Her head falls forward as she grabs her side. “I think I’m going to be sick.”
“Hey, now you know how I felt during this conversation.”
“Wait.” Her head pops up. “You said Mr. Masters’s daughter?” The pale look on her face is replaced with a look of confusion.
I nod in confirmation.
Confusion gives way to understanding. And she’s not happy about it. “That means…”
I grin. “She’s also Damien’s ex-ex-fiancee…”
Paula stumbles over to one of the chairs opposite me and collapses into it. “I’m going to get fired.”
“No, you’re not. This is not a big deal. It’s not your fault, and I’m not going to fire you. Where did you get these photos, anyway? I didn’t see any paps there.”
She points to the watermark. “My friend over at EntertainMe. com sent it to me. They’re recording the video right now but the text is already on their website, which means it’s going to be picked up at any time.”
A thought occurs to me. “You’re not the one leaking information, are you?” I get a glare my joke.
“What’s the accompanying text?”
She shakes her head and rests her hand on her forehead. “You do not want to know.” “It can’t be that bad.”
She glares at me, and struggles to her feet before handing me her phone, open to an email.
“Serial womanizer and alleged soon-to-be father of at least two children, Matthias Baxter, was recently seen embracing his brother’s former fiancee in West Village on Thursday. Do we now know the real reason that Damien Baxter and Clarissa Masters called it quits? Could Matthias Baxter be the reason Masters fled Sydney after the breakup and moved to New York? Matthias Baxter is fast winning the race of the most immoral man in Manhattan. Should investors be supporting a child care company under his watch?”
“Shit.” I exhale. This couldn’t have come at a worse time.
“Yeah, shit.”
I’ve heard Paula swear more in the last week than in the entire time she’s been with Baxter Enterprises. I guess I just bring that out in women.
With the IPO for Kids & Care happening in two months, though, this is monumentally bad timing. This has been in the works for the last year and a half and is expected to be big news in the business space. Which is probably exactly why this is the angle the tabloids are targeting.
Now I’m worried. “So, Paula, what am I supposed to do? Or should I say, what do you want me to do?”
The recent surveys have made it clear, investors did not want to buy into a child care company whose director had a reputation for whoring it up. The projected asking price for our IPO is dropping by the day. I’m the reason. And I’m not okay with that.
Paula sits down on the couch next to me. “You know how I said that you better not be photographed with another woman?”
I hesitate to answer. This sounds like a path that’s not going to end in anything fun for me. “I guess…”
She sits up until she’s eye level with me. “What did I say? Repeat it to me.”
“You said that… if I did get photographed with a woman in the next three months… then it better be with the same woman.”
Paula nods. “Right. I think you see where I’m going with this.” “I don’t.” A shake of my head. I refuse to see.
“I think you do, Mr. Baxter. ”
“Yeah, I think I might, but I’m hoping that that’s not really where you’re going.”
“You’ve now chosen the woman you’re going to be taking photos with until the IPO.” She holds up two fingers. “For two months.”
I recoil just at her words. “No. You don’t get it. She and I can’t be in the same place for more than thirty seconds without wanting to rip each other’s throats out. And it’s always been this way. She’s just a spoiled rich bitch. And I can promise you now, she’s not going to want to have any part of this either.”
“You can ask.”
I get up, and just for one second try to imagine what Paula is suggesting. Me. And Clarissa. In some kind of… public… thing to stabilize my reputation? Fuck. No. “I’m serious. You don’t know what you’re suggesting. It’s not going to be my manwhoring that’s going to screw the IPO up, it’s going to be the explosion that takes out half of Manhattan if we sit in the same room for more than ten minutes.”
My PR rep stands up, looking a lot happier than when she came in here. “Well, whatever it is you do, just make sure that the press is there to see you two doing it together.”
I’d rather suck my balls off with a Dyson, deep-fry them in human lard and have Hannah shoot them into my mouth with a T-shirt canon before I voluntarily spend time with Clarissa. And I have zero doubt that the feeling is mutual; the run-in at Leanne’s place more than proved that.
After Paula leaves, I do a Google search to see what everyone really is saying about me, as well as to read the latest reports of the predictions for Kids & Care going public. And none of it looks good.
In fact, it looks progressively worse the longer that I look.
Shit.
Is there really no other way?
I pour a drink, sit and contemplate my life for a few minutes, then I sigh, grabbing my phone and dialing Leanne’s number.
“Hey, it’s your lucky day. What are you doing tonight?”
CLARISSA
I
went to my first blues and whiskey club when I was six years old. My father used to have a standing appointment at the local club a few blocks away from his office. One day, I was shipped
off to spend the day with him at the office while my mother spent hers at the spa. After work, my father packed up his things, took my hand in his and said, “Let’s go to my favorite place in the city.”
The cigar smoke choked me the second I walked through the door, but everything else mesmerized me.