I was holding the armrests of my chair, squeezing them with all my strength, waiting for them to snap off.
Why would James come here? All the way to Miami? With her fucking manager?
It had nothing to do with what had happened between us, or she wouldn’t have brought Tim.
She had come because she needed my help, or Tim was the one who had pushed for it. Either way, she’d figured out I was an agent and not a practicing attorney.
It didn’t matter. There was no way in hell I was going to give my assistant the okay to send them upstairs.
I was done with James Ryne.
“They don’t have an appointment. Tell them I’m busy,” I said.
“Hold on,” Jack said to my assistant before he looked at me. “Are you fucking crazy? So what if she doesn’t have an appointment? She flew all the way here to talk to you, and you’re just going to send that kind of business away? Do you know how much money that girl makes every year?”
“Made,” I corrected him.
From what I’d read this morning, she’d lost all of her contracts and both upcoming movies.
No one wanted to hire her.
“With your help, she’ll get all of it back,” Max said.
He’d obviously read the reports, too.
It was hard not to.
James was the headline on every fucking news source right now.
“I’m not interested,” I told them.
Max looked at Scarlett and said, “What’s his problem? Has he lost his goddamn mind?”
Her eyes shifted over to me, and I knew she was in a rough place. She wanted like hell to tear into me, but she’d never do that in front of the guys, not when they didn’t know about James and me.
“Brett, if you don’t take the meeting, I’m going to,” Jack said.
I tried to hold my anger in. “No, you’re not.”
“Like hell I’m not,” he said. “That girl needs some fucking help, and I don’t know why you’re not willing to do it, but I will. Remember, the reason we walked away from those assholes in LA—like the one who represents her—is because, no matter how hard things got, we would never turn our back on a client. So, at the very least, someone from this office is going to give her some guidance. If you want to pass, then I’ll make an exception, and I’ll work hybrid until I get her back on her feet.”
I stood, moving over to the bar, realizing it was far too fucking early to pour anything to drink. They were all watching me. Even my assistant.
My interest in James was becoming more obvious every goddamn second.
“You wouldn’t do that,” I told Jack. “You wouldn’t cross teams. None of us would ever do that.”
“Brett, please—”
“Scarlett,” Max said, cutting her off, “you’re going to be too nice. Let me take a stab at him.” Max glared at me. “You’re right; we don’t cross teams, and none of us have ever gone hybrid, but we’ve also never been in a situation where someone needs our help, and they’re willing to come all the way here to get it. I’ll admit, acting isn’t a language I speak, certainly not fluently like you. But I’m not going to turn the girl down either. So, whatever you have against James Ryne, get over it, and get your shit together.”
My jaw clenched, and my fingers gripped the bar.
I fucking hated that my friends were getting involved in this. I wanted them to stay out of it; I wanted this decision to be mine.
I wanted James to get back in her plane and return to where she belonged.
“You’ve certainly taken on harder cases than a sex tape, so what the hell is your deal?” Jack said.
My eyes moved to each of their faces as they waited for me to respond.
“Brett, just hear what they have to say,” Max added.
It was the same request Scarlett had made last night.
Back then, neither of us had known that we’d be faced with this today.
And, now, here James was, right at my fucking feet.
“Send them into the conference room,” I told my assistant.
And she shut the door behind her.
“I think the four of us should sit in on this meeting,” Jack said.
They all glanced at me, waiting for a response.
It took me a few seconds to give them one. “Well then, by all fucking means, let’s get this show on the road.”
James
The SUV pulled up in front of a massive mirrored building in downtown Miami and parked, the driver coming around to my side to help me out. I climbed out first and waited for Tim, and then he led me through the front door.
The lobby was a mixture of stone and shiny metal and beautiful pieces of contemporary art. Everything looked so clean and polished, even the receptionist sitting behind her desk. She smiled as we walked in, and I returned the gesture, feeling my phone vibrate in my back pocket.
I took it out, and there was a text from Eve on the screen.
“You go answer that,” Tim said. “I’ll take care of things here.”
“You sure?”
He nodded and pointed toward the couches and chairs on the other side of the massive space. “Get comfortable. We might be here for a while.”
As Tim walked over to the receptionist, I made my way to one of the couches and curled into the corner.
Eve: Where are you? I just went to your house, and you’re not there.
Me: I’m in Miami.
Eve: What? With Tim?
Me: Yep. He wants me to meet with someone who can help, I guess.
Eve: Paparazzi are stalking your house. I almost punched one in the face when he tried to stop me from getting in my car. Make sure Tim brings you home, or maybe stay in a hotel for a few days.
Me: God. This is out of control. I just want it to end.
Eve: I know, babe, but you’ll get through it. XO
As I looked up, Tim was sitting in one of the chairs across from me.
“Did she say how long?” I asked him.
He shook his head, so I glanced back at my phone, scrolling through my emails, finally reading the resignation letters my agent and publicist had sent.
As I thought about all the money my agent had made off me, I started to feel sick. He was such a dickhead for doing this to me. I hoped his other clients found out how much of an asshole he was, and I hoped they left him because of it.
Tossing my phone on the cushion, I noticed the receptionist was headed for us.
“Mr. Young would like me to bring you upstairs,” she said as she stopped by Tim’s chair.
We stood and followed her to an elevator, which took us several floors above, and then we were led to a conference room.
“Mr. Young will be in shortly,” she said and closed the door.
I looked like hell. The mirror in the bathroom on the plane had confirmed that.
I had nothing with me—no change of clothes, no makeup, not even a pair of shoes to put on my feet. The flight attendant had given me some slippers and a toothbrush. At least my mouth tasted like mint, but the soft cotton slip-ons didn’t give me much traction on the slick marble floors in here.
I had tried to clean myself up before we landed, combing my hair with my fingers, wiping away the excess eyeliner with some toilet paper.
I hoped whomever we were meeting wouldn’t judge me on what I looked like right now.
I walked around to the far side of the table and sat in the middle, taking a glance around the room. There wasn’t much to look at, just a big table, chairs, a giant logo on the wall that said The Agency, and some refreshments next to the door. I swiveled in my seat and turned toward the windows that overlooked the skyline of Miami.
Tim hadn’t told me we were coming to Florida. I hadn’t let him. We’d barely said a handful of words to each other the whole flight, as I’d slept almost the entire time. The reason I had known where we were going was from the monitors on the plane that showed our flight path.
I wasn’t sure who worked in this office or what
they could do to help me, but I hoped we could quickly wrap things up, so I could get right back on the plane. Brett lived in Miami. The last thing I wanted was to run into him.
In fact, I never wanted to see that man again.
I couldn’t believe that I’d meant absolutely nothing to him.
That he had cut me off so easily and thrown me away.
Heartless bastard.
“I want you to be honest during this meeting,” Tim said. “If you’re asked about what happened during the night in Malibu, it’s okay to tell the whole story.”
The thought made me queasy.
He was asking me to turn vulnerable, to share those intimate moments with a complete stranger.
Just because there was a video of me having sex on the internet, showing that I could read lines and sound convincing on camera, didn’t mean this wasn’t hard for me.
That night in Malibu hadn’t just burned me.
It had ruined me.
And here I was, once again taking a chance on someone I didn’t know.
In the reflection of the windows, I saw the door open, and I heard, “Good morning.”
That voice.
My hands shifted over to the armrests, each finger shaking as I squeezed the plastic between them. Goose bumps covered my skin. Air was going out much faster than it was coming in. I couldn’t take a deep breath. I couldn’t get it past the knot in my throat.
Mr. Young is…Brett Young?
It couldn’t be.
There was no chance in hell.
But it was.
Two words was all he had said, all it had taken for me to place that voice.
And, God, that voice had done so many things to me over the past month.
I didn’t want to turn around.
I didn’t want to see him.
I wanted to throw myself through that door and down the stairs and head straight back to the plane.
“Tim,” Brett said, his tone vibrating through my chest and straight to my toes. “It’s a pleasure to see you again.”
Again?
I turned toward Tim. Unable to keep it in, I shrieked, “You know him?”
I gasped when I felt Brett’s stare hit my profile.
But I couldn’t return the look.
It hurt way too much.
“We’ve met several times,” Tim said. The look on his face told me he was surprised by my outburst, maybe even a little embarrassed. He glanced at Brett and said, “You, too.”
How in the hell is Brett going to help me?
I tried to come up with an answer as sweat started seeping out of my pores.
There wasn’t enough air in here.
I knew he was standing across from me. I could see him in my peripheral vision. And I was suffocating from his eyes. I didn’t want to look at them.
“James, it’s really good to see you again,” Brett said.
So, this is how we’re going to play it?
Unbelievable.
“I’d like to introduce you to my colleagues,” Brett continued.
I hadn’t realized other people had entered the room. If I glanced at them, I’d have to turn toward Brett. I didn’t want that. I didn’t want to see his handsome face or the suit I knew he had on or hear his words as they were spoken directly at me. All of that would soften me, and I couldn’t let that happen. I was pissed at him for what he’d done.
But, at the same time, I didn’t want to disappoint Tim. He was the only one who had stuck by me when everyone else left.
So, slowly, I spun the chair until my body was pointed forward, gradually lifting my head until our eyes connected.
Those big, beautiful green eyes.
Ones I’d memorized from our video chats.
Ones that were glaring at me like I had done something wrong.
It felt like all the air was being sucked out of my body.
“James, I wasn’t aware that you already knew Brett,” Tim said. “So, in that case, we can skip introductions, and you can meet the rest of his team.”
“You’re all lawyers?” I asked, looking around the table at the three other people sitting around it.
“No,” the woman at the end said, “not all of us.” She stood, holding out her hand, which I shook. “I’m Scarlett Davis, CFO of The Agency.” She pointed at the man next to her, who had dark features but wasn’t as polished as the other guys. “This is Max Graham; he runs our music division.” She pointed at the next guy, who had medium-brown hair with blue eyes, the same build as Brett. “That’s Jack Hunt; he’s in charge of sports.” Her finger moved once again. “And you already know Brett, who runs our acting department.”
“I’m confused, Brett. I thought—”
“James, The Agency is a talent agency,” Brett said. “The three of us guys are agents, and the four of us are partners.”
Agents?
But he had told me he was an attorney.
What a fucking liar.
Brett Young, Brett Young, I repeated in my head.
Suddenly, it clicked. I’d heard his name many times before. He was a top agent, representing some of the biggest stars in the business. He had a reputation for being ruthless.
I wasn’t surprised.
I’d seen that side of him the second the celebrity alert went viral.
Brett crossed his hands on top of the table, and I couldn’t look away. I knew how those fingers could feel on my body. I knew that the slight sweep of his thumb could give me a quick, hard orgasm.
Those hands would never be near me again.
I had no idea how I was going to get through this meeting.
“James,” Scarlett said, “why don’t you tell us why you’re here?”
My stare shifted off Brett’s hands and moved over to Tim. He would have to answer that one. I didn’t know what we were doing here or why I was still sitting in this room.
“Last night, we found out that James’s agent and publicist resigned,” Tim said. “Once I heard the news, I immediately thought of Brett. It was too late to reach out, so I ordered us a plane and just came straight here.” Tim looked at the bastard across from me. “If anyone can fix what’s been done, it’s you.”
Tim wants Brett to be my agent?
I was doing everything I could not to vomit the coffee I’d had on the plane.
“To explain some of James’s shock,” Tim added, “she didn’t know we were meeting with a new talent agency or what I planned on discussing with you.” He glanced back at me, and now, I wished I had let him give me more details, so I could have stopped this trip before it happened. “All of this came about rather quickly.”
“To confirm, you’re saying you’re no longer represented?” Jack asked me.
I turned my head toward him. “No. Everyone important, except Tim, has left me.”
I felt Brett’s stare.
I did everything I could not to gaze in his direction. I wouldn’t be able to stomach the frigid expression on his face.
“Why don’t you start from the beginning?” Scarlett said. “Tell us what happened, and how the sex tape came about, and then we can go from there.”
Focusing on the four other faces, still avoiding Brett’s, I began to unravel the last six months of my life. “Three months ago, I got a call from Abel Curry, my ex-boyfriend. I was filming in Toronto, and he wanted me to come back to LA to move my things out of our house. While I was there, packing up, his new girlfriend, Sophia Sully, wouldn’t leave me alone. She made those few hours completely miserable.”
I got angry, just thinking about the things she had said to me, remembering how much of a bitch she had been, how she’d told me Abel never loved me, that she’d been fucking him for months before I caught them in bed together.
“Later that night, I was at a party, and Abel and Sophia showed up. I’d never seen them together in person, only pictures of them online. It was just awful. I swear, she laid on the PDA extra thick, just trying to upset me. And it worked.”
I
took a breath, but all the pain in my chest wasn’t from Abel, although there was a little of that in there, too. It was from the video, it was from last night’s party, it was from the coldness that Brett’s stare had filled me with.
“This guy, Calvin Parker, started hitting on me, and I flirted right back. I wanted to see if I could make Abel notice and maybe a little jealous. Before I knew it, we were leaving. We headed to his hotel in Malibu, and that’s where I stayed the night.”
I tried stopping myself from looking all the way to the left, but my eyes went there, and they locked with Brett’s. God, he was like ice.
“We had sex at the hotel, and I got up the next morning and left. That’s all that happened.”
“And the video?” Jack asked. “Did Calvin tell you he was filming? Did you know you were being recorded?”
“No.” My throat stung as I swallowed, feeling like a spotlight was shining directly above me and I was sitting on the stand. “I found out the same time everyone else did. Had I known I was being recorded, I obviously wouldn’t have slept with him.”
“Are you positive Calvin is the guy in the video?” Brett asked.
That was his first question, and it dug right into me.
“Yes.”
He came back with, “How?”
I stared into those green eyes, my stomach churning, and said, “Because I’ve slept with only three men. Abel, Calvin, and a man I was recently talking to until he broke things off.”
I waited for the hardness to break, for him to show a little regret, sympathy—anything.
There was nothing.
“Has Calvin been located?” Scarlett asked.
I shook my head.
“Are the police looking for him?” Max asked.
“I haven’t spoken to the police yet.”
“What about the hotel?” Max asked. “Was the room in his name? Has your team questioned the hotel?”
I looked at Tim to answer, and he said, “No one has been questioned by her previous team. In my opinion, they checked out as soon as the video was released, and their resignations came as no surprise. There was a lack of planning and involvement, and all it’s done is set James back because that time could have been spent fixing this damage.” He turned his head, returning the stare, giving me the compassion I needed. “I think it’s worth mentioning that James and Abel were represented by the same agent. I don’t know if it was a conflict of interest, but once they broke up, I saw much less from him before he completely checked out.”
Take Me To The Beach Page 76