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The A/C of his car makes my sweat-dampened skin go cold, goose bumps breaking out over my arms. This is bad. Recast bad.
Twenty-five tense, silent minutes later, Tomas parks outside the office of Dashcombe & Teale. I follow him inside, past the receptionist, to Rose’s door. He opens it and gestures for me to step inside. Rose and Emma’s hushed voices fall silent as they look up.
Tomas gives Rose a curt nod and disappears down the hall.
“Close the door,” Rose says, getting up from her desk and walking over to the drinks cart. Emma once told me Rose keeps three beverages in her office at all times—water for everyday meetings, Champagne for celebrating the good news, and whiskey. The whiskey only comes out when her client is in deep shit.
Needless to say, I’ve never had whiskey in this office. So when Rose pours two glasses of the amber liquid and grabs a bottle of water for Emma, who doesn’t drink, I know I’m fucked.
The door closes with a soft sound behind me.
I sink onto the leather chair next to Emma’s. Rose hands me a whiskey, neat, and Emma a bottle of water, before she goes back around her desk and slowly takes a seat in her high-backed leather chair.
I take a sip of the whiskey and grimace. “On the scale of lost endorsement to getting fired from Warwick, what are we talking?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Rose says in an icy tone. “Somewhere in the neighborhood ofsex tape.”
“What?” A loud laugh rips free. “Is this a joke?” I have never once taken an intimate video or even a photo. The closest I’ve come is the content Ashley and I posted on our road trip.
“Am I laughing?” Rose asks, arching an eyebrow.
Emma clears her throat. “You were seen on surveillance footage entering a gas station restroom with Ashley in some Oklahoma backwater, then exiting a short time later. The tabloids are all over it, along with pictures of a condom dispenser ripped off the wall.”
My face goes hot and I rub the back of my neck. “Yeah, okay. It doesn’t look good, but Ashley and I are supposed to be in this relationship, and the video of us going into and—”
“There’s more,” Rose says, pointing to my whiskey. “You may want to drink that about now.”
More. How could there bemore? Dutifully, I take another small drink.
“Some people,” Rose continues, her calm tone not matching the fury in her eyes, “are perverts. The kind of perverts who hide cameras in public restrooms.”
Oh fuck.
I fall back against my chair, but the sensation of plummeting doesn’t stop, and I can see the yawning black chasm reaching up for me. Images flash—the way I ripped Ashley’s dress, grabbed her tits, and fucked her against the wall, on the counter. Nothing about what we did in that restroom was soft or romantic. We didn’t walk out holding hands. I don’t think I even looked at her after.
“Deep breath, Gabe,” Emma says softly, touching my arm briefly, arresting my freefall.
What have I done?
“Fuck,” I whisper, tipping forward, my hands covering my face. One still holds the whiskey and after a moment’s hesitation, I take a gulp.
“Lucky for you,” Rose continues, “this pervert was more interested in catching people using the toilets than washing their hands. However, enough of you is in the frame to make it very clear what you were doing.”
I scrub my hand over my face. “Can they prove it’s us?”
“In conjunction with the surveillance video, yes,” Rose says with a sigh. “From watching the act itself, it’s murkier. The images aren’t great and the audio is awful. Yes, I have watched it. Unfortunately, it’s my job to see how badly my clients have fucked up.”
“I’m sorry.” I close my eyes and take a deep breath, trying to move past the crushing shame of knowing my publicist, who I’ve always had a professional relationship with, has seen me having sex. Aggressive, borderline rough sex. In a public restroom. And she’s not the only one. That video will be online, circulating. Fans, directors, fellow actors…they’re all going to see this. My hand clenches the whiskey glass. My other one balls into a fist. “What does this mean for my career?”
Emma turns in her seat, her dark brown eyes holding mine, her mouth twisted into something like wry amusement. “You’re a white man riding your popular uncle’s legacy, so a grainy sex tape with a woman you’re in a committed relationship with isn’t going to make you toxic. You have to do a lot worse for people to stop wanting you in their films. Hell, you’ll probably get more of those nuanced, gritty roles you’ve been salivating over. It’s possible you might lose an endorsement or a charity might drop you for a while, but as far as your career is concerned, this will blow over in a couple of months and you’ll be fine.”
“It’s your image,” Rose interjects. “You’ve always said it was important to you. Fake dating Ashley gave you a bit of an edge, but this takes away that golden sheen you like so much.”
The door flies open and slams shut again, David falling against it, his chest heaving. “I got here as soon as I could.”
“Help yourself to the whiskey,” Rose says, waving her hand at the drink cart, “and take a seat.”
David grabs a bottle of water from the mini-fridge and sits on the elegant sofa against the wall, a little apart. I can tell by his face and the way he avoids making eye contact with me that he knows. Worse, I’m pretty sure he’s seen the video.
