Chapter 24 INT. COLE’S KITCHEN
Chapter 24
INT. COLE’S KITCHEN
The next morning, Maggie was working from home. They were sipping coffee while watching the cast of Hear Her roast Vincent Minna. The women were all insisting that they had never heard so much as a whisper about his bad behavior.
“I just don’t buy that.” Cole gestured with his mug and narrowly avoided sloshing coffee all over the couch. “I mean, I’m not saying it’s their fault, but everyone knew he was a dog.”
“Should we assume all the men we’ve heard are dogs are actually criminals?”
“I mean, if the orange jumpsuit fits.”
Maggie took another sip of her coffee. “Do you think he’ll go to prison?”
“No.” No matter what Vincent had done, it was hard to imagine someone like him—rich, lawyered up beyond belief—actually facing consequences for his bad behavior.
And wasn’t that the problem? Even once the truth, or parts of it, came out, there never seemed to be any real consequences.
“You still feel good about it?” Maggie asked. It being participating in the story, going public, standing by Tasha. The whole shebang.
Whatever came or didn’t, Cole’s answer would always be the same. “Yup.”
But under Maggie’s words, he could sense the worry. Despite his and Tasha’s best efforts the night before, Maggie was still anxious.
She shouldn’t be. He and Tasha could handle themselves.
And besides, Cole might not want to read the story, but as he listened to the hosts on Hear Her gush about how brave they’d all been in coming forward, he began to get a bit of a contact high. It hadn’t taken bravery, but yeah, he had been right. This had been the right thing to do.
But Cole’s rush—was this how Superman felt all the time?—disappeared like the last doughnut at the craft-services table when Brett phoned just before lunch.
“Hey, something’s incoming.” From Brett’s tone, it was clear whatever it was was bad.
“From Vincent? This fast?”
“I can’t tell who’s responsible, but it’s going to require a response. Read the link I’m sending now, and I’m going to set up a call with you, me, Drew, and Quinn ASAP.”
“Okay.”
Cole had received an embarrassing number of these calls. Not lately, but in the past. And normally, he’d known exactly what had hit the fan. Here, he’d been so good. Had worked so hard. Hadn’t fucked up at all.
“Hey, do you want the guacamole?” Maggie was placing their lunch order, and—
Maggie.
This was going to be about Maggie.
Cole dropped onto the couch with a thud. “No,” he said, and she took that as an answer.
“You’re no fun.”
“No, I didn’t mean—yes to guac. But my PR guy just called, and—”
Cole’s phone dinged. Brett had sent a link to a story on Boulevard Babble , the sleazy-blog twin to more serious publications like Variety . Everyone in Hollywood knew that, slimy or not, Boulevard Babble had good sources. If you wanted your PR person to start a rumor or drop a blind item, they were your go-to.
Love Triangle on the Waverley Set! the headline screamed, and Cole could’ve puked. He read quickly.
In the first paragraph, he learned that rumors of “Chaos Cole making a comeback” were “overstated” because “romantic drama” had “sunk” his performance. And there it was: his “close and unprofessional relationship with Maggie Niven,” who’d been hired as a “stunt” and “red meat for the woke set,” had left Tasha Russell “brokenhearted.” Oh yes, the middle part of the article went for the jugular. It was all about how the “ice queen” herself had spent the last two weeks “hiding out” in the Azores, “nursing a broken heart,” while Maggie and Cole had whored it up in LA—the same way they’d done all during filming.
What. The. Ever. Loving. Fuck.
Cole was sick to his stomach, and he was pissed—so pissed—and he was confused, and he was sad. He’d worked for years, and this, this absurd “story,” might get in the way?
No part of this was true. It stank like three-day-old gym socks. It was comically over the top. But all that made this crap even stranger .
Whoever had given these lily-livered anonymous quotes hadn’t been content with smacking Cole. They’d gone after Maggie too.
Just why?
And who ?
Unaware that she’d been shanked, Maggie was setting the table and making bubbly water in the SodaStream and cutting up a mango, all while teasing him about guacamole. Because she didn’t know. All the things she’d worked for, they were on the chopping block too.
“Babe.” Somehow, Cole packed all the pain and anger he was feeling into that one syllable. Maybe Maggie was right, and he was a better actor than he gave himself credit for being.
She stopped. Her back was to him, and every muscle of her body stilled. Quietly she asked, “Is it bad?”
“Yup.”
“How bad?”
“Brett’s putting together a call. I’ll know more in a little bit. Maybe they’ll be able to clean it up fast, or maybe ...” Maybe it would grow legs and multiply.
He’d seen the stupidest stories act like freaking zombies and refuse to die, infecting everything around them and destroying the media landscape. Cole didn’t want to promise Maggie that he’d be able to make this one go away, because he didn’t know if he could.
All Cole’s choices since Central Square had been about trying to put himself back into the driver’s seat. To wash off the labels that he’d earned and to show people he was more than they thought he was. If this took hold, he’d be right back at square one. As if the last two decades hadn’t happened at all.
“Is it about Tasha, or you?” Maggie asked.
“It’s about me—and it’s about you.”
Maggie whirled around, pure confusion on her face. “Me? Why the hell did Vincent come after me?”
“You better read it.” He passed her his phone.
After a minute, Maggie’s skin went to ash, and she sank down onto the floor of the kitchen. As if taking the two steps into the living room was entirely too much.
Which was fair.
“What is this?” Her voice was shaky. Every bit of her seemed shaky. Cole dropped to his knees and crawled over to her.
Before he could pull her into his lap, Maggie held up a hand.
She didn’t want him to touch her.
These last few weeks, he’d made up for the months of wanting to hold her. Cole had assumed if he filled their days with casual hugs and nudges and caresses and their nights with orgasms, he could get Maggie as addicted to him as he was to her.
Apparently not.
The sting of it left him cold.
“What is this?” she repeated.
“I have no idea.” Because he didn’t. “It could be Vincent, or maybe someone from the production was ... jealous? Mad?” He couldn’t even comprehend that. Everyone on set had seemed to like both of them. As far as he knew, neither he nor Maggie had caused any bad blood during filming.
Cole had wanted not just for people to think he was better but to be better. Maggie was one of the only people he knew who cared as much about that as he did.
Unless that change was the problem.
“Maybe it’s just my past.”
Maggie shot him a knife-sharp look. “Meaning?”
“Bashing me used to be ... kinda fun for the press. I was a punching bag for a long time. Maybe they wanted to go back to that. I have no idea. I’m sorry.”
If that was it, if this was his fault, Cole would ... he didn’t even know.
He wrapped his arms around his middle rather than reach for Maggie again. He was chilled, though. Straight through to the bone.
“What can we do?” Maggie had scrolled back up to the beginning and was reading the story again. “Does Boulevard Babble print retractions?”
“Probably not.” They’d have to have standards first.
“This is so bad. It’s so bad. I don’t even—”
Maggie’s phone rang from the kitchen counter.
She handed Cole his phone and, with a wince, answered hers. “Hey, Linda.” It was the producer for The Mid List . Maggie pressed her eyelids closed. A tear squeezed out and ran down her cheek and splashed onto her shirt.
Cole ought to get her a tissue, ought to apologize again, and ought to fix this. If he could just fix it, she’d let him do the rest, he knew.
He hoped.
“Yeah, I’ve seen it.” Maggie’s tears weren’t discernible in her voice. She was so strong. All the crap she’d been through had made her so strong. “None of it is true. You’ve talked to Zoya, and she’s so pleased with my work. I mean ...”
Whatever Linda said then made her body have an earthquake.
Cole set his hand near her foot on the floor. Not on her foot—she’d made it clear that she didn’t want that—but near it. He had to offer her comfort. Had to.
When she spoke again, Maggie’s voice was strained. Pained. “Yes, in fairness, I am romantically involved with Cole James, but—no, nothing happened on set. Linda, I swear, absolutely nothing happened until after the wrap party.”
That was, technically, true. The wrap party had still been going on, probably, but—
That wasn’t the point.
Maggie had said she couldn’t get involved with someone she’d worked with, and he’d just barreled right over that, assuming that he’d done enough to make up for his past. Assuming that because they loved each other, they should be together.
That “When you assume, it makes an ass out of you and me” thing had never been truer.
Maggie straightened her spine, but another tear ran down her face. “My work has been impeccable. On Waverley and on The Mid List , I have followed every ethical standard. I have talked to Bernard about all my concerns and limitations and worries. Whoever gave these quotes, this venom, it’s just not ... yes. Yes, I get that. I know, it’s such a delicate role, there’s no room for drama. Yes, yes, I understand. Bye.”
Maggie hung up and scooted back across the floor, farther away from Cole.
So much was wrong right now, but the fact that Maggie wouldn’t look at him, that hurt most of all. If she wouldn’t let him touch her, she could at least let him see her eyes.
“What did she say?” Cole finally asked after the seconds of silence became too heavy.
“Well, I’m out of a job. Again.” Maggie snapped to her feet. It was so instant and so unexpected, Cole almost got whiplash.
“They fired you?” Cole couldn’t wrap his head around it.
“Yup. As Linda just helpfully explained, with a job like this one, there’s no room for error. None at all. I’d guess that when I check my email, Bernard will have dropped me as a mentee, too, and he won’t vouch for me moving forward. So that’s done.”
Her voice was so flat, Cole couldn’t tell how she felt. It was probably the same mess of feelings he was having, but she would probably organize them into a spreadsheet later.
She pressed the heel of her hand to her forehead. “I—I messed up. I knew it, I knew I shouldn’t get involved with someone I’d worked with, and I did it anyway.”
“You did it because—” We’re in love.
Suddenly, Cole realized that this—they—had been worth it. Even if his career and reputation were spoiled, being with Maggie would have been worth it.
But to her, maybe it didn’t feel like that.
“Because I messed up,” she finished for him.
Maggie turned and started down the hallway toward the bedrooms. Away from him.
Cole rolled up and followed her. He knew she was ... mad? Crushed? Sad? Fucking up again made him want to change out of his skin. But somehow, he had to get her to see that there were things they could at least try to do.
“Please, join this call with my team. Brett will be able to do ... something.” It might not make it go away, but he would be able to issue a comment at the very least. “You need to hear what he has to say. I’m certain Tasha will want to make a statement, and then you have to tell me how you want me, us, to weigh in.” Cole understood why they’d tried to keep things under wraps, but the horses were so far out of the barn, there was no use talking about how they should’ve locked the door.
Maggie pulled open the guest room door—the freaking guest room door, not the door to their bedroom—and marched inside. “Not right now. I need to be alone.” She shut the door in his face.
Cole wanted to fall against it. He wanted to wrench it open. He wanted to pull her into his arms and kiss her until they remembered what mattered—but the truth was, this mattered. Her reputation mattered. His career mattered. No amount of kisses, not even his and Maggie’s kisses, could make that go away.
But a kick-ass PR team could make a difference.
Cole texted Brett. Read it. What’s the plan?
Five minutes later, he was on a Zoom call with Brett, Drew, and Quinn.
“I take it that we’re all having an exciting day,” Brett said. “Tell me what we’re dealing with here, Cole. Is any of this at all true?”
Cole ran his hands through his hair. “The only part that’s even close to real is that I am involved with Maggie Niven, but nothing happened until after principal photography wrapped. Not a damn thing. And I have never been involved with Tasha, who, by the way, was in the Azores with someone else.” And not brokenhearted at all. “The optics aren’t great, I know, but this isn’t an abuse of power, not from me and definitely not from Maggie. I don’t know if this is Vincent, trying to hit back at—”
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Cole,” Drew said. “We don’t know where the story came from.”
“I just—I mean, I don’t get it. The buzz about Waverley has been so good. If I was such an ass on set, how do you square that? And everyone’s been saying that they felt so comfortable filming the love scenes. If Maggie was so unprofessional, how could that be? None of it makes any sense.”
“The most important thing is to stay calm.” This had always been one of Drew’s key rules. Mismanaged response causes more than half of all PR problems.
Cole had always wondered how he had figured that out. Like, how did you crunch those numbers?
But since Cole had signed with Drew, he had always followed that advice to the letter. He let Brett do most of his talking to the press for him. They hashed out the language for releases, and they weren’t in a rush to talk until they knew what they wanted to say.
For years, that had served Cole. He had to believe it would work this time too. “I know. And I really appreciate having you all on my team.”
He’d been annoyed with Drew when he’d tried to kill Cole’s quotes in Libby’s story, but now that they were facing a potential nightmare that could derail everything, there was nothing but upside to having Drew in his corner. The guy was a machine.
“We know you are. I have a call in to the reporter,” Brett said. “In fact, I have four calls in. I’m going to figure out where this bullshit came from, and—”
“I’m less worried about the source than countering it,” Drew said, a bit sharply. “We need to get Zoya on record. Tasha might not want to give quotes to the press because she’s at the center of Libby Hansen’s story about Vincent, but maybe the rest of the cast could speak up.”
“And we gotta address Maggie too,” Cole said. “We have to clear her name.”
“That’s not a priority for me,” Drew said.
“Well, it is for me. There’s no rehabbing my reputation without addressing hers. We’re a package deal.”
They better still be a package deal.
But honestly, even if she was going to dump his ass, Cole would still make sure that his team erased these false rumors. It would be absolutely wrong to let that stuff stand, and it was his fault that anyone had smeared her in the first place.
“And we need to put that gossip about me and Tasha to bed.” Maybe it’d served him at one point, but that was over. For Tasha and Ryan’s sake, and for Maggie and Cole’s, that part of the story needed to die.
“I get it, Cole,” Brett said. “And I’m working on it, I promise. Right now, you’ve got to lay low.”
“I know, and we have been. I have no idea how this got out.” And why it was so wrong . It would be one thing for news of his and Maggie’s relationship to get leaked. They had been together in public a few times. But where did all the poison come from?
Something about this just didn’t add up.
“Quinn, do you think there’s a slander angle?” he asked.
“I doubt it. Whoever gave the quotes would have to know they were false. More than likely, it’s just someone shooting their mouth off. You know how much people like showing off for reporters, trying to make themselves sound cooler than they are.”
Many of the worst stories that had leaked about Cole’s past bad behavior had been exactly that. No one had been trying to hurt him, but they had wanted to brag about knowing him, unaware of how proving that they did might spray mud all over him.
“Understood. There’s just something so ... cruel about this, I guess. It feels meaner than regular bragging or gossip.”
“Let’s see what Brett finds out,” Drew said. “And while he’s working on that, he can draft a statement.”
“I’ve already started,” Brett said. “It’ll be ready within the hour.”
Cole released a windy sigh. “Okay, okay, fair enough. Thanks for helping me out with this.”
“Of course.”
After the call, he almost knocked on the guest room door, but wanting to respect the line Maggie had drawn, he opted for a micro training session instead, where he pummeled the bag three times harder than he had yesterday.