Roz parked her Bentley in the parking lot of her company, the Graham Agency, and looked up at the beautiful building.  It was a talent agency, and Roz now had the reputation of being one of the best agents in the business.  And although it was her concept and her goal, it was Mick who designed the building and put every dime into its construction.  When her own dream of being a Broadway star was as stale and stalled as a broken-down elevator, it was Mick who produced and bankrolled her dream.  He gave her career another shot.  She was stalled again, when Joe Ranley tossed her from Lean in Love, but at least she got that second chance.  And even there, Mick found a way to get to New York and handle that arrogant-ass producer.

She would most likely briefly shelve her career for now, however, because her agency needed her attention, but it was Mick who still made her dream come true.  Hell, she thought, he even bought her the car she drove, and made sure he kept her in Gucci and pearls and treated her like his queen.  He was a good man who sometimes made mistakes.  He wasn’t perfect and neither was she.  But that staying-out-all-night-without-calling-her shit was their major issue.  It was something she told Mick time and time again she didn’t like and wasn’t going to take.  But he kept doing it anyway.

But as Roz sat there, feeling guilty for being so hard on him before she left for work, she also knew that was part of the problem.  She loved Mick so much, and allowed him to be so engrained on her brain, that he was now everything to her.   There was not one avenue of her life that he didn’t have his footprints on.  And that was why, she also knew, that when he didn’t live up to the image she needed him to live up to it hurt like hell.  It made her feel as if she had invested all of her energy into a vessel that just might sink them both.  And that, for a woman like Roz, was some scary shit.

Besides, she wasn’t equipped to be the main chick while her man had all those other chicks on the side.  She wasn’t about to go around talking about how he came home to her every night, especially since she’d be lying since he didn’t come home every night; and that she could live with his indiscretions.  She couldn’t.  She wasn’t built that way.  She wasn’t that girl.

She got out of her car, pressed the key fob to alarm it, and headed for the entrance.  She had just entered the lobby when Teegan Salley, her secretary, hurried from out of the onsite café and made her way toward Roz.  She had a top-covered cup of coffee in her hand. “I was watching for your arrival,” she said as she began taking Roz’s briefcase from her.

“What is it?” Roz asked.

“It’s Dontae.  He’s here.”

Roz was surprised.  “Dontae?  What is he doing here?”

“I don’t know,” Teegan said.  “He won’t tell me.  He called this morning and asked if you were going to be in.  He said he heard you were no longer in Lean in Love and wanted to come over.  I thought he was coming over to offer you moral support.  But that’s not it.”

“No?”

“No, ma’am.  I’ve never seen that good man in such a bad state!”

Roz’s heart began to pound.  Dontae was one of her biggest success stories, and by far her favorite client.  Like her career before she met Mick, he didn’t get any breaks on Broadway either.  But for Dontae, his situation had been even worse than hers.  After twenty years in the business and fast approaching forty, his prospects of ever getting that break were slim to none.  Until Roz took him on as her client.  Until she worked every source she had and was able to get him bit parts in play after play, and now his first starring role.  Now what, she thought?  “Where is he?” she asked, as she unfurled the scarf around her neck.

“I just put him in the first-floor conference room,” Teegan responded.  “I figured you guys could have total privacy down here.”

Roz handed the scarf to Teegan and Teegan handed her the cup of coffee.  “What do you want me to tell your other clients should any drop by?” Teegan asked.

“Since none of them have an appointment, either, tell them they’ll need to make an appointment.  I’ve got a backlog of work already,” Roz said, and headed for the downstairs conference room.

“Yes, ma’am,” Teegan said with a smile, and then made her way toward the elevators.  The lobby security guard, who had eavesdropped on parts of the conversation, smiled too.  “One thing about Boss,” he said as Teegan walked past him.

“What’s that?” Teegan asked.

“She don’t play,” the guard said, and both of them laughed.

But inside the conference room was anything but joyous.  Dontae Pryor sat in one of the side chairs that faced the door with his hands clasped on top of the table, and his head down.  Even the opening of the door didn’t disturb him.

Roz left the door open as she made her way toward the table.  She wasn’t certain if he was blaming his decidedly downcast mood on something she might have did or didn’t do.  She learned long ago to never take any chances.

She decided to sit down beside him.  Just in case he was now an enemy, she wanted to, literally, keep her enemy closer.  She reached out the cup of coffee to him.  “Want some?” she asked.

It was the first time he actually looked up at her.  “I’m good,” he said.

But she could tell he was a long way from good.  He was an extremely handsome African-American actor, with smooth dark-brown skin, soft hair in a low-cut fade, and the biggest, most alluring brown eyes in the business.  And one of the best actors, too.  Dontae was the total package.  But today he looked devastated.  “What’s wrong?” Roz asked him in that motherly voice her clients were accustomed to.

Dontae was about to speak, but then he shook his head and wiped away a tear that had escaped.

Now Roz was even more worried.  “What is it?”

Dontae exhaled.  “I was fired,” he said.

Roz was dumbstruck.  “Fired?”

Dontae looked at her.  “Wes fired me.”

Roz was puzzled as hell.  “But why?  You’re the star of the show.  Critics are saying you could get nominated for a Tony for crying out loud!  Why would he fire you, Dontae?”

“Some girl lied on me,” he said, “and he believed her.”

Oh, great, Roz thought.  That reason!  The hardest reason in the world to overcome and get an actor reinstated.  She removed the top off of the coffee.  Teegan knew she liked hers black, so she assumed that was what this was.  She took a sip.  It was black, but bordering on cold, too.  “Tell me what happened,” she said.

“You know he talk a lot of crap about you,” Dontae said.

Roz was thrown.  What in the world did she have to do with this?  Was this fool trying to make this about her?  “Excuse me?” she asked.

“Wes,” Dontae said.  “He talks a lot of crap about you.  He said the only reason you got your career off the ground was because of your husband’s money.  He said you couldn’t act your way out of a paper bag.”

Because Roz wasn’t taking the bait, and was just staring at him, Dontae continued.  “He said your husband was in the mob, and that was the real source of his money, not Sinatra Industries.  Sinatra Industries, he said, was just a front.  Then he had the nerve to say that he was too ethical to take mob money.  That implied, to me anyway, that he was trying to say that you weren’t ethical at all.”

Roz continued to stare at Dontae.  She couldn’t believe this old-ass man was sitting up here playing that high school shit with her.  Who did he think he was dealing with?  “Tell me what happened,” she said again.

She could tell Dontae was surprised that she didn’t take the bait at all, but then he seemed to realize whom he was dealing with.  Roz was all business when it came to her business.  “One of the chorus girls claimed I was harassing her,” he said.

“Sexually?” Roz asked.

He nodded.  “Yeah.”

“Damn,” Roz said, exhaling.

Dontae seemed offended.  “You ain’t gonna even ask me if it’s true?”

“What the fuck does that matter?  The accusation is enough to sink your career!”

“But it’s not true.  That bitch just wants money.”

“Money? Fame?  It doesn’t matter, Dontae!  It’s not about her.  It’s about what this is going to do to your career.”  Roz pulled out her cell phone.

Dontae seemed suddenly disturbed.  “What are you doing?” he asked.

“I’m calling Wes,” she said, as she searched in her phone’s contact list for his name.

Dontae tried to smile.  “You know how he is,” he said.  “You know he’s gonna lie.”

Roz didn’t even look up.  “You mean like you’re lying to me now?” she asked as she found the number and pressed the button.  She placed the phone on Speaker as the other line began to ring.  Then she looked at Dontae.  She’d never seen this whiny, unsure side of him, and she didn’t like what she was seeing.

“Why would you say I’m lying to you?” Dontae asked, but with far less confidence than before.  “But for real, Roz.  Why would I lie?”

“You’re either lying,” Roz said, “or not telling me the full story.  Either way, I don’t like it.”

Then Wes Welling, the director of the Broadway musical of which Dontae was the star, came on the other line.  “I can’t help you, Roz,” he said.

“What happened?” she asked him.

“Dontae didn’t tell you?”

“I’m asking you.”

There was an exhale on the other line.  “He was harassing one of the girls in the chorus.  You know how he thinks he’s God’s gift to women.”

“You’re on Speaker,” she warned him.  “And he’s with me.”

“Thanks for the warning,” Wes responded.  “You could have told me from jump, but at least you told me.”

“What happened, Wes?”

“You’re well respected in this industry, Roz, because of your moral clarity,” Wes said.  “That’s why it shocked the shit out of all of us when you hooked up with that gangster.”

Roz frowned.  “What’s up with you people?  Why are you trying to make this about me?  And please keep my husband’s name out of your mouth.  Now tell me what happened, Wes.”

Wes laughed.  “Okay, okay, I was just bulling around.  You know me.”

That’s the problem, Roz wanted to say.  “He harassed the chorus girl,” she said instead.

“Right,” Wes said.  “But when she confronted him, and told him to knock it off, he slapped her.”

“That’s a lie!” Dontae blared out.

Roz looked at him.  “You didn’t slap her?”

“No!  I mean, yeah, but only after she slapped me.”

Roz returned to the phone.  “Is that right, Wes?  Did she slap him first?”

“Yeah, but who cares?  No man has a right to put his hands on any woman.”

“Now that’s bullshit,” Roz responded.  “She hit him, he has a right to defend himself.”

“Damn right!” Dontae responded.

“It’s not allowed on my set.  So yes, I fired him, and no, I can’t be persuaded to let him back.  Anything else?”

Roz exhaled.  “No,” she said.  “But thanks for taking my call.”

“Any time, Roz, you know that.”

And Roz ended the call.

“That’s it?” Dontae asked.  “But what about my contract?  Couldn’t we fight him on those terms?”

“No,” Roz said.

“Why not?”

Roz couldn’t believe how dense he was behaving.  “You hit her, Dontae,” she said.  “Why do you think?  You have a morals clause in your contract.”

“But you said I had every right to hit her back.”

“I said it because that’s what an agent is supposed to say on behalf of her client.  But you know better than that.”  Then she frowned.  “Don’t you?”

A changed look appeared across Dontae’s face.  He knew better.  And he nodded, as his tears reemerged.  “Yeah,” he said.  “I did that one stupid thing, and now my career is in ruins.”

As he spoke, and unbeknownst to both of them, Mick appeared at the door.  It didn’t take him long, after Rosalind left their home earlier, to realize that he needed to make amends.  He had a powerful need, in fact.

And as Roz pulled the good-looking guy at the conference table into her arms, and the guy closed his eyes as if he loved her embrace, Mick understood why that need was so powerful.  He could lose Rosalind.  She was strong enough, and smart enough, to leave him in the dust.  Just the thought of it brought chills to his spine.

“What am I going to do, Roz?” Dontae asked her as they embraced.  “I can’t start over at my age.  It took me too long to get to this point.”

Roz pulled back and removed her arms from around him.  “I’m not going to lie and tell you that you don’t have a problem.  You have a major problem.”

“Maybe if you talk to the producers instead of just Wes,” Dontae said.

But Roz was already shaking her head.  “They aren’t going to go against Wes.  He’s the reason they invested their money in the first place.  The key for us is the girl.  You’ve got to get one of your friends to talk to her, don’t you do it yourself, and see what’s in her head.  You need to find out where she’s going with this.”

“She wants money,” Dontae said.  “She already told me.  But I’m not giving that bitch a dime.”

“How much does she want?” Roz asked.

Dontae looked at her.  “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying you’ve got to clean this shit up, Dontae.  That’s what I’m saying!  If she presses charges, or tries to make a bigger deal out of this, you’re screwed in this industry.  If we can keep it in-house, then maybe we can make this right.  But it’s your ass that put your ass in this spot.  Not her.  You did this.  You’ve got to get your ass out of it.”

“What are you suggesting?” Dontae asked.

“After your friend discreetly finds out how much she wants, get a lawyer and get him to negotiate a deal.  Pay her.  And move on.”

“Move on?  You make it sound so easy.”

“As easy as a slap,” Roz said.  “That was easy, too.”

Dontae exhaled.  “What about my Tony nomination?”

“You don’t have one yet.  And besides, nominations won’t be out until May.  That’s a long time away.  But you were in the production long enough to qualify, so that’s good.  But I’m going to be blunt with you, Dontae.  You’d better hope you get that nomination.  Because if you do, then all will be forgiven and you’ll get another shot.  Shows like to hire Tony-nominated actors.  It looks good on the marquee.  It gives their plays prestige.”

“And if I don’t get nominated?”

“You may get another shot.  I’m not saying you won’t.  But it’s going to be a long shot.  I’m not going to even lie.  It’s going to be an uphill climb.”

“Will you keep me on as a client?  Or are you going to dump me, too?”

“I don’t dump my clients when they’re in a crisis.  Of course I’ll keep you on, and do all I can.  But you need to get it together.  Temper tantrums and all of that shit won’t work on Broadway.  You know that,” she said as she Roz rose to her feet, prompting Dontae to rise to his.  It was only then did they see Mick at the door.  Dontae was taken aback.  How long had he been there?  Roz was inwardly pleased.  They even exchanged that I miss you look.  “Hey,” she said.

“Hello,” he said.

She looked at Dontae.  “Don’t try to approach her yourself, or try to do it on the cheap.  Get a friend, and get a lawyer to handle it.  You’ll get yourself in a world of trouble if you try to handle this any other way.”

“Got you,” Dontae said.  Then he looked at Mick again as if he was assessing a rival.  Dontae knew who Mick was, but he was relatively certain Mick had no clue about him.  “Aren’t you going to introduce us?” he asked Roz.

“No need,” Mick said before Roz could respond.  Then he looked at Dontae with an undeniable grimace.  “Have a nice day.”

Dontae didn’t like the idea of some man dismissing him like that.  But even he knew when to fold’em.  He had enough worries of his own.  He wasn’t about to get into it with his agent’s husband.  “See you around,” he said to Roz, and headed for the exit.  When he and Mick were side by side, he gave Mick another assessing look.  Mick ignored him.

When Dontae left, Mick pushed away from the doorjamb, closed and locked the door, and slowly made his way toward the table.