Chapter Four
Erin
My hands shake as I walk back to my desk. I knew he was good looking. Okay, I’m lying; he’s not just good looking, he is so far past that I can’t describe it. But I get it now with the smirk and the smoldering look. I can totally see why the ladies flock to him . . . and why he allows them to flock. That smirk speaks volumes.
Placing the coffee cup on my desk, I sit down and look at the computer screen. Counting in my head slowly, I breathe in and breathe out. I lean back in my chair and stare up at the lights. This is a bad idea. I have a feeling this whole thing will be a failure before I start. When the phone buzzes, letting me know it’s time for me to be introduced, so to speak, I get up. Grabbing my own folder that I prepared, I walk down the hallway. Almost like you are walking to the principal’s office . . . or like the movie The Green Mile. I’m not sure which ending would be worse at this point. I swallow and take a deep breath, then I knock on the door and walk in.
Sylvia is the first one I hear speaking. “Erin, I believe you’ve already met Carter.” I look over at him, and his smirk stretches into a full-blown smile on his ridiculously perfect face.
“Erin, what a pretty name,” he says, and I hear the guy beside him groan. Carter reaches over, extending his hand, and I automatically reach out and shake his hand. His hand grips mine, and he slowly moves it, then stops and just holds my hand.
I look over at the other people sitting in the meeting. Ryan just shakes his head when the guy next to him gets up and pulls our hands apart to introduce himself. “I’m Jeff. I’m Carter’s manager.”
I smile at the guy whose beads of sweat forming on his brow and upper lip are becoming awkwardly apparent. “Nice to meet you,” I tell him. Walking over to sit next to Sylvia, I try my best to control the pace of my beating heart. This is a big meeting with the biggest Hollywood player and all his people, and I’m sitting at the table feeling very out of my element. But I know it’s my go big or go home moment.
“We were discussing with Carter the ways to change his reputation,” Sylvia starts and then looks at me, then at Ryan. “Erin will be taking the lead on this, and she will be reporting back to us.”
“Basically,” Ryan says, “if she says do this or do that, then there is a reason, and I need you to respect it.”
“I have no problem doing whatever Erin suggests I do for her,” Carter says, leaning back in the chair.
Jesus, that fucking smirk is on megawatt charge right now, and it’s becoming harder and harder to avert my eyes from his mouth.
“So what are you suggesting exactly?” Jeff asks, and Sylvia looks over at me and just nods her head. It’s enough of a diversion that I’m able to focus so I get ready to pitch my ideas.
“Well, for one, we need to work on his Instagram,” I start and take out some of the pictures that I pulled from his account. “He has twenty million followers, and the only pictures he is posting are of him partying with different women, multiple times a day, coming and going out of different hotels and bars . . . so a lot of female adoration from a personal standpoint, but not so much from the followers on your social media accounts.”
“Twenty million is huge,” Jeff says, and I nod.
“It is, but it has gone down a million over the past six months.” I take out proof of this, handing it to them.
“There has to be a reason,” Jeff says. “Some of the accounts must have been fake or closed.”
“One million accounts are gone. That’s roughly fifty-five-hundred followers per day. He’s bleeding followers, so it could be that people aren’t interested in seeing who he is sleeping with today,” I tell him. “We’ll use Tyler Beckett as a recent example. He grew to forty million followers after he started posting about his wife and kid. Not so much his kid but his home life. He became more personable, someone the masses can connect with, can celebrate their success with, can support. It’s a unique algorithm that works with the female population. It gives the average woman an idea that ‘hey, the love of his life is just like me and maybe someone like him could fall in love with me’ when they see that he’s posting pictures of a normal Sunday morning making pancakes with his wife and child. It’s all about image and the impression, and the debauchery and a partying lifestyle that you have been posting about lately are not something your followers can relate to.”
“Well, considering I don’t have a wife and a kid, everything that you are saying could be a huge problem,” Carter says, and I just look at him.
“Well, considering that you can post about anything else—literally anything—except for how much traffic a certain body part of yours gets on a daily basis, then yeah, maybe it might change.” I’m about to apologize when Sylvia interrupts.
“What she is saying in a nice way is no one wants to know who you are going home with. They care about what you do during the day.” I watch Carter as he takes in all the information.
“They want to know that you are the guy next door,” I say. “They want to see that you get up and you have coffee. You have a dog or a cat. They want you to be like them, and the girls want to see that you have a soft side also.”
“Trust me, honey, there is nothing soft about me,” Carter says, and Ryan slaps the table, getting up.
“This, right here, is why you need her,” Ryan says. “I think you can be the biggest there is, but if you can’t get the people to come to the movies because of your fucking attitude, then it doesn’t matter.” Ryan looks over at me. “I want to be included on this all the way.”
“Not a problem,” I tell him, and then he looks at Jeff.
“I trust you will explain to him how important this is,” he says while the other guys stand and start to walk out. “If you will excuse us, we have to get on a plane.” He looks over at Carter and points a finger, and says, “SIXTY DAYS, Carter . . . don’t disappoint.” No one says anything while the other guys walk out of the room. With the click of the door, it’s suddenly just the four of us in the room.
“Okay,” Carter says, the smirk now missing from his cocky demeanor. “I’ll do whatever you want.”
“Perfect,” I say. Maybe I can actually do this. I mean, maybe he can be a civil person to work with.
“Let’s meet tomorrow,” he says. “Ten a.m. at my house.”
“Um.” I start to stutter and maybe suggest we just meet here when Sylvia answers.
“That is a great idea,” she says, and I look over at her, trying not to make my mouth hit the floor. “You two need to be on the same page.”
“I couldn’t agree more,” Jeff says, and then he starts to get up. “So we will see you tomorrow at ten a.m.”
He said we, so I kind of breathe a little sigh of relief. “That sounds great.” Carter gets up now, grabbing his glasses, and just smiles at Sylvia.
“It’s great seeing you again.” When he turns to me, his eyes change and his smile changes, but I’m the only one who can see the shift. He’s the hunter, and I’m his prey. “Erin, see you tomorrow,” he says and turns to walk out of the room, and it’s only then I notice that I’m not breathing. I was holding my breath, for what I’m not sure. Maybe hoping he wouldn’t notice me at all.