by Box Set
“I’m fine.” The nausea was completely gone now and the headache was halfway there. "I think I'm ready to leave."
She pulled her legs closer to her so it would be easier to get up, but he raised his hand, stopping her.
"Listen, I would give you a ride home, but I'm”—his lips twisted in a mocking smile—"under a watchful eye. If someone catches us getting into one car, it’ll turn into a mess."
Sylvia was shaking her head before he even finished. "No, really, forget it, the metro is close and—"
"No, no, no way." He grabbed a wallet from his pocket. "Taxi will take you home. My treat."
"I'm not taking your money," she protested. "I’m fine. Besides, I can afford a cab if I need one."
He lowered his head a bit to catch her gaze and Sylvia lost her train of thought. Damn, but his presence suddenly got more intense. "Look, I'm not trying to offend you or anything. I'd drive you home myself, but since I can't, this is the least I can do." He handed her a fifty-dollar bill.
Sylvia looked at the money. She hadn’t even been planning to take a cab before. "I really don't—"
"My mother would kill me if I let you go on without making sure you're safe. Fifty bucks isn’t a high price to pay for staying alive.”
Not wanting to fight with him about this anymore, she finally accepted the gift. "Thank you.”
He rose to his feet and extended a hand to help her get up. When she looked up at him, she was suddenly hit once again by the fact that he was a big shot movie star—a big shot movie star who hung around with her between the dumpsters, offered to pay for her cab, and now pulled her up so easily she didn’t even stumble like she usually did.
Greg gave her a nod and a smile before stepping out of the shadows first. She followed right after him only to lose her footing a second later and fall forward. He caught her easily and pulled her into a standing position, but they ended up with barely any space left between them.
Sudden flashes from the side blinded her, and Sylvia hid her head against his chest on instinct.
Oh God, she thought, closing her eyes. So much for not making a mess.
Chapter Two
Fuck. Greg turned away from the damn paparazzo and threw an arm over Sylvia’s back to keep her close to him. He had a second or two to make a decision, and he hated it—hated it every time it took him by surprise like that. He'd learned a long time ago that this was not the time to explain anything, because that just gave those damn vultures time to take more photos. And some of the worst ones tried to provoke him, too, so they would have a better shot or a juicier story.
His driver was waiting at the other end of the alley they were in, so they could head there, hopefully losing the paparazzo in the small crowd mingling around the stage door. The other option was to go back to the front of the theater and catch a taxi, but they'd risk drawing more attention since the guy would definitely follow them. Not to mention the taxi driver could later sell the story or the address. Or both.
It wasn’t really a choice, after all.
A second later, he was pushing Sylvia toward his car. "Come on."
"Where are we going?" She had to half-walk, half-run to keep up with him, but Greg could still hear the clicks of the camera and the steps behind them, so he couldn't afford to slow down.
"To my car. We have to get away."
She hid her face in the big collar of her coat and didn't protest. Good. If they started to argue out here, the media would have a field day, and he would be screwed the moment Dot Entertainment heard about this.
He might already be screwed, but he couldn't think about it now.
The crowd at the stage door wasn't big, but Greg and Sylvia had finally caught a break. Right as they were passing the entrance, the door had opened and the previously spread out, little groups stormed closer, blocking the paparazzo’s path.
Greg quickened his pace even more, and Sylvia ran right next to him. Less than a minute later, they were safe in the back of his car.
"As fast as you can, Jake," he told the driver. The car was out on the street before Greg shut the door properly. "And let's do some sight-seeing."
"What?" Sylvia looked at him as if he was insane. Her face was red and she was breathing fast, and Greg once again noted how beautiful she was. Her black, short hair framed her round face, and when she’d smiled at him back in the alley, there was a ghost of a dimple on her right cheek. But her bright gray eyes were the most arresting thing about her looks. Greg, who in his private life preferred to not have people look at him, wanted Sylvia's eyes watching him all the time.
But it wasn't important right now.
"I meant driving around to lose the tail if we have one," he told her, raising both hands in what he hoped was a calming gesture.
Sylvia immediately turned to look through the back window.
"Don't think about it. Jake can lose anyone."
She rubbed the tips of her fingers over her forehead. "Don't think about it, sure," she muttered. "It's not as if I got thrown into a spy movie all of a sudden or anything."
Greg sagged against his seat. "Nothing as fancy as that, I'm afraid. No spies and no cool gadgets to save the day. Instead, we get pictures in the papers and, most likely, dating rumors. If we're lucky."
Sylvia looked at him with widened eyes. "If we're lucky?"
He ran his hand over the back of his neck. The photographer had caught them coming out of a dark corner in an alley. “Dating” was probably the nicest way they were going to spin it. But Greg wasn't about to tell the woman he just met that someone would take her for a prostitute before tomorrow was over.
He had to tell her something, though. "Yeah. There's no way it won't show up somewhere. I'm sorry."
Sylvia closed her eyes tightly, scrunching up her whole face. "Damn it."
Greg looked out of the window at the street they were passing. He'd just gotten to New York yesterday. How could it have gone to hell so quickly? He could already hear Marlow, the VP of Dot Entertainment. I told you so. You can't keep out of trouble. Get your ass back to L.A. Greg's stomach turned. He'd fought hard so they'd let him come here, and it might all be over as soon as tomorrow morning.
"No one is tailing us," Jake said from the driver's seat. It should’ve relaxed Greg, but he knew it didn't really matter much at this point.
Well, no. It did matter. It had to matter to Sylvia. He snapped out of his self-pity and looked back at her. She stared at him, probably waiting for him to come up with something to do now. He was the resident paparazzo expert between the two of them, after all.
He took a deep breath. "Listen, we have a few options here, okay? And we need to show a united front, because when the photos come out, it's much, much easier to contain when there's no differences between our stories."
"But when we tell the truth, it’ll be the same story," Sylvia said with a frown.
I wish. "Sadly, that's usually not the case with the tabloid press. Every detail counts. If you say there were two dumpsters, and I say there was one, they’ll accuse us of lying."
"Well, you'd be the one lying, since there were two." She offered him a quick smile, and he chuckled almost despite himself.
"There were two. But as I said, we need to get our story straight.” He sat back in his seat and looked out of the window to think. Then he turned to her again. “One, we can go to my hotel room and strategize there, call my publicist and get in front of the story. The downside of this option is that someone could already know where I'm staying, and when we show up there together and someone takes a photo, that'll only make it worse.”
Sylvia started shaking her head the moment he mentioned his hotel room, so he moved on.
“Two, we could go to your place and do basically the same but without the added risk of being seen. Or three, we drive around and talk here."
Neither option was ideal, but these were what he could come up with on the fly. His history of dealing with paparazzi was long and hardly pleasant, but back in
L.A., it was different. And if a fire got started, his publicist, Roy, handled it quickly and without fuss. This time, Greg was alone out here, and the stakes were higher. And since Roy wasn't too happy about him going off to New York in the first place, he was unlikely to make it a priority to help Greg stay here.
"No to the hotel, and no to my apartment." Sylvia pushed her hair behind her ears. "No offense—because you seem nice and all—but I'm not going to either of those places with a guy I don't know."
"Car then?"
She stared through the window for a moment, worrying her lower lip with her teeth—and Greg's eyes weren't drawn to that sight, they weren't—before she took out her phone from her purse.
"No, I have a better idea," she said, sliding her fingers over the screen. "We're going to see my brother. He will fix this."
Greg turned to her with a frown. "Your brother? Why?"
Sylvia already had her phone to her ear, tapping the fingers of her free hand over the car upholstery. "He's a fixer."
Greg's eyebrows shot up, and he glanced at Jake in the rearview mirror, but when their gazes met, his driver shook his head. He had no idea, either.
"Fixer?" Greg finally asked, but a person on the other side of the call picked up, and he could hear a male voice.
A fixer. Was that supposed to tell him something?
It was almost eleven by the time they stopped in front of an office building in downtown Manhattan, so Greg was surprised the light was still on in so many windows.
"Why are they all still working at this hour?" he asked Sylvia as he followed her inside.
"Most of the offices here are law firms," she said as she waved a pass at the night guard, who nodded at them without taking his gaze off of the TV. Good for Greg, but not terribly conductive to the guy's line of work. "They just don't know when to quit."
"And your brother?"
They paused by the elevator and she shrugged. "He was a lawyer, so he got that knocked into him already. Now he and his friends have a young company, so they’re working around the clock to establish themselves."
In the car, Sylvia's whole explanation about her brother's occupation had essentially boiled down to "They fix situations that can turn into a scandal or have already become one”. It fitted their current situation very well, but Greg still didn't know what to expect.
When they got to the seventh floor, a tall, dark-haired man in his mid-thirties was waiting for them, arms crossed against his chest.
"Only you," the guy started but then pulled Sylvia into a hug when she walked up to him.
"If it was only me, you'd be out of a job."
Greg noticed the man roll his eyes above Sylvia's head, but there was a ghost of a smile on his face, and Greg could see some resemblance between the siblings now. Then the guy's piercing gaze fell on Greg, and he narrowed his eyes.
"You have to be kidding me," he said, releasing Sylvia, who looked at Greg, at her brother, and then at the floor.
"Um, yeah, surprise?"
Greg realized that Sylvia hadn’t told her brother over the phone who she was coming with. He stepped closer to the guy and extended a hand. "Greg Abrams. Nice to meet you."
"Nate Urban. Welcome to Foster, Young, and Urban." The handshake was firm, but not too strong, and Greg relaxed a bit. He’d met way too many men who liked to grip his hand blue to try to put him down.
Nate led them through to the office foyer, and Greg noticed the gray letters on the matte glass entry door.
Foster, Young, and Urban
New York City Fixers
"We’ll go to our private conference room,” Nate said, turning his head to glance at him. “The rest of the team is already there."
The front of the office looked like yet another law firm with the big reception desk and glass and wood everywhere. When they walked into the conference room, though, the decor changed significantly. The doors were still glass, and there were big tinted windows on one side, but instead of a big table with the chairs all around, there were couches in a semicircle with the middle one facing a wall with a big screen on it and two white boards on either side.
There were two guys with laptops in their laps sitting on the couch closest to the door. They turned their heads in unison and nodded at them before getting up.
"Hi," said the one with short, curly, black hair. "Sorry for the casual Friday look, but we're technically off the clock, so…" He shrugged.
"Consider yourself back on the clock, guys," Sylvia said, flopping onto the biggest couch in the middle and gesturing for Greg to sit down as well. Nate circled them and sat on the third couch, picking up his legal pad and pen from the long coffee table.
The guy with black hair reached out his hand to Greg. "Shawn Foster. Nice to meet you."
"Greg Abrams. Nice to meet you, too."
He repeated the process with the other guy, Dean Young, a blond with the shoulders of a football player rather than a lawyer—or a fixer, Greg supposed. Then, after everyone had sat down, Nate clicked his pen off and on and looked straight at his sister.
"Why don't you tell us exactly what happened? Beat by beat. Don't skip anything."
"I'm sorry." Greg leaned forward, resting his arms on his knees. "I'm not trying to be rude, but I'm not exactly sure what we’re doing here. Sylvia was short on details as to how you can actually help." And what the hell fixing means.
Nate shook his head at his sister before looking at Greg. "No, I'm the one who's sorry, I jumped to conclusions. We are fixers and that means we handle our clients’ problems. We figure out how to put out the fires—or, ideally, prevent them from happening."
“Like a publicist?” Greg asked, frowning.
Nate nodded. “Our job’s part publicist, part lawyer, part detective.”
"We fix your mess," Dean told him bluntly. "We spin the story in your favor, which, depending on the case, may mean different things. But you have to be honest with us, so we don't accidentally open a can of worms that would make the situation worse."
Being honest with the guys he met five minutes ago? Greg had been in the entertainment business for too long not to be suspicious about it. They seemed okay, and he needed to get out of the mess he and Sylvia had found themselves in, but he wasn’t going to trust them on a gut feeling.
"We keep everything confidential,” Nate added. “We always sign non-disclosure agreements.” He leaned forward. “We don't look for sensation, Greg. When we ask the question, it's because we need to know the answer to do our job the best we can, not because we have a gossip website on speed dial."
Greg nodded, relaxing slightly at the mention of signing the NDA. He glanced at Sylvia, who sat silently, letting the guys explain. She gave him a weak smile and a nod, and he took a deep breath. They wouldn't fuck this up for a sister of one of their own.
Greg nodded back at her, sealing their fate, and she turned to her brother.
"So, what happened was…"
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.
