face darkened. “And you betrayed my trust.”
“Betrayed? What are you talking about?”
“You weren’t straight with me.” Vic’s chin jutted out. “You’ve been involved with that Gold girl since day one of the shoot and said not a word about it.”
“What was I supposed to say, Vic?” Bo held out his hands.
Rather than answer him, Vic stubbornly continued, “And when you came in here to my office, and told me, right to my face, that you would be shooting on location at her place? That might have been a good time to mention what was going on.”
“I never lied to you.” Bo stared at his partner. “What was between me and Sadie was private.”
“Ain’t so private now.” Vic snorted. “Here’s a suggestion. You want privacy, don’t date a movie star.”
“I’m sorry if you feel I let you down, Vic.”
“You did let me down. You know better.”
Bo knew he’d made a mistake. And he was sorry. Sorry he’d disappointed Vic. Sorry he and Sadie got caught and put their dreams at risk. But the thing was, he didn’t regret it. He didn’t regret kissing Sadie. If they were back in that moment, and he was faced with the same choice … he knew he’d do it again.
“Is that it, then?” Bo asked, stomach twisting as he felt years of hard work, a decade of hopes and dreams teetering on the verge of collapse. “Is the deal off the table?”
“IT BETTER NOT BE!” Claudia yelled from the front desk.
Vic heaved a sigh. “No, the deal is not off the table. I’m a man of my word.”
Bo didn’t say anything. On one hand, Vic could claim Bo’s actions put the entire company at risk and nullified their agreement. On the other, Vic had been stalling on moving forward with the deal so long that if Bo had been smart and included an actual deadline in the agreement, the old guy would be in serious breach of contract. In a sense, their actions could be viewed as a draw.
“I’ll honor what I said at the shoot,” Vic acquiesced. “After the first of the year, I’ll see where things stand. And then I’ll draw up the paperwork.”
“YOU BETTER.”
The two men stared at each other for a moment.
Bo headed out of the office, more disheartened than he cared to admit. Claudia stopped him. “He’s just mad right now.” Vic’s wife pointed to the wall where a cruise ship calendar hung. “For years, I’ve dreamt of going on one of those.” She nodded her head. “Give it time. He’ll come ’round. I’m going on that damn cruise.”
For the sake of both their dreams, Bo hoped she was right.
His boots had barely hit the sidewalk outside the office when his phone buzzed. Sadie. There was news.
* * *
Twenty minutes later, Bo found himself once again sitting next to Sadie in Meg’s “war room” and decided he found the name fitting. He was ready to go to battle. Bo flexed his fingers, working out the tension in his knuckles. It had been a stressful week, and he’d spent more time than usual working over the bag in his apartment. It helped to try and picture the fucker who had sold that footage and put everything he’d worked for at risk.
Bo stared down at his knuckles. The problem was, he couldn’t actually picture anyone. Who could it have been? Who was the leak? Annoyed Dave? Maybe, but Bo couldn’t see the motivation. He glanced over at Sadie. Sitting next to him, she seemed a million miles away, lost in her own thoughts. He’d barely seen her since that night in the hayloft. The past few days had been a maelstrom of damage control. With his job on the line, Bo needed to be laser focused on his other work assignmen
ts. He’d had to get the stunt sequences set for the Chicago Rescue special, run through the gags, check with his crew, and lock in the schedule. But all the while, his attention had been split, trying to track down the leak.
But that was going to change right now. They were going to find out who’d started this mess. And then they would make sure it was over.
“Thank you both for coming on such short notice.” Meg peered up at them from her pile of papers and adjusted her glasses. She turned to Sadie. “I must say, your friend Miss Crow was most useful in this endeavor.” Meg glanced down, reviewing her file. “She has quite a web of connections. A tug here, a pull there, and eventually, someone knew someone who knew someone.”
Bo shifted in his seat. Restless, nerves raw. What was with this cloak-and-dagger shit? Just give him the names of the people who did this so he can go kick their asses already.
“Before we begin, I must warn you that the inquiry led to some … sensitive information.”
Sadie jerked in her chair. “What kind of sensitive information?”
Bo caught the note of fear in Sadie’s voice and looked over at her, trying to catch her attention, but she ignored him, her gaze locked on Meg.
Meg folded her hands over the papers spread on the conference table. “I know it will be upsetting, but we’ve pinpointed the source of the leak, and I’m afraid to say, it is a member of the production team.”
“Oh.” Sadie sagged in her chair.
No shit, Sherlock. Beneath the table, Bo cracked his knuckles, wondering what Annoyed Dave would look like with a broken nose.
Meg shuffled some papers, handing a sheet to each of them.
The reporter who’d written the stories for 411 was some guy Bo had never heard of before, but he made a mental note to look him up later.
The source of the leak—the person who had been cashing checks for selling information and video footage—was Tanya Fisk.
Assistant Tanya. Always hovering.
Little fucking clipboard-carrying Tanya.
Once Upon a Bad Boy--A Sometimes in Love Novel Page 28