Chapter 26 INT. GYM LOCKER ROOM
Chapter 26
INT. GYM LOCKER ROOM
Ryan sparred better with his fists than with a sword, that was for sure. After an hour in the ring with him, Cole was exhausted, which had been the point. He didn’t need to train that badly. But he did need to make his mind stop its constant whirring.
He dropped to a bench in the locker room, breathing hard. “You fight well, man.”
“That’s my job.” Ryan, as ever, couldn’t take a compliment. “How you holding up?”
“I’m climbing the walls.”
In between wondering if Maggie would ever forgive him, Cole had taken a few swings at himself. His blunder had put everything he’d worked toward for almost twenty years in jeopardy. He still didn’t know exactly how he’d misstepped, but he knew he had.
Brett had sent him a roundup of the responses that morning, and it boiled down to this: If Cole had seduced the intimacy coordinator for Waverley , well, wasn’t that exactly what Cody Rhodes would do?
It made him want to break cinder blocks apart with his bare hands.
All he’d wanted to do was shed his irresponsible reputation, and instead, he’d confirmed it in a way that had wrecked Maggie’s career.
“How’s Maggie? Tasha wants a full report. She’s worried.”
Tasha didn’t bring a lot of people into her circle, but those who made it, she would fight for, tooth and nail, hammer and claw. Cole suspected Maggie was, or might soon be, in Tasha’s flock. And heaven help whoever was responsible for this story then. They’d have to deal with both Cole and Tasha.
That would make a good subject for their next movie together—if they got to make another movie together.
“She’s not great,” Cole admitted. “After she got fired, she cried for a long time. Her best friend is flying down from Oregon this morning.”
“Good. She didn’t want to come hit things with you?”
“That’s not her style.” Cole kept to himself that she’d slept in the guest room last night, and that their conversation over coffee this morning had felt more like they were roommates. That he hadn’t kissed or touched her since the story had dropped. He was trying to be patient, but frankly, he was down to his final drops of the stuff.
“She ought to try it. It might help.”
In Cole’s bag, his phone sounded. It was Brett. “I gotta get this,” he said to Ryan before answering. “Hey, do you have any news?”
“I do.” His publicist said it extremely carefully, and Cole’s gut dropped into his shoes.
“Was it Vincent Minna?” Cole demanded. “Because I will go on every talk show on the planet and burn his world down if he hurt Maggie.” He’d restrained himself in the UK at Tasha’s command, but he would not do it again if the guy was responsible for this.
“It wasn’t Vincent.”
That brought Cole up short. “Someone from the production?”
“It was Drew.”
Like in an old screwball comedy, Cole almost checked his ears for wax. Because he was certain he hadn’t heard that right. “It was ... Drew?” he repeated back to Brett. “Drew Bowen ? My agent?”
That simply couldn’t be right. It had to be another Drew. Or maybe Brett was misinformed.
“I didn’t believe it either. But he pitched the story to someone else, too, a reporter named Hope Acosta, and she forwarded me the email.”
“Wait. You’re telling me he didn’t just give some quotes but that he planted the story? He sent someone a fucking email about it?” Cole yelled that bit, and Ryan’s brows shot up into his hairline. “He meant for this to happen? It wasn’t like—like, a mistake?” For a second, Cole tried to imagine what kind of mistake could’ve resulted in the Boulevard Babble story, but not even the wildest screwball comedy had plot twists that unexpected.
No, it had to have been pure malice.
“I wish it was,” Brett said. “Look, I can’t believe it either. But it’s real.”
Cole had assumed that finding out the source of the quotes would make all the rest of it clear, but this—this made no sense. “Do you understand this?” he finally asked after what felt like an eternity. His mind felt like a computer that wouldn’t boot up. He couldn’t put the pieces together. Not at all.
“No,” Brett said. “I’ve been doing this for a decade, and I’ve never seen an agent plant a story to discredit their own client. Not ever.”
“He didn’t like that I talked to Libby Hansen,” Cole said slowly. And there had been other disagreements, too, smaller ones. About potential parts, publicity. For so long, Cole had obeyed every one of Drew’s instructions. And this time, he hadn’t. “Maybe he didn’t like my independence.” It sounded almost funny, but it also sounded a lot true.
“Frankly, he would’ve made a lot of money off of your success—and I still think the career renaissance is going to happen. Now that I know what I’m dealing with, I can probably smooth this over. But look, we gotta bring Quinn in, and you—you have to fire Drew. It’s going to be an ugly fight, but you have to shut him up, and fast. Then we can start the damage control. I know you’ve worked together for a long time, but—”
“I have zero problem firing his ass.” It was going to take a hell of a lot of self-control not to pound him too. “I’m leaving the gym now. I need to get cleaned up, but I’ll call Quinn on my way home. Can you send him the evidence?”
“Yup. I’m on it.”
“Thanks, Brett. I’m sure we’ll talk again in a few hours.”
Cole got to his feet. He was beyond pissed, but for the first time since yesterday, he knew what he needed to do. As terrible as he felt, at least there was that.
This betrayal was—God, Tasha would understand what he was feeling. This was why she hated her mom more than Vincent. When someone who was supposed to be on your side turned out to be operating only for themselves, it was like setting a cup on the counter and watching it float to the ceiling.
What could you trust, if not that?
Maggie. He could trust Maggie.
And if he could fix this, maybe she could trust him again.
“Did I hear that right?” Ryan asked. “It was your agent?”
“Yup. That son of a bitch. At least Brett thinks he can clean it up. I’ll give you and Tash a call when I know more.”
Cole broke into a jog on the way to his car. Now that he could see the path in front of him, he didn’t have a minute to lose.
INT. brETT’S OFFICE—EVENING
Brett brought Drew into a conference room at his PR firm where Quinn and Cole were waiting ... along with some hidden recording equipment.
Drew beamed behind the aviators he hadn’t bothered to take off when he’d come inside. “How’s my favorite client holding up?”
“Favorite?” Cole couldn’t keep the sarcasm out of his voice. But because that wasn’t part of the plan, he quickly added, “I’m fine.” Compared to that morning, he was. And they had a script here. He couldn’t just tear into Drew, as much as he wanted to.
“That statement from Zoya was fantastic.” Drew took a seat and pushed his sunglasses to the top of his head. “It sounds like the smoke is already starting to clear. Now you’ve got to get out there—on your own, not with Maggie. You really ought to break up with her if you haven’t already. She’ll just remind everyone of these rumors, even if they are false.”
There was the patented Drew Bowen advice. He’d dropped so many little nuggets over the years, all of which Cole had taken. Cole could only hope Drew hadn’t been playing him like a guitar the entire time.
Cole assumed that Drew had done this because he wanted to get Cole back in line. Maggie had just been collateral damage, and Drew had probably assumed he’d never be caught.
What an asshole.
“They are false, and I’m not going to discuss Maggie with you.” Cole wasn’t going to put up with that, script or no script.
Brett signaled to him: Simmer down . But Cole’s simmer was as down as it was going to get.
“If you don’t break up with her, you’re making a big mistake.” Drew had said that mistake line to Cole a time or ten. In Drew’s estimation, Cole had messed up by taking certain projects and turning other projects down. Mostly by not kissing this ass or keeping his head down.
Cole was going to spend the rest of his life second-guessing all those decisions. He’d caught Drew this time. How much other stuff had he gotten away with?
“The other thing is,” Drew said, as if he were about to impart some crucial secret, “you have to be careful.”
If anyone needed to be careful here, it wasn’t Cole. “Why?”
“The Vincent Minna thing.” Drew said this as if it were the beginning, middle, and end of an argument, all packed into one tight phrase.
Which, well, Cole knew that for him, it was.
Drew, clearly realizing that Cole didn’t get it, looked to Brett and Quinn for support. When neither said anything, he went on. “I know that it wasn’t your fault, but your fingerprints are on it.”
“By Vincent Minna thing , do you mean supporting Tasha while she revealed a predator to the world?”
“There’s no need to accept that framing. That’s what those feminists on social media would say. The ones who talk so much about ‘accountability.’”
Cole almost laughed because Drew was about to get a first-class lesson in accountability. But the implication underneath Drew’s words was gross. “The industry could use a lot more accountability. Vincent Minna hurt my friend and a lot of other people.” Cole said it as evenly as he could, given that he wanted to scream it at the top of his lungs. “I watched him bully half of Hollywood, and I feel like an utter ass that I never called him on it. Of course my fingerprints are on it. I had to make things right. I’ll frame it however I want to.” Cole didn’t like feeling anger, the pulsing in his gut, the bitterness in his mouth. But he liked even less how Drew saw Cole and his career.
The worst part was that this conversation was goddamn familiar because they’d played some version of it a dozen times. As they’d gotten ready for this meeting, it had been all too easy for Cole to remember the times Drew had steamrolled him. The conversations in Drew’s office, on a film set, once in the hallway at a crowded party. The details had changed, and the stakes had never been this high, but the flow was the same. Cole was naive. Cole was messing up. Drew was going to steer him right.
Every other time, Cole had gone Drew’s way. But today—today was different.
Across the conference table, Drew’s expression was one of pure pity, and it made Cole want to charge over there and knock that smirk off his face. “Well, a lot of people are pissed.”
“Worried. You mean that a lot of people are worried .”
“Your problem is that you’ve always had the soul of an elementary school crossing guard. You gotta grow up about this business.”
“You think I’m too nice?”
“Yup.”
Cole shot a look at Brett. It was time. “You’re wrong, and I’ll prove it.”
“How?” Drew asked, his skepticism thick as the icing on a birthday cake and every bit as sickly sweet.
Drew was going to relive this moment a hundred times in the next few months, wondering how he’d missed what was about to happen. At least Cole would have this as consolation. He was going to live rent-free in Drew’s head for forever.
“I know about Hope Acosta.”
“The entertainment reporter? What about her?” Drew didn’t so much as blink. He had no idea the trap was closing around him.
“The jig is up. We have your email,” Brett said.
Drew, who’d been smiling slickly at Cole, whipped his head toward the PR guy. “Excuse me?”
Brett pushed a piece of paper across the table. “She reached out to ask for comment on a story about Cole, a story similar to the one Boulevard Babble ran. But unlike those turds, she didn’t think it was worth running. She was mostly trying to give me a heads-up.”
A sheen of sweat had appeared on Drew’s upper lip. “I didn’t email Hope. I haven’t talked to her in months, and—”
“You’ve emailed me from that address before,” Brett interrupted. “When you were on vacation. It’s not your official one, sure, but I know it’s you.”
“You’re speculating because you want to give Cole an answer, and this is—it’s dangerous.”
Quinn spoke up for the first time. “You’re in breach of your agency agreement with Cole.” He opened the manila folder he had with him—and honestly, nothing good ever came out of a manila folder.
Drew ought to make a rule about that.
“I am not. You can’t even prove that I emailed Hope, and—”
“I’m going to step out now and let Quinn handle the legal details. But Drew? I’m firing you. I don’t want you on my team.”
For an instant, Drew’s poise crumbled. A wave of surprise and anger washed over his face. For the first time in their almost-twenty-year relationship, he was shocked.
The man recovered quickly, though. His smug, impervious mask slipped back into place in an instant. “You can’t do that.”
“Quinn thinks I can, and he’s better at his job than you are.”
Cole stood up, shook hands with Brett and Quinn, and headed for the door. They’d agreed that Cole shouldn’t be around for all the sordid details. And besides, he had to get home and tell Maggie that it was handled. That even if this was his fault in the first place, he’d handled it.
As he was leaving the room, Drew shouted after him, “You’ll regret this.”
But Cole was absolutely certain he wouldn’t.