CHAPTER THREE
WHEN SYLVIA finished telling the guys the story, her stomach was once again tied in knots. She'd managed to slightly relax earlier when they'd arrived, because she trusted Nate and his best friends—men who were like brothers to her as well. She'd seen them work their magic and get their clients out of bigger shitstorms than this.
But now, after reliving her crazy night as she talked, the stress was back in full force. Sylvia hated the mere thought of the paparazzo's photos being out there on the Internet or in the papers.
Nate looked down at his notes and then at Greg.
"Do you have anything to add?"
Greg had been silent while she was telling the story, and his only input was a nod whenever she glanced at him for confirmation. Now he rubbed his thumb over one of his eyebrows before looking at Nate.
"The photos… They're going to look bad."
Sylvia frowned, but her brother beat her to it. "Bad how?"
"We didn't walk out of a restaurant or even a hotel." Greg grimaced. "We walked out of the dark corner of a back alley, flanked only by the two dumpsters."
Sylvia needed a second, but then it clicked. "Oh my God." Oh my God. "They'll take me for a hooker."The flashes of various possible headlines went through her mind in a rapid speed. None of them were kind. Oh God.
She narrowed her eyes at Greg. "That's why you said 'if we're lucky'."
"Yeah," he said quietly, holding her gaze. "I'm sorry."
She nodded. So was she. For herself, mostly, because come tomorrow morning, she was going to be smeared for public entertainment. But she also felt bad for Greg, because he was going to be dragged through the mud while all he had done was act like a decent person.
"I'm sorry, too," she whispered.
Shawn, who was taking his own notes on his laptop, tilted his head and looked at Greg. "Why does it bother you so much?"
"What?" Both Greg and Sylvia asked at the same time.
"You're a movie star. You're constantly in the papers or on TV," Shawn pointed out. "Paparazzi aren't exactly a shocking thing for you. Even a prostitution rumor probably isn't new."
"It's not as shocking, but it's still very unnerving," Greg said. Sylvia could feel him tensing even more right next to her. "It's a constant violation of my privacy."
"I get it." Shawn nodded, but when Greg sent him a disbelieving look, he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. "I can imagine that," he corrected himself. "But still, there's something else."
They both stared at each other for a long moment before Greg deflated. "Yes, there is. But I'll need at least a basic NDA before I get into it."
Shawn simply nodded and left the room, but Sylvia frowned and clasped her hands together tightly. What was it? Did he have a secret girlfriend or, God, a wife? They hadn't done anything other than some light flirting, maybe, and while she definitely appreciated how handsome he was up close, that didn't make her the other woman or anything. Still, his quiet admission made her heart beat a little faster.
There was a few minutes of tense silence, and Sylvia almost pushed for the explanation three times before the forms were signed. Finally, Greg put down the pen and started talking.
"I'm in the fifth year of a six-year contract with Dot Entertainment, the company that owns Collectibles. When you sign up to be in a franchise like that, you're not only agreeing to do the movies. There are months of promotional appearances and a bunch of other stipulations—including having a say in what I do even outside of shooting and promo tours." He paused and rubbed his temple again. "I've come to New York to do a limited run on Broadway in a musical I really wanted to be a part of."
Sylvia's eyes widened at that. Greg Abrams on Broadway? How the hell had she not heard about this? She opened her mouth to ask, but then she took another look at Greg and closed it. Her questions could wait.
"The thing is, even a limited run takes a lot of time. It's two and a half months of commitment between the rehearsals and performances in this case. And with the contract I have, Dot Entertainment was in their rights to tell me no." Greg's face hardened. "They finally agreed, but they threw in a clause that basically comes down to me keeping out of trouble."
"A morality clause," Nate said.
Sylvia frowned. She remembered a few headlines about Greg dating this actress or that producer, but she didn't recall anything bad. No drugs, no DUIs… Why would they insist on something like this?
Greg nodded. "These days, they are pretty standard in contracts for anything involving a big franchise, especially one that has a massive young audience. The one I have in my main contract isn't bad, but when we negotiated this time, they insisted on adding things. They knew they had an advantage, and they used it." He grimaced. "So now, if I were to…misbehave in New York, they could pull the plug on their agreement—up until a week before I start actually performing, which isn't for another three weeks."
"Why would they?" Sylvia asked, no longer able to keep quiet. "If they don't need you for anything—"
"They don't have to need me." Greg rubbed his eyebrows again. "Let's just say I don't…see eye to eye with someone on that team. If he can make my life more difficult, he will."
"And a story like this would be perfect for that," Shawn said.
"Exactly."
Sylvia hated how defeated Greg sounded. He was probably already envisioning going back with his tail between his legs, and Sylvia hated to even think that she would miss seeing him on a Broadway stage. Now that she'd imagined that, she couldn't unsee it. And she wanted it. Badly.
"So not only do we need to bury this story, we also have to come up with a different one," Dean said, leaning forward in his seat. He put his laptop on the coffee table and rested his elbows on his knees, tangling his fingers together.
Sylvia looked at her brother. "Can't we simply tell the truth?" Greg was against it earlier, but she still thought it was worth a shot.
Nate shook his head. "Sadly, no. It's not going to be enough to interest anyone other than maybe Greg's mother—and ours, but that's a stretch," he added, quirking up a dry smile for her. Their mother was hardly interested in either of them."We need something that will be a better story, a bigger one."
"Can't we focus on Greg's Broadway show?"
All four men shook their heads, but Greg was the one who spoke first.
"I can't talk about it yet, especially since it may not happen at all."
"And it doesn't hold enough weight to distract the world from a possible sex scandal," Shawn added before wincing at Sylvia. "Sorry."
She was trying hard not to think about being involved in a sex scandal. Very hard.
"So…"Dean's eyes pinned Sylvia to her seat and she held her breath. "How do you feel about pretend dating?"
She tightened her hands into fists on her lap as her heart started beating faster. She couldn't even glance to the side at Greg as she searched for something to say. But the three fixers didn't wait for an agreement. They started throwing ideas around and forming a plan right away.
It wasn't even that Sylvia was surprised, really. Pretending to date was a logical choice, a smoke screen that could turn a few photos from a back alley into just one element of a romantic story. Sylvia had been working for this company for about nine months now, and she had seen quite a few arranged matchups. She had even been pulled into selecting a perfect candidate half a dozen times, at least.
This time, both candidates are already here. She finally gathered enough courage to glance at Greg. He was sitting in silence, watching the fixing trio's back and forth as if it was a tennis match. She couldn't read him, couldn't see beyond the supposedly calm persona.
It had to be fake, right?
Sylvia had seen a few famous people in real life—some of them in the theater, some of them here in the office, seeking help. She understood that people living in a spotlight had to perfect their public faces, their ways of blocking off the world. And somehow, she knew this was what she was seeing on Greg now. He'd cut himself off, and she was left trying to make sense of it all. How the hell had her life become so surreal in little more than an hour? Meeting Greg in the alley, running away from the paparazzo, and now this?
Pretend dating Greg Abrams…sure, of course. No big deal.
The guy was just as handsome as he was in all the movies and photos she'd seen. Back in that alley, when he smiled, she could feel her interest pique and her body responding. But it was nothing, an instinctive reaction, because she couldn't not respond to the universe suddenly putting an international movie star in her path.
Ironically, talking to him in a dark alley between dumpsters seemed less surreal than sitting next to him here, in the familiar surroundings of F.Y.U.'s private conference room.
Then Greg turned and looked at her, and everything was real again—maybe too real, if the way her chest tightened was any indication. Could she do it? Could she pretend to date him? As she stared into his blue eyes, she realized that while she might not be any good at acting most of the time, it wouldn't take much pretending to do this.
Which could be good for the plan, but potentially dangerous for her heart.
"You okay?" Greg whispered, leaning closer to her.
Sylvia started to nod out of habit, but she stopped herself in mid-gesture. She shrugged instead. "Not really," she admitted in a whisper. Having those freaking photos taken and becoming a topic for gossip was bad enough. But if she'd also get lost between what was real and what was pretend, she was going to end up hurt when the act would inevitably be over. "You?"
He nodded. "Same." His mask slipped for a moment, and she could see once again how stressed he really was over this as she took in the frown on his face and the slump of his shoulders.
Sylvia worried her lower lip between her teeth and glanced down on her lap. "I'm sorry about all this. I—"
Greg shook his head. "It's not your fault."
"But if—"
"Hey, you're not to blame for this. I mean it." He tilted his head down a bit and sought her gaze once again. "I thought you'd blame me for dragging you into this."
"You helped me when I felt sick, and you're getting punished for it."
"The paparazzo was there after me, and now you'll—"
"Guys," Shawn's voice interrupted their whispered conversation, and both of them drew back. Sylvia realized that she'd leaned closer to Greg than she'd thought while they were talking. "Trying to out-guilt each other won't help anyone. It's not about whose fault it is or isn't. It happened, and now we have to fix it."
Sylvia nodded, pulling back from Greg, and she took a deep breath. "By pretending to date?"
"That seems like the best option. Dean's bringing Kevin back," Shawn said, pointing a thumb at Dean who was texting on his phone, "and then we can start putting things in motion. In the meantime, this is what we—"
"Who's Kevin?" Greg cut him off, frowning.
"Our resident computer wizard," Nate explained. "We're going to need his help, and it needs to be done before tomorrow when the photos get out."
Sylvia sat up with a wave of new hope. "Can't he block the sites with the photos?"
Shawn shook his head. "He can manage it a bit, and he's probably going to try to contain their spread, but there's no way to block it completely, since he can't hack the press or TV outlets. Erasing the photos too extensively would draw attention and suggest we're trying to hide them on purpose."
"So we contain the spread to some degree, but we won't clear all the sites." Nate looked at Sylvia. "I'm sorry, sis, I wish we could get rid of them all, but that's just not going to work."
She tried to smile but probably grimaced instead. "Don't worry about it. You're already helping by taking this on."
Sylvia and Nate might fight from time to time like only siblings could, but she had never doubted he'd have her back on this. He had been her first phone call for years now, even before he moved to the business of doing that for other people.
He smiled at her, and she managed to answer in kind. It will be fine. It has to be. She turned to Greg, and they looked at each other for a long moment. Sylvia needed him to make the final call, because she was still feeling guilty and didn't want to pull him into anything against his will.
I'm game if you are, she wanted to tell him, but the words wouldn't come out. Finally, he had to have read it on her face, because he nodded and turned to Shawn.
"So, what's the plan, exactly?"