Hollywood Rebel by Misti Murphy

Chapter Seventeen

 

Rebel

It feels like Friday was a lot longer than two days ago.

I climb out of my car as I watch Bernadette Knight’s driver pull into the parking garage under the building where Knightly PR is located.

Summer is already here, somewhere. We’ve argued on enough Mondays for me to be aware that she’ll be heading into a staff meeting with Bernadette shortly. But not before I have a word with her boss.

I know Summer panicked about the argument at the restaurant. She might even have it in her head that it will cost her job, but I’m about to make sure that doesn’t happen. Especially since I need a reason to see Summer, since she’s currently not speaking to me.

I check my phone as I wait beside the elevator for Bernadette. Summer had bolted like her ass was on fire after we’d run into Ro. Probably because I hadn’t been prepared for what seeing Ro would do to me, and I reacted like an asshole when it came to Summer.

She hasn’t responded to any of my messages or given me any kind of chance to explain since then.

“Rebel Maddox, what are you doing here?” Bernadette asks as she walks toward me. “I didn’t know we had an appointment.”

“We don’t,” I say as she leans in to kiss me on the cheek. We’re not friends. We’ve never been friends, and this fakery annoys me to tears. But I’m here for Summer, so if it takes being nice to Bernadette, well fuck it, I can act.

We stand side by side in the elevator, and I press the button to take us up to her office. “I needed to talk to you about Summer.”

“Hmm.” Her expression remains constant. From years of practice dealing with the media during scandals probably. “Is there an issue? I know she can be a little…”

“Actually, she’s great,” I say. “She thinks outside the box. Do you know she brokered me a whisky deal?”

I swear I actually catch surprise in her eyes for a second before she shuts it down. “Then what is the issue?”

“I’m an asshole.” I grin. “As if you didn’t know.”

“We try not to blame the client,” she says. “After all it’s our job to make you look good. Not to get caught in the middle of your bad behavior.”

I punch the stop button and the elevator shudders to a halt. “So, you know?”

“It was a tiny subheading,” she says. “It shouldn’t have happened.”

“No shit.”

“What’s going on between you and Summer?” Bernadette stares me down like a vicious piranha. “That she would end up in the middle of this spat?”

“Nothing,” I snap, suddenly aware that I might actually be fucking this up more than if I’d cornered Summer. “We accidentally ended up at the same restaurant. Her date was an asshole. He wanted a fight. Before I started working with Summer, I would have given him one.”

“And that’s all there is to it?” She leans forward to press the button that starts the elevator gliding smoothly upward once more.

“You know how the media likes to spin the story to fit their narrative,” I add as the elevator doors slide open.

“Bernadette.” Summer thrusts an arm into the elevator, a coffee cup in her hand. “Could I please speak to you?”

It’s only as Bernadette takes the beverage that Summer notices me. Her eyes widen momentarily as her gaze lands on me.

“Summer.” I follow Bernadette out of the elevator. I want to drag Summer away to talk to her, but I’ve told Bernadette there’s nothing between us. I might as well put up a sign that says I like the woman, with the hurt in her eyes. The sign should also mention that I put that hurt there. Because I’m an asshole. Old news, folks.

“Bernadette, I really need to have a word,” Summer says.

“Summer, you don’t need to explain.” Bernadette brushes her off, which makes the nerve in my jaw tick. “Rebel and I had a chat on our way up. What happened on Friday… fix it. That’s your job. Prove you can do it.”

“I’d still like to talk to you.” Summer scampers after her.

I can guess what she wants to talk to Bernadette about and I can’t let her go. Not yet. I grab her forearm and yank her back beside me. “You’re not quitting on me, Red.”

“That’s exactly what I’m doing,” she whisper-hisses at me.

“No. It’s not.” I tip my head to the side, bringing our conversation in tight. “You don’t give up. I’ve watched you camp on my front lawn. Take a meeting at a strip club. Wrestle a guy with no belief that you could win and fight your way through a panic attack, which one day I hope you will tell me about, to get me to work with you.”

“And if I’d stopped there then I could keep working with you.” She finally looks me in the eye and all that fierce stubbornness I’ve seen her wield to get her way is directed at me. She’s made up her mind, and suddenly I don’t believe I have a chance in hell of talking her around. “But I didn’t stop there. I knew it was stupid to get involved with you. I knew it, and I still let it happen. We don’t even really like each other.”

“That’s not true,” I say. “You liked me perfectly fine last night.”

“Go back to where I used the words ‘stupid to get involved with you’,” she whispers, her eyes belying her seemingly calm demeanor. “I only have a small window to win Bernadette over and keep my job. I have plans. Goals. Aspirations. Whatever you want to call them, they don’t involve what happened last night. I can’t waste the time I have left.”

“I was an asshole,” I say.

“What?” She blinks like she’s surprised I realize it at all. “Why were you?”

“Does it matter?” I rub my thumb up the inside of her wrist. Watch her fight the effect of my touch. “I’m not good at being nice to people.”

“Yes, I got that.” The words drip from her tongue like acid while she pulls her wrist out of my grip.

“Keep working with me.”

“Why? You fight me every step of the way. It’s not like you take me seriously.” She folds her arms across her chest and waits for me to respond.

“You want me to bargain? I can do that.” I rub my jaw. “What will it take?”

“Those interviews I wanted you to do.”

I grimace. “You know that’s a bad idea.”

“Being open with the public will go a long way to helping them connect with you.”

That might be so, but I don’t give a fuck what people think.

“Tell them why you assaulted Alec Hawthorne. Tell them you’re sorry. You are sorry, aren’t you?”

I’m going to look like a prick. There’s no way around it. Because I will never apologize for putting Alec Hawthorne in the hospital. “And if I’m not? Will that change your opinion of me?”

Summer gapes at me.

My stomach twists and my heart beats angrily against my ribs. Of course she’s going to see me differently now.

Bernadette stops in the doorway of the same conference room I busted Summer out of last time. The rest of her staff are waiting. “Do either of you need anything else? Or is this meeting over?”

“We’re done here.” Summer turns her back on me, but she’s not finished speaking her mind yet, because she tosses over her shoulder, “Why don’t you hang up your movie star status and move to Nebraska to raise garden gnomes instead?”

My hands clench as tight as my jaw, and I jam my fists under my arms, even though the wall seems like a much better place to put them. This situation is so screwed up. “Fine. One interview.”

“Summer?” Bernadette asks.

“And you’ll pick a charity to work with.” Summer flings around to face me once more.

“No.”

“That’s not good enough.” She taps a finger against the crook of her elbow.

“Fuck. Fine. I’ll…fuck…I’ll adopt a dog.” Seems harmless enough. I can pay someone to look after the animal. And Rogue has always wanted a puppy.

The smile that takes over her lips is triumphant. She practically rubs her hands together like an evil genius. Twisting around, she tells her boss, “I’m going to need to skip this morning’s meeting.”

“You’ve got your hands full,” Bernadette says as she opens the door to the conference room. “Go.”

Summer smiles the smile of a conquering Viking as she walks past me on her way back to the elevator. “Shall we?”

I trail after her. Step into the metal box beside her and finally let myself chuckle. “Garden gnomes?”

“Yeah, those cute little statues.”

“Really?”

“I can see it,” she says. “Can’t you?”

My lips twitch as I imagine a very dirty garden full of miniature statues in compromising positions. “Only if they’re pornographic.”

Summer gasps.

—*—

Less than an hour later, I’m back in prison.

We walk past the cells. Each one holds a dejected looking inmate with four legs and a tail. It’s downright depressing. All these dogs are waiting for their fate to be decided. Most of them will never find a home, let alone a good one.

“You look like you could cry,” Summer says, snapping a photo of me. “You’re feeling an affinity for their situation.”

She’s enjoying this too much. I’m literally reminded of what prison was like, and she’s getting a kick out of it. There’s something wrong with that.

“They don’t deserve to be in here.” I grumble, staring at a cage where a golden retriever thumps his tail slow and rhythmically against the cement floor.

“You don’t want to pee on him, do you?” She nudges me in the ribs with her elbow.

“Sure. Yeah, let me whip it out right here,” I joke, reaching for the button on my jeans.

Her gaze catches on my hand at my fly. Her throat muscles tense and relax. “You introduced me as your publicist.”

“I know.” I exhale.

“I should have been ecstatic,” she says.

“I didn’t want to.”

“But you did. And it was the first time you have.” She moves to the next cage. The dog inside it groans as he climbs to his feet. All three of them.

He’s the ugliest, mangiest bastard I’ve ever seen. Balding in patches. His muzzle filled with gray. Half of one of his ears is missing. One of his eyes too. He takes one look at Summer and he comes over to sniff her hand.

“Hey buddy.” I crouch down to his level and offer him my hand in greeting.

He must figure Summer is a soft target because he turns his back on me and walks to the back of the cage. Once there he groans again as he drops down onto his haunches. I don’t know what it is about the old bastard, but I sense a kindred spirit. He has no fucks left to give about a world that has given the fuck up on him.

“You always introduced me like we’re friends,” Summer says as I straighten up. “Friends who hate each other, but still… I knew you were a jerk, but that hurt.”

“Ro is…” I don’t know where to begin with what Rochelle is to me. A good friend. Practically a sister. The reason I’m so mad at the world.

“Important to you,” Summer says. “That much is obvious.”

“Ro is my friend,” I say. “That’s all she is. And barely that these days. But she will always be my friend.”

“It seemed like more than that,” Summer muses. “Did you guys ever date?”

“No.” Not that it wasn’t an option. “Ro is like my little sister. She’s family. But she has…issues. Last night was the first time I’d seen her since I went away. I didn’t handle it well.”

“Is this your way of apologizing?” Summer offers me a truce I can barely take, but have waited all weekend in desperation for.

“I came to your office, didn’t I?”

“Knowing you, you probably almost cost me my job,” she says.

“No comment.”

She turns her back to the bars and stares up at me. “I need to say that we should keep this professional.”

I wrap my hands around the rods above her head. “What will it take for you to not mean that?”

“I need to know…” She glances away from me, and I get the sinking feeling I’m not going to like what she needs from me. “Why did you assault Alec Hawthorne?”

“I can’t tell you.” I wish I could. Not because it would change the trajectory my life took the night I put Alec Hawthorne in the hospital, but because the prick deserved much more than a beat down by yours truly. “Go ahead and think I’m an asshole with rage issues like everyone else does.”

“I want a real answer, not some bullshit about how much of an asshole you are.”

“Not all nice guys are good men,” I say. Even now violence boils under my skin. “And not all jackasses are bad men.”

“Is that a slogan I can find on a T-shirt somewhere?” she asks.

“No, it’s not.” I clasp her jaw with my hand and hold her gaze. “It’s the only truth that I can give you, kitten. Trust me when I say I want to give you a reason not to doubt me, but it’s not that simple. You’re going to have to take my word.”

“Tell me one thing,” she says.

“If I can.”

“Would you do it again? Be that violent…”

I exhale slowly. I’m backed into a corner. But I won’t lie to her. “Yes. If I had to.”

She twists out of my grip and stares into the cage at the poor mutt. “This is your dog.”

I take a breath and tamp down on the disappointment that I feel. There’s nothing I can do to change her mind about me. Nothing I can say. “This dog? He looks like he’s about to expire.”

“We’re going for the sympathy vote,” she says. “I think you’re going to need it.”