“It’s not that simple.”
His laugh was acidic. “You’re going to drop all of your clients for him?”
“Of course not.”
But as I said it, I wasn’t so sure. I couldn’t keep working with a two-bit TikTok starlet now. I needed to be smart about this. Everything I’d ever wanted was within reach. In progress, even. There I was, in Cannes, a golden ticket in my hand. All I had to do was take one step after the other. And yes, it might mean leaving some things—and some people—behind. But wasn’t that always the case when you strived to make the most of your potential?
My ex-boyfriend was getting married later this year, according to his social media. I bet he didn’t regret leaving me in his parents’ basement, in a city where I had nothing and knew no one. And what about Carly Wolf, who’d thrown me out like trash the second she feared my bad behavior might damage her flawless reputation? People cut ties; that’s what they do. They move on to move up.
“I’m sorry, Tyler. That’s how it has to be.”
I could barely look him in the eyes, but what I saw left me crushed: the disappointment was all over his face like a skin rash.
“After Cannes?” he asked.
I shook my head. “Now.”
“I thought we were…friends,” he settled on.
In some ways, I would have preferred if he’d let it all out, told me what a selfish bitch I was. But Tyler Charles was a good guy. A kind soul.
“It’s not you. It’s me,” I said flatly.
“Don’t do that.”
His demeanor changed, the anger releasing like a slow-acting drug.
“I tried to block out what people were saying about you,” he added.“I’d met you. Iknewyou. IthoughtI knew you.”
I stood there, taking it. Tyler had never hinted at this before, and I’d somehow managed to convince myself that this story hadn’t reached him. That he was above all of this.
“Seth warned me against working with you. I couldn’t risk any bad press at this point in my career.”
“Bad press?” I said, my voice rising. “I can’t keep working for you. You let your agent call all the shots. All you two care about is playing it safe. God forbid you might actually do something interesting.”
Tyler took a deep breath, then exhaled loudly. “Something interesting like this?”
He pulled out his phone and opened an email before handing it to me. I skimmed it. It was about the sex maniac who’d been fired for harassing Dorian Fisher. The email mentioned the videos I’d made for him without context. My name wasn’t spelled out, but it wasn’t hard to figure it out. Carly Wolf had only firedoneof her assistants this year. At the bottom of the email, there were two simple questions. Was Tyler really working with me? If so, did he want to comment on this story?
I couldn’t breathe.
Tyler shook his head. “I asked Seth if we could kill the story. Not for me, for you. He’s been working his contacts. He’s doing what he can so it doesn’t get published, but I’m not sure he has that much influence.” He swallowed, then looked around us before leaning closer. “Is he making you do this?”
I wasn’t sure what he meant—this, the videos, or this, firing Tyler as my client. But I had to protect Dorian. I couldn’t get him involved in this, not now that I was back in his life, that his security guard was waiting, a few feet away, to whisk me back up to his suite.
“No!” I straightened up. “It’s my decision, 100 percent. And it hasnothingto do with Dorian Fisher. You don’t even listen to me anyway. And if you believe this stupid story, then I guess I’m right. We’re not a good fit.”
“Fine,” he said with a shake of his head. “If that’s what you want, then I’ll leave.”
In the end, I was the one who walked away.
Not away though. Forward.
Onward and upward.
And trying to fight the tears that were threatening to spill. What if that story came out? At the time it happened—that stupid day in Dorian’s hotel suite in LA—I was worried sick about who, beyond Carly, might find out.
Because Carly was there, too. She’d seen everything. I’d tried to tell her that Dorianwantedme to do this—yes, hewantedme to wait for him naked in his suite—but she wouldn’t listen. And I had no proof. He’d never texted me. Technically, he hadn’t asked for this. Not in a way that I could explain. I never knew what these two discussed after they walked out of that room. Carly had met me, an hour later, saying she took sexual harassment very seriously. She meantmyharassment of one of her biggest clients, Dorian Fisher. In our post-#MeToo era, men like him lived in fear of women tricking them into the kinds of behaviors that could get them canceled, of women falsely accusing them of the worst acts.
