CHAPTER TWO
Jack
Two Weeks Later
Nate strode out of the hotel suite bathroom looking less than his put-together-self.
I’d never seen him so angry. “That asshole blindsided me—on camera,” he roared.
“For fucks sake Avery, what the hell does the studio pay you for? Did you check his question list? Roz, you’ve got to get that footage back or I swear to god! —”
I observed the unfolding drama from the relative safety of the balcony of Nate’s room at the Peninsular Paris five-star hotel, with my press agent Benji Moss at my side.
Ordinarily, the view at my back, of the Champs Elysee and the iconic Parisian cityscape would grab my attention, but what was happening in Nate’s suite was more important.
I met the bloodshot eyes of my press agent and we shared a grim look, but said nothing.
Nate’s agent Rosamund Appelbaum, or Roz as she was more commonly known, was in her early sixties.
She wore a severe gun metal grey bob cut and a baby pink power suit.
Apparently, she was a member of one of the oldest, wealthiest families in New York and naturally, she had connections to get things done.
Roz was the kind of agent who didn’t need the money but loved the hustle of the entertainment business.
She had a small pool of very famous clients, and she lauded over every aspect of her client’s career.
In a way, she reminded me of an overbearing pageant mom.
On first meeting Roz she appeared motherly and quite innocent, but I soon learned she was as innocent as a lion the moment before it pounced!
Roz pivoted to pin the studio publicist with a dagger glare.
“Avery, what the hell?” she growled at the harried man setting up a laptop on the dining table. Roz’s nasal New York accent could peel paint. I usually did my best not to be in range when she had a full head of steam. She pointed an exquisitely manicured finger at the PR man.
“You told me the questions sent by La Galerie des Murmures were okay!” she barked.
I must add that Avery worked for the studio, not for Roz.
He’d royally fucked up, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for him.
The poor bastard was having an emotional breakdown.
He seemed to fold in on himself with each ear-splitting word.
It didn’t take long for Roz to break him.
Avery’s blue eyes filled with tears and his chin wobbled.
“WELL?” Roz stabbed.
“T…t…t…that question wasn’t on the list. He must have decided to ask it there and then, spur of the moment. I’m sorry, okay?” he stuttered as he stared at his polished brogues. This was bad, very bad.
“Sorry isn’t fucking good enough! My client’s career is on the line.
And it wasn’t a spur of the moment thing.
That motherfucker prepared a gad-damn display board.
Did you see that? How did he get that into the suite?
Where the fuck was security?” Roz threw her hands up to heaven and walked in a circle like a dog chasing its tail.
Nate and Roz’s journey to the junket in Paris began badly.
At their departure airport of Westchester in New York, the two US close security officers employed by the studio were denied boarding on their private charter flight because of a typo on both of their business visas.
They were arrested…yes, arrested on sight…
because of a typo. Nate told me that Roz had flipped out, and she was also threatened with arrest if she didn’t calm down.
There was no time to get new visas so the studio contacted a security company in Paris and arranged for two guards to protect Nate and I during our short stay in Paris.
The guards outside the suite door were ex-Military, one Greek, the other Lithuanian.
Neither man spoke good English, but they were the only two available at such short notice.
“Do I have to do every-gad-damn-thing around here myself? We need a crisis management meeting. We need a damage-fucking-limitation strategy so that motherfucker doesn’t leak the interview online and trash tomorrow night’s première,” Roz roared.
Roz Appelbaum was a ball breaker, and if I’m honest, she terrified me.
But, she’d worked with Nate since he got the lead in the drama ‘Eze Street’, after the soap opera ‘Heading South’ was cancelled.
She’d guided Nate’s career as he moved from TV soaps to serious drama and then onto movies.
So far, Roz had protected Nate from the scrutiny and scandal that was part of the entertainment circus…
until now. Rosamund Appelbaum had finally dropped the ball, and she did not take failure lightly.
Our interview with a French entertainment gossip website named La Galerie des Murmures, which ironically means The Whispering Gallery, was supposed to be about our movie, however, after a few standard questions to both Nate and I, I’d noticed we were a little thin on the ground for representation.
The studio lawyer Mason De Luca was absent, as was the publicist Avery.
Then Roz stepped out to take a phone call, and where the fuck was my press agent Benji?
The interview should have been paused while our reps were out of the room, but there was no one to step in to call a halt.
The interviewer, named Dominique Le Grand, noticed our support system had abandoned ship, and the little shit took his opportunity to ask:
“Monsieur Linden, do you ‘av any comments about ze photographs of your ‘usband taken in ze ’amptons?”
The only representation we had, if you could even call it that, was a terrified twenty-something intern named Anja Baker, and the two bodyguards standing like boulders outside the suite door, clueless as to what was happening inside the suite.
Nate and I were on camera, lambs to the slaughter. Confused, I’d turned to my co-star.
“Sorry, I don’t know what you mean,” Nate replied icily.
Then Dominique, and I shit you not, picked up an A3 display board that he’d covertly rested beside his chair.
He held it in front of the camera, and then he turned it and placed it on his lap facing us.
The board showed an enlarged photograph of a handsome, fit, silver fox I recognized as star-architect Erik Thorne.
I’d met him once at a gala in London years before I’d known Nate.
In the photo, Erik was not alone. He was with a younger man, pale and elfin with raven hair.
The two men were on a yacht, at the prow, the twink standing with his arms open like he was on the Titanic, while, on his knees; Erik sucked the younger man’s dick.
The headline read ‘The King of the World is Going Down’.
I cringed. Erik Thorne had earned the ‘King of the World’ moniker from his stratospheric architecture career, having designed some of the tallest buildings in the world with his global architecture firm.
I respected Nate’s privacy, as he did mine, and so I was clueless about the status of their marriage.
But from the winded look of devastation on Nate’s face, my guess was that they didn’t have an open marriage.
Nate Linden was All-American handsome with piercing blue eyes, high cheekbones, and a chiselled jaw line.
He was the kindest, most gentle man I knew, and he had a surprisingly shy nature.
Why would anyone cheat on a man like him?
What followed was appalling. Nate looked like a little boy who’d just been told that Santa isn’t real. I wanted to reach out to him, comfort him, but I didn’t. I observed a slow-motion car crash, powerless to prevent it.
“Stop filming, stop fucking filming!” Nate roared as he stood up, then he pulled the mic clip from his shirt, and tossed it onto the ground.
He grabbed the display board from Dominique’s grip, broke it in two over his knee, and tossed the pieces aside.
Pinning the younger man with a murderous glare he ground out, “You fucking asshole. We’re done here! ” and then he stormed out of the room.
Shocked, I stood too. “Dude, what the hell?” I stated waspishly as I removed my mic clip, tossed it at him, and then kicked over his tripod.
I made to follow Nate; however, at that moment Roz rushed in and sent me a fiery glare, as if I’d said something to set her client off!
I matched her glare, but mine said, seriously?
I wordlessly gestured to the display board on the carpet.
The pieces had landed face up showing Erik sucking the twink. Roz’s face turned puce, and she roared.
“Security!” Then she directed her ire at the anxious man stuffing his camera into its bag.
“Mr. Le Grand, if that footage is released, I’m going to make damn sure you’re blacklisted from every press junket from here to fucking eternity.
” Dominique wore a self-satisfied smirk.
I guess the little shit had gotten exactly what he wanted, a reaction shot to monetize clicks on his entertainment gossip website. Roz pivoted to her terrified intern.
“Anja, get those two meathead security guards in here and make sure this motherfucker stays until we’ve decided on how to deal with him. Cancel the interviews for this afternoon. We’re done.”
We had ten interviews scheduled for the afternoon, but I was relieved to hear we were finished for the day.
“But—” the girl began, confused.
“Tell them the actors are jet-lagged. They’ll get their five minutes on the red carpet at the première,” Roz added and then turned away, her phone now pressed to her ear.
The jetlag excuse was laughable, seeing as I’d taken the Eurostar train from London which took just over two hours.
Dominique had collapsed his tripod and was attempting to slink out of the suite, but the security guards finally stepped in, puffed out their sizeable chests, and wouldn’t let him leave.