Hooker (L.A. Liaisons Book 2) (14 page)

Twinges of guilt twisted in my gut as I thought about what his reaction would be when he saw the headlines. No doubt he would think that I’d stuffed up. That I was the one who gave up his secret to the whole world, the one he’d wanted to keep under wraps.
 

Furious was an understatement. If it hadn’t been for me, neither Val or Nicole would’ve known and none of this would be happening.
If
, of course, they did it. And I had a strong feeling my guess was right on.
 

On the other hand, Ace knew I’d be checking in with my boss regarding what we’d talked about, so…
 

Groaning, I collapsed on top of my arms.
 

How had everything gone tits up overnight? And the bigger question: how the hell was I going to fix it?

* * *

I’D TROLLED EVERY entertainment news website and chewed through a whole pack of gum and half a dozen pen caps when Val decided to make her grand appearance three hours later.
 

She didn’t glance my way or make any smartassed comments about my vanilla outfit, per usual, as she walked by. Finding that strange, I jumped up and followed, hot on her heels. I needed answers, and I needed them hours ago.
 

“Please tell me it wasn’t you,” I said, following her into her office and shutting the door behind me.
 

Her heels click-clacked on the floor as she breezed across the room and dropped her Louis Vuitton bag on the desk. “Tell you what wasn’t me? And why are you following me around this morning? Don’t you have a column to write? Some fornicating couples to match?”

Stopping in front of her desk, I tried to keep my voice calm and steady. “You know what I’m talking about. The Ace leak. The one that’s all over the news right now. Please tell me it wasn’t you.”

“Course not.” She flipped open a compact mirror and applied a coat of her signature red lipstick.
Traitor red,
more like
.

“I’m serious. Did the whole world just find out something private because you talked to the media? Please tell me the truth.”

“Hey. Little do-gooder.” Val glanced briefly at me before returning her eyes to the mirror. “In case you forgot the pecking order around here, I am your boss, and you are my employee. I don’t have to tell you when I take a shit or how I decide to wipe my ass.”

“But…you just said—”

“I know what I said, and that should be good enough for you.” Val blotted her lips with a tissue and tossed it in the trash. “Now, having said that, you need to learn this business. Sometimes if you want to succeed and make a name for yourself, you have to do whatever it takes.” She ran her eyes over me before narrowing them. “But, you know. I think I was wrong about you.”

“Wrong how?”

Val wrinkled her nose in distaste. “I don’t think you’ve got the stomach for dealing dirty to get to the top. Too sweet, too much sugar.”

What does she mean dealing dirty?

Before I could ask, her phone rang and she gave an agitated sigh. “As you can see, it’s going to be a busy day, so if you could…” She made a shooing motion with her hand and swiveled her chair around as she answered the call.
 

What just… Did she just… What the hell happened here?

As I walked out of her office, I felt numb. I’d never had her unleash on me before in that way, and it sent my mind whirling.
 

Was this how business was played?
Dirty?
She’d just called me out for having a conscience, but how was that a bad thing? Was I supposed to just throw people to the wolves to make a name for myself? Was that what success entailed?

Mulling over those thoughts, I headed to the sanctuary of my office—however temporary that would now be—and as I rounded the corner, someone grabbed my shoulders from behind. I whipped around to see sweet ’n’ petite Jenna standing there with a concerned look on her face.

“You okay? Nicole was trying to get your attention…” She glanced over her shoulder to where Nicole sat with a supremely annoyed expression on her puss as she held up her phone.

“Hel-lo,” she said, and I gathered from her condescending greeting that whatever was about to come wasn’t something I wanted to hear.
 

Looking at her reminded me that I needed to install a punching bag in my office if I somehow kept my job. Or maybe one of those dartboards. It’d be too obvious if I stuck Nicole’s face on it, but maybe every time I heard her obnoxious laugh from across the office, I’d throw a dart.
Good plan.

“You’ve had about ten phone calls already from someone named Mr. Herschman who says it’s urgent, so can you please call him back so he stops tying up the line? Some very important media calls are coming through that
I
have to take care of.” Nicole flipped her long, dark hair over her shoulder as she spun around to slam down the phone, which promptly began to ring again.

Hold your tongue while you still have a job…

I had to physically bite down on my cheek to resist losing my shit on that sniveling little brat, and luckily Jenna noticed. She pushed me toward my chair and then went to retrieve the messages with the number of Mr. Herschman, whoever that was.

The last thing I felt like doing was dealing with a new client with the mess I had stockpiling in front of me. No, what I needed to do was get in touch with Ace and make him see it wasn’t me and that we’d fix it, some-freaking-how. Any time God wanted to strike me with a brilliant idea on how to do that, it would be great.
 

Really, anytime now. Won’t hold my breath or anything
.

“Jesus, Shayne, it’s him again,” Nicole’s voice rang out, and the sound of her voice made me want to scratch my skin off. Instead of a punching bag or dartboard, maybe I’d just go straight to a voodoo doll. One of my clients made them for scorned lovers, and I could—
Oh God, I can’t even believe I’m considering that.
 

With a sigh, I counted to five and then answered the line. “Shayne Callahan.”

“Hi, this is Roger Herschman. I’m Ace Locke’s personal manager.”

Okay, now
that
had me sitting up straight.
 

“Oh…hi, Mr. Herschman. What can I do for you?”

“You can explain to me how the hell Ace is front fucking page news today.”

Shit.
I swallowed hard. “I’ve been asking that same question this morning, I assure you.”

“You didn’t go running your mouth to any of those tabloids, did you? Because I will find out, and God help me if it was you—”

“No, sir, I swear I was not the source. I’m just as outraged as you are.”

“I highly doubt that. I’ve got paparazzi already lined up at the goddamn gate, and a client who’s refusing to come out of his bathroom. Lots of bad shit happens in bathrooms, you get my drift? And if any bad shit happens on my watch, I’m taking you and that fucking company down so hard you’ll be shitting last week’s lunch out of your mouth.”

Bloody hell.
 

“I understand,” I said, sinking into my chair. Sinking. That was an excellent word for how I felt at the moment. “I’m not sure how I can help—”

“You can start by getting over here to explain the situation.”

“Oh…right, of course. I was hoping to speak with Ace anyway, so just let me know where to go,” I said, fumbling through my drawer for a pen. He gave me the address and hung up, and then I grabbed my bag, too nauseated to even think about bringing my still-untouched coffee.

“Where do you think you’re going?” Nicole’s wretched nasal twang rang out, and I answered by slamming the office door shut behind me.

I was a girl on a mission—even if I didn’t have the slightest clue what that mission was.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Does This Beard Make Me Look Fat?

AN HOUR AND forty minutes later, after having taken the train home to get my car, I was pulling up to the gate of Ace’s swanky Beverly Hills neighborhood, and thank God for the security check-in station.
 

A crowd of paparazzi was gathered on the sidewalks, unable to get in, and they looked my way but lowered their cameras when they caught sight of my car. But as I showed my ID to the guard and passed through, a Jaguar pulled up behind me and the camera flashes went insane. No doubt they were snapping photos of everyone who came and went just in case it was someone they could use for a tabloid story…unless you drove a barely running, decades-old Saturn.
 

Nerves flooded my stomach as I followed the directions I’d been given. I was trying not to think about the fact that I was mere minutes away from entering a big Hollywood star’s house, but as I passed the ostentatious mansions with their bright green manicured grass and high, moss-covered walls, my heartbeat became erratic, and I was sweating even though I hadn’t turned the heat on and it was freezing outside.
 

How am I even here?
I was an impostor, someone who’d been in the wrong place at the wrong time. I mean, I was just a small-time freaking matchmaker, not someone who knew anything about celebrity cover-ups and scandals and whatnot. This was something Paige could handle, not me.
Oh hell,
I should’ve called her. She’d know what to do, though I doubted any of her advice would be anything less than X-rated.

My hands were slipping off the steering wheel as I pulled up to the gates of Ace’s estate. If the properties I’d passed along the way were any indication, his house was palatial. My guess was confirmed when I saw the Spanish-tiled roof looming over the gates and extending down…down…down…

Jesus, how far does it go?
That’s not intimidating at all.
 

I stopped at the intercom and wiped my hands off on my slacks before rolling the window down and hitting the button for the speaker. There was a camera set up on top of it, with two more on top of either side of the massive gate.
 

Maybe I could turn around and—

“Yes?” came a curt voice over the speaker.
 

“H-hi. Shayne Callahan for—”

A loud buzz and the gates parted. I drove Old Ouiser forward, which was sputtering in protest at the hill it’d just climbed, and I prayed no one would come out and send sniveling glances its way.
 

Wait.
Would a butler or someone come out and valet the car? Did they have those at these types of places? God, that would be exceptionally awful, since I avoided valets like the plague. There was a trick to turning off Old Ouiser that no one else seemed to be able to do, and it was better just to self-park and avoid the embarrassment, if possible. I patted the dash with a soothing hand at the thought.
 

All right. All I have to do is come up with a solution to save my ass and the company, and offer a helpful solution to Ace’s predicament. No big deal.
 

An entire car ride over hadn’t given me any bright ideas, but I was pretty good at winging it.
 

Usually.
 

Sometimes.
 

Oh, fuck it all. I was completely out of my league.
 

Luckily, no one came out to help me with my car, so I gathered what was left of my wits and headed up to the gargantuan front door. Before I could ring the doorbell, it opened.

“You must be Miss Callahan,” a portly man in a pristine grey suit said, moving to the side for me to enter.
 

“Shayne is fine.”

“They’re waiting for you in the kitchen.” He led me through the largest foyer I’d ever seen, then past an enormous staircase with a long corridor just behind it. At the end was an expansive, open area with a wall of windows. The left side featured a sitting area with oversized plush couches facing a theatre-sized television, and on the right, Ace on a barstool, slumped over at the island counter in the middle of the kitchen.

Hovering nearby were who I assumed to be his handlers, one almost an exact Olivia Pope replica, even down to the white trench coat, and the other an older man who looked a little red in the face. Had to be Mr. Herschman, the same guy who’d given me a good reaming over the phone. They both cut off abruptly when I entered, and as they went silent, Ace lifted his head. The obvious anger and hurt were there in his eyes, but underneath that was something even worse—despair.
 

I stayed back, not wanting to get too close and invade his personal space any more than I already had. My mouth opened to say the first thing I’d thought, which was, “I’m glad they talked you out of the bathroom,” but I caught myself before spouting off the insensitive remark and instead said, “I don’t even know what to say other than I’m so sorry about what’s happened.”

“Sorry?” Red Face boomed, and yep, that was definitely Mr. Herschman. “Damn right you’re sorry.”

Trench coat woman put a hand on his arm, and then said, “Thank you for coming, Shayne. I’m Martina Lankshire, Ace’s publicist, and you’ve already spoken with Roger here.”

Roger who was spitting licks of fire out of his eyeballs.
Yeah, I know him.
Nice guy.
 

“Any idea who’s pulling this stunt? That boss of yours, maybe? She seems to have quite the mouth on her.”

“It wouldn’t make sense for Val to leak information when it only damages her company,” I said, the words ringing false in my ears.
 

After confronting Val in her office earlier and what she’d said, I didn’t fully believe she was above tarnishing Ace’s name to get ahead. Didn’t even half believe that. Yeah, it was hovering more in the twenty percent range, and that just made me feel like an asshole. But I didn’t have proof, and I was holding out hope that if the leak had indeed come from HLS, that Nicole was the rat behind it all.
 

Martina raised an eyebrow. “Bad publicity is still good publicity.”

Val said the same thing. Maybe I’m
not
cut out for all of this…

“Anything that was said between my boss and I is held in the strictest of confidence out of respect for client confidentiality. I’m hoping, just like you, that we can get to the bottom of all this.”