He walked back into the living room. He didn’t stumble or slur. His tolerance was too high for that. But I could see he was teetering on a precipice, and any minute, he might fall off of it into oblivion.
But he glanced at English. He looked her up and down with a flick of his eyes. And then a dangerous smile crossed his face.
“So, you’d work for me?” he asked English.
“Incorrect,” English said. “I would be an employee of your mother. I would report to her.”
He stepped closer. A wave of charisma seemed to wrap around him. Or perhaps that was just the gin. “And would you have to tell her everything?”
She narrowed her eyes at him. “No. That’s not how my business relationships work. I am hired to fix problems. You are a problem. So, we’ll spend the next couple months trying to fix you.”
“That’s not exactly what I had in mind,” he said, sipping on his martini.
“Court,” I groaned. “It’s not a romantic relationship. It’s business.”
He waved his hand at me. “Sure thing. You know all about keeping business and personal separate.”
His eyes met mine with a gleam that said he knew exactly what was going on with me and Sam. My cheeks flushed. God, I was not letting a Kensington get under my skin.
But before I could respond, English stepped forward. “Look, this is how it is. You need me,” she told him—straightforward, no bullshit. “You need me more than you even know. Because right now, I’m staring at a husk of a man. One who was brought to his knees by a liar and a fraud. And I don’t know if you knew what she did or not. I’m not here for answers. I’m not here to babysit you. I’m here to make people believe that you’ve turned over a new leaf, that you want to repent for your actions, and make you the fucking golden boy of the Upper East Side.”
Court snorted. “Good luck with that.”
She took another step toward him. She looked fierce as hell. “That is what I’m good at. And it’s what I’m going to do for you. You’re going to stop trying to think we’ll sleep together because that is never, ever going to happen. You’re a client. That’s it.” She shrugged nonchalantly. “You have two options: you can put your drink down and listen to how I’m going to turn your life around, or you can stay in this apartment until you drink yourself to death. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen it.”
She crossed her arms and waited.
“Maybe I’d like the latter,” he said. But something had shaken loose. He didn’t have the same rich-boy confidence when he spoke.
“No, you wouldn’t.”
“Don’t you think this is all just going to blow over anyway?”
English held her hands out. “That’s what I do for a living. I make these things blow over. I make them go away before they even hit the press. And you’re going to need someone to do that. Because the arrest might disappear after a week or two. The charges might not have ever been filed against you. But what about when Jane goes to trial?”
He winced at those words.
“What about when her face is in every newspaper in the country for fraud? What if they publish a book about her? What if they make her crimes into a blockbuster movie? You think you’re just going to disappear through all of that? Especially if you’re still the bad-boy prince, drunk and high and fucking anyone who will sell your pictures or sex tapes to the tabloids?”
Court frowned. Even I frowned. I hadn’t thought that far ahead. My life was to think about the campaign and how this would affect us through November. English was thinking long-term. Past the election. To how all of this would go down in the press. And it looked bloody from my perspective.
“Do you want to be the sympathetic ex or the accomplice?” English asked. “Because how we react and shape the narrative determines how Hollywood portrays you years down the road.”
“Fine,” Court spat. “Whatever.”
“Good,” English said with a satisfied grin. “I thought so. We’ll start in the morning.”
Court laughed and downed his drink. “I don’t wake up before noon.”
English seemed undeterred. “Noon it is. Most creatives I work with aren’t morning people anyway. Plus, I’m still on West Coast time.”
“Are we finished?” Court asked. “I’d like to go back to getting shit-faced. Thanks.”
I frowned at him. He was such a mess. Jane’s betrayal had really fucked him up. I knew that English would help. That she was the best at this and she’d get him back on track. But right now, I actually…pitied him. I wished there were more that I could do. But I could see that he just wanted us to leave.
“Thanks for hearing us out,” I said.
Court waved me off, and I followed English to the elevator. We were silent as we headed back to the ground floor. I could see that the wheels were working in English’s head. That she wanted to get back to the apartment right away, so she could get started with all of her ideas. I just wanted to give Court a hug and ask how he’d gone such a different direction than his brother. Sometimes, it amazed me that they were related.
The elevator opened on the bottom floor, and I nearly walked right into the person trying to enter before we were out.
I stopped in surprise. “Sam?”
He glanced up, and I could see that something was off about him. His hair was standing on end as if he’d been pulling it. His eyes looked lost. His shoulders were slumped forward. I didn’t know if I’d ever seen him look like that.
He frowned when he saw me and English. “Hey.” Then he stepped back to let us pass and entered the elevator.
“Going to see Court?”
“Yep,” he said tersely.
“Try to get him sober for us?”
He shook his head and shrugged. “Court does what he wants.”
I tilted my head in confusion. What was his deal?
“Are you done?” he asked, nodding toward where I was still holding the door open. I hadn’t even realized.
“Uh, yeah. Are you okay?”
“Fine. Just a long week.”
“Oh…okay.”
Then the elevator door slowly closed in my face.
“Well, that was…something,” English said, sounding pissed.
“Yeah, something.”
“He was a total ass. I thought you’d said you two were friends.”
“I thought so too,” I said, stepping away from the elevator and following her toward the exit.
“See, this is what I’m saying,” English said. “You need to let Sam stay in the past. He’s a colleague and nothing more. All he does is make you miserable, guessing at his reactions.”
“I suppose.”
“One minute, he’s all concerned about your strawberry allergy, and the next, he’s all but pushing you out of the elevator to get away from you. You can do better.”
Everyone kept saying that.
And still, I hadn’t found anyone. Wasn’t sure I ever would.
16
Sam
“I think that’s everything,” Claire said from the bedroom.