Naughty, Dirty, Cocky

by Whitney G.

  My top two clients from my PR company went to my number one competitor, my roommate ‘accidentally’ bleached my favorite suit, and my favorite coffee shop was shut down for “health concerns.”

  Still, none of those things dimmed my excitement for what was supposed to be the best four o’clock signing session of my career. I was on the verge of signing the highest paying client in my company’s history, taking on a so-called “impossible” job that no publicist had been able to handle.

  But at four o’clock, there was no athlete, television personality, or celebrity. Instead, that sexy, arrogant one-night stand stepped into my office with a familiar smirk and introduced himself as my new, cocky client ...

  THE CLIENT

  RYAN

  There was an art to being a perfect client—a delicate balance between getting what I needed, and ensuring that I was “progressing” behind closed doors in whatever way the publicist needed. Or so I’d heard.

  Today marked the two-month term for my current publicist and she was glaring at me from across my desk—looking as if she was struggling to get a single word to fall out of her mouth.

  “Is your throat dry, Heather?” I pointed to the glass of water between us. “Is that why you keep clearing it?”

  “I keep clearing it because I’m hoping that what I’m about to ask you isn’t true.” She picked up the glass and drank half of it in one gulp. “A reporter from The New York Times called me at three o’clock this morning to inform me that someone you used to date—”

  “I’ve never dated anyone.” I interrupted her.

  “Fine.” She held up her hands. “Someone you used to screw. Better?”

  “Much better.”

  “Anyway,” she said, “she apparently is sitting down with one of his colleagues to do an expose piece on you, the man who still refuses to sit down and do interviews with reporters himself.”

  “I highly doubt she has any valuable information.” I leaned back in my chair. “I don’t typically talk about my personal life with whomever I happen to be fucking.”

  “Well, that’s good to know.” Her voice dripped with sarcasm. “This expose piece is a deeply personal one, and she’s using it to let the public see what type of man you really are behind closed doors. She’s provided them with some of the text messages you’ve sent her in the past.” She put on her reading glasses and looked at her notebook. “Here are the top four messages: One, I’m looking forward to fucking your mouth this weekend. Two, How wet is your pussy right now? Three, I’m impressed by the way you swallow. Four, Tell me how wet your pussy is right now.”

  I smiled. “What’s the problem?”

  “The problem is that your company is hoping to launch a global initiative within the next two years. You can’t afford any more press like this, so I’ve alerted your CFO and he’s agreed to pay them a sum to kill the story.”

  “So, once again, what is the problem?”

  “You need a new publicist.” She stood to her feet. “I’m done as of right now. Thank you very much for hiring my firm and taking a chance on me and my vision for you.”

  “You’re very welcome.” I stood up to shake her hand. I’d been in this position far too many times before to ask her any further questions, to wonder if something could’ve been done differently, or to even care about her abrupt resignation. The second she left my office, I’d have another publicist walking into the building to take her place.

  “I wish you all the best, Mr. Dalton. I truly do,” she said. “I hope you find the right firm who’ll be better equipped to handle your account and your huge—” She glanced at the crotch of my pants and blushed. “Ego.”

  “I will.” I let her hand go. “Best of luck to you, Heather.”

  Still blushing, she glanced at my pants one last time before walking out of my office. The second the doors shut behind her, I picked up my phone and called my personal assistant and secretary, Linda.

  “Yes, Mr. Dalton?” she answered. “What do you need?”

  “I need you to get me a new publicist. Heather just quit.”

  “How shocking ...”

  “What did you just say?”

  “Nothing at all!” She changed her tone. “I’ll go through your requirements and get you someone new right away.”

  Four months later ...

  Subject: A “Pleasure” + My Resignation

  Dear Mr. Dalton,

  I would love to say that it’s been a “pleasure” working for you, but that would be a lie. You are, without a doubt, the worst client I’ve ever had.

  I honestly find it quite sad that women in this city flock to you like flies and act as if you’re some type of God. (You’re not.) And after your most recent scandal (that I unfortunately cannot deal with at all) I highly doubt any publicist in this city will want to work with you.

  I quit.

  Violet Sanders

  Embassy PR

  Two months later ...

  Subject: A Notice & Your Most Recent Interview

  Dear Mr. Dalton,

  We appreciate the “experience” we’ve had during our past few months of working with you, but to be quite blunt: We can’t take this shit anymore.

  The live Today Show interview you did Saturday morning was the last straw. (Do you have any idea how long it will take the American viewing public to forget you saying that “fucking” is your favorite hobby? Hint: FOREVER.)

  We are done.

  Veronica & Michael

  Welch PR

  Six months later ...

  Subject: I QUIT.

  THAT. IS. ALL.

  Eva Daniels

  Avenue PR

  I debated whether I should respond to the latest publicist’s email, but I was slightly pre-occupied by the sight of my brother, Leo, frantically pacing around my office like a lunatic. It was moments like this that made me wonder how the hell we were related, how the hell he ever became my “calm and collected” CFO.

  “I can’t believe this, Ryan.” He looked like he hadn’t slept in days. “Another publicist quit on you? This time within her first two weeks? Do you have any idea how this is going to look to the board when they find out?”

  I didn’t answer. He always tended to ask four or five questions in a row before giving me a chance to answer one of them.

  “You are the CEO of a billion-dollar real estate corporation.” He said the words as if he couldn’t believe them himself. “You are a billionaire.”

  “That was more than implied by your first sentence ...”

  “I just don’t understand you sometimes.” He looked at me like I was deranged. “You have the world at your fingertips, but you’d rather risk it on stupid shit that brings you negative attention. I’m honestly starting to wonder if you care anymore. Like, do you wake up first thing in the morning and think to yourself, how can I possibly make my public image even worse today?”

  “I’m usually thinking about pussy first thing in the morning. I don’t typically have any other thoughts when I wake up.”

  He stopped pacing and glared at me. “You’ve been through thirteen publicists this year alone and thirty-six total over the past four years. Do you have any idea what that means?”

  “This city clearly needs better publicists.”

  “It means that, once again, we have to delay our global initiative efforts and our stock options because there is no way in hell Wall Street will have anything to do with our brilliant, yet embattled CEO. It also means ...”

  I stopped listening. My brother overreacted to everything and our views on the company couldn’t have been more different. True, over the past few years, my public persona had taken on a life of its own, but the press made it ten times worse than the reality. Yes, I once partied like there was no tomorrow. Yes, I once fucked a different woman every week—almost every day for a couple of years. And yes, I tended to say whatever came to my mind during press interviews, but after the two decades of nonstop work and sweat equity I’d put into mak
ing this company what it was today, I more than deserved it.

  And as of seven months ago, I actually hadn’t had sex or partied once since The New York Times decided to run a different version of that “explosive” sexting article. (That, and the board made me sign a seven-month agreement that promised no public social outings while my image recovered.)

  “I can’t get a single PR firm past the word ‘Hello’ when I tell them I’m calling about representation for you.” Leo was still talking. “Now, I’ve done my best with the board in practically begging them not to ask that you resign from your own company, but I don’t know if I can do much more.”

  “What?” I was paying full attention now. “What did you say about me resigning?”

  “Look.” He sighed. “You’re one scandal away from them asking you to step down as CEO. You’d still have your stock options, they’d send out an amicable press release to make it seem like it was your idea, and the company will still technically be yours, but ...”

  “But what?”

  “But this is getting very tiring. You’ve become quite impossible to deal with and I say that as your brother, with much respect for all you’ve done for me and the company.”

  “The company I started.”

  “The same company you need to be held accountable for.” He walked over to my desk and set down a sheet of paper. “I’ve managed to get them all to agree to hold off on pushing you to resign, unless you commit something else egregious—a la saying you enjoy ‘fucking’ on live television.”

  “I was answering the question honestly.”

  “Of course, you were.” He rolled his eyes. “This is a list of the remaining, reputable PR firms in this city. Do me a favor and call around to see if one is willing to take you on. If you can, lie about who you are and only use your initials and an LLC.”

  “Any particular reason why Linda can’t do this for me?”

  “Not at all.” He tapped his chin. “Well, unless we account for the fact that she’s currently dealing with tying up the loose ends from the last publicist who just quit you minutes ago, and you can’t afford to lose her right now.” He walked toward the door and then looked over his shoulder. “Oh, and one last thing. Because I know you and I know how you think—”

  “You don’t know how I think at all.”

  “I noticed that you had today’s date highlighted on your digital calendar,” he said. “I couldn’t help but realize that it correlates to the last day in your seven-month ‘no-partying’ agreement with the board.”

  “It also correlates with my birthday.”

  “Your birthday was yesterday,” he said, his voice firm. “They’re going to redraft that agreement and ask you to re-sign it Monday. If you do choose to go out this weekend and break your self-imposed no-sex rule, I highly suggest that you don’t make the most of it.”

  “I won’t.”

  I will ...

  THE PUBLICIST

  PENELOPE

  I stepped out of a town car at Broadway and Fifth Avenue, juggling my umbrella and coffee in one hand and my clients’ files in the other. Today marked the eighth day in a row that heavy rains had fallen over this city, and I was beginning to regret not renting office space closer to my apartment.

  “Good morning, Miss Lauren.” The concierge greeted me, as he pulled the door open. “Good to see that you’re two hours early as always.”

  “Good morning to you as well, Oliver,” I said, smiling. “You know I’m allergic to being late.” I walked inside and hit the button for the elevator, taking it straight up to the seventh floor.

  The second I stepped off, I stared in awe at the shiny, silver plated lettering that hung high above my double doors: Penelope Lauren & Associates.

  My firm was one of the smallest public relations companies in Manhattan, and our clients were mostly mid-level athletes, local celebrities and colleges, and a few Wall Street assholes who were incapable of keeping their cocks in their pants. Every now and then, we’d land a huge account but they’d eventually be lured away by the brighter lights of a larger firm. A firm with more staff, bigger resources, and other big name clients that I could only dream about landing.

  Still, with only six years under my belt, I was proud of how much my team of five and I had accomplished thus far.

  I unlocked the door to my office and started my morning ritual: Listen to thirty minutes of an audiobook, respond to all the important emails, and vow to give two hundred percent effort for the rest of the day. I read through my current clients’ files—making sure I was on schedule for everything they needed, and by the time I finished, my secretary, Tina, was setting a fresh cup of coffee on my desk.

  “Good morning, Miss Lauren,” she said. “I’ve got your daily updates.”

  “Great.” I looked up and motioned for her to take a seat. “I’m listening.”

  “Mr. Bradley of V-tech wants us to write his speech for that ribbon cutting ceremony next week. He wants it to be ‘beautiful, poignant, and humorous, all at once.’ And in addition to requesting our help with press interviews, he also wants us to get him a beautiful redhead for a date. He’ll settle for a brunette, but no blondes.”

  “Have Jenna get me a first draft of the speech by tomorrow and have Bob arrange four interviews with the local stations. Then kindly tell Mr. Bradley that we are not a match making service. He can find his own date.”

  “Got it.” She scribbled in her notepad. “On to a quick client update: New York University wants to extend their account with us for another six months. Hilton wants a phone call at the end of the month to discuss local rebranding and um, Taylor Carew ...” She mumbled the rest of her sentence.

  “Could you repeat the last thing you said?” I asked. “I didn’t quite catch that.”

  “Taylor Carew is ending his account with us effective immediately. He sent us a ‘Best of luck’ fruit basket, and he’s officially leaving us for—Well, you know.”

  “Drew & Associates?”

  She nodded and my blood began to boil. Drew & Associates was run by the one and only Sebastian Drew. He was one of the biggest “trust-fund entrepreneurs” and assholes in this city. He was also, unfortunately, my ex-boyfriend.

  I picked up my phone and dialed his number, demanding his secretary put me straight through to him.

  “He’ll be with you in two minutes, Miss Lauren.” She, at least, had the decency to sound sympathetic each time I called. It almost made me forget that she’d betrayed me by leaving my firm to join his.

  Almost ...

  “Were those all the updates for today, Tina?” I placed my hand over the receiver.

  “Actually, no.” She stood up and handed me a pink post-it. “We’ve been getting random calls all week from a guy who claims he needs representation, but he won’t give us any information about himself.”

  I raised my eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

  “He called and said, ‘I need a publicist. I highly suggest you accommodate me.’ I told him I’d call him back, but I couldn’t because he wouldn’t give me his phone number. So, he called again a couple days later and before I could say a word, he said, ‘I’m doing your small firm a favor by even considering you for this. You need to accommodate me’.” She rolled her eyes.

  “At first, I thought it was Mr. Drew playing a prank on us since the guy continuously refused to fill out our pre-screening questionnaire, so I told him we charged two hundred and fifty thousand dollars a month per client.”

  “Let me guess. That was when he finally came out and admitted he was hired by Drew to harass us?”

  “No ...” She pointed to her pink post-it. “He paid it. For a whole year.”

  “What?” I gasped, as I read over her scrawled note.

  Anonymous, unsigned client deposited three million dollars into our account this morning ...

  I didn’t get a chance to completely process my thoughts before Drew’s familiar voice came over the line.

  “Good morning, Penelope!
” he said. “How may I help you on this lovely day?”

  “For starters, you can stop poaching my goddamn clients.”

  “Whoa. Whoa. Whoa! Such colorful language.” He laughed. “It’s a bit too early for that, don’t you think?” There was a smile in his voice and I wished I could reach through the line to swipe it right off his face.

  “You don’t need any more clients and you certainly don’t need mine, Drew,” I said. “You’re only doing this to get back at me.”

  “That’s not true at all. I’m hurt that you would even think that about me.”

  “Then stop doing this.” I tried to keep my voice firm, to keep my true emotions from showing. “Stop going out of your way to lure my clients to your company six months after they’ve already signed with me.”

  “I really think you need to rethink your baseless accusations, sweetheart.”

  “I’m not your sweetheart anymore.”

  “Oh, that’s right. You rejected me in front of three hundred people at our engagement party.”

  “Because you cheated on me.” I still couldn’t believe he wasn’t over this. That he refused to own up to the true reason behind our break-up from years ago. “You. Cheated. On. Me.”

  “I cheated one time, Penelope. One time.”

  I gritted my teeth and grabbed a stress ball from my drawer. There was no point in going down this road of conversation with him right now. It never ended well for either of us.

  “Now, perhaps you don’t remember the promises we made to each other at one point in time,” he said. “But I do. We were supposed to be Drew & Lauren Associates and we were going to run this city together.”

  “Those promises were made null and void the moment you let your college intern wrap her mouth around your cock.” I shook my head at the memory. “And for the record, you were caught once. You slept with her far more than one time.”