Peyton nodded with a stony expression.
Lauren pressed the button to accept the call. “Marlene?”
“K-Cee just got evicted from a hotel in Vegas,” Marlene said, not bothering with a hi or a how are you?
“What did he do this time?”
“He took a swing at the concierge. Lauren, I need you to talk to the hotel manager and convince him not to press charges.”
Lauren tightened her grip on the phone. “I’m not sure if we should continue to represent him. This is the third mess he’s created since we took him on last month. No matter how often I talk to him, he just doesn’t want to understand that the old adage ‘the only bad publicity is no publicity’ stopped being true two arrests ago.”
“Let’s discuss this another time,” Marlene said. “Take care of this matter first.”
“All right.” It was Marlene’s company, so she got to make the decisions. Lauren just hoped she was billing K-Cee enough for having to pull his ass out of the fire time and again—on a Saturday night to boot. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” Lauren slowly lowered the phone, pocketed it, and met Peyton’s resigned gaze. “I’m sorry. I have to go. One of my clients got himself into trouble. Why don’t we try for dinner sometime next week? Things should have settled down by then.”
Peyton refolded her napkin and put it on the table. “I don’t think so. By then, you’ll probably have another fire to put out.”
Lauren couldn’t even deny it. She’d canceled their second date at the last minute, too, because something had come up at work. If she was perfectly honest with herself, her job had always come first.
“As nice as it’s been, I’m not into ménages à trois.”
Halfway out of her chair, Lauren froze. Ménages à trois? What the heck did Peyton mean?
Peyton gestured to the spot on the table where Lauren’s phone had been. “You, me, and your phone.”
Ouch. Lauren winced but again didn’t try to defend herself. She rounded the table and took Peyton’s hand. “I’m sorry,” she said again, meaning it. “Let me at least pay for your dinner so you can stay and enjoy the rest of the evening.”
“No, that’s okay,” Peyton said, now sounding a little more friendly. She stood, leaned up on her tiptoes, and kissed Lauren, lingering for a moment.
They both knew it was a kiss good-bye not just for tonight.
As Lauren headed for her car at a fast clip, she felt like a loser. She did damage control for celebrities every day, yet couldn’t control the damage her job did to her private life.
The waiter walked up to their table. “Good evening, ladies. My name is Marc. I’ll be your waiter for—” His gaze came to rest on Grace. He did a double take and paused in the middle of introducing himself. “Uh, you are…”
Long since used to it, Grace just smiled and said, “Good evening.”
“Can I get you something to drink while you look over the menu?” Marc asked when he recovered. “Our wine list is excellent.”
“I’ll have a glass of pinot grigio, please,” Katherine said.
“Right away, ma’am.” The waiter turned a questioning gaze on Grace.
Grace suppressed a sigh. On days like this, it was really tempting to order a glass of champagne, her drink of choice in the past. But, as she had every day for the last thirteen years, she shook her head. “Just a Pellegrino for me.”
“Very well.” After bowing slightly, he walked away and returned with their drink orders within less than five minutes. He started to recite the specials of the day, but Grace’s mother stopped him with a shake of her head.
“My son-in-law will be joining us,” Katherine said, apparently enjoying calling Nick that as long as she still could. “We’ll wait to order until he arrives.”
“Very well. Let me know if you need anything else.” After one last lingering glance at Grace, the waiter walked away.
By the time they had both emptied their glasses, there was still no sign of Nick. Grace was beginning to doubt he would arrive anytime soon, if at all.
“What’s keeping Nick so long?” her mother asked.
“I have no idea, Mom. Maybe he’s stuck in traffic or something.” She bit her lip when she realized she was falling into the old habit of finding excuses for him.
Her phone vibrated, rattling around in her clutch, and when she checked, a message from Nick had arrived.
Sorry. Can’t make it. Rooney had us do fifty takes on this damn scene, and now I’m just fried.
“Nick can’t make it,” she told her mother. “He got held up on set.”
While her mother went on and on about neither of them putting any effort into saving their marriage, Grace shook her head at herself. Serves you right. Normally, she wasn’t the calculating type, but after her new publicist had suggested she be seen out and about with her husband, she had let her mother talk her into meeting Nick for dinner in this restaurant, where the waiters were known to tip off the paparazzi as soon as a celebrity arrived. Now they could photograph her having dinner with her mother.
Her mother stopped mid-rant and stared at something at the other end of the room. “Isn’t that your new publicist?”
Grace turned her head. From their discreet corner table, she let her gaze sweep through the room.
Most of the guests were couples holding hands across the table, the candles throwing flickering shadows over their engrossed features. Grace didn’t recognize any of them. “Where?”
“There.” Under the pretense of fluffing her hair, her mother reached up and pointed.
Grace looked in that direction. “Yes,” she said. “I think that’s her.”
At one of the smaller tables, Lauren and another woman were sharing a bottle of wine. Well, the woman was gulping down wine while Lauren was on the phone. Probably an occupational hazard. Just when Grace was about to look away, Lauren stood and rounded the table. She took her companion’s hand and kissed her on the lips, lingering a little too long for it to be a gesture between friends.
What the…? She’s gay? Grace swiveled around to face her mother. “Did you know about that when you hired her?”
Katherine clutched the table with both hands and looked as if she were about to faint, so apparently she’d been as clueless as Grace. “Oh my God,” she whispered. “What on God’s green earth was George thinking? Hiring a lesbian to handle your PR?”
“I have no idea,” Grace murmured, still watching Lauren, who now turned and walked toward the exit.
“Call him!”
“Now? It’s almost nine already.”
“Call him,” her mother repeated. “This can’t wait until tomorrow.”
Grace pulled her phone back out of her clutch. She hesitated for a second before pressing the icon with George’s picture on it. “Hi, George,” she said when he answered. “Sorry to bother you this late, but…did you know that Lauren Pearce is gay?”
George didn’t answer for several seconds. “Uh, yes, I knew. Why’s that important?”
Grace wasn’t sure it was, but somehow, it felt that way. “I don’t know, but I would have liked to know before I decided to hire her.”
“So you wouldn’t have hired her had you known?” George asked, sounding stunned.
Honestly, Grace had no idea how to answer that question. “I probably would have hired her anyway, but…”
Her mother waved at her to hand over the phone, but Grace pretended she hadn’t seen. If she let her talk to George, her mother would only shout at him, and George didn’t deserve that.
“Ms. Pearce comes highly recommended,” George said. “Everyone I talked to has good things to say about her. In the last few years, she has made a name for herself as the go-to publicist for celebrities wanting to come out as gay. She’s the best in the business for that kind of thing.”
“Yeah, but this isn’t that kind of thing! I’m not gay.” Grace realized she’d spoken more loudly than intended and quickly lowered her voice. She looked left and right, glad when she found that no one seemed to pay them any attention in their secluded booth. “My publicist is a reflection on me, and I’m trying to convince people that I’m straight, so do you really think it’s a good idea for me to work so closely with a gay person?”
George was silent for a moment. “You already do,” he said quietly and took an audible breath. “I’m gay, Grace.”
In the sudden silence, the background buzz of the restaurant sounded incredibly loud. “I know,” Grace finally said just as quietly.
“You…you knew?” George stuttered. “You never said anything.”
“I wasn’t sure.” George wasn’t exactly obvious, but since she’d worked in showbiz all her life, Grace could usually tell when she met a gay man. That skill apparently didn’t extend to lesbian women. She hadn’t even considered for a second that Lauren might be gay. “And it just didn’t matter to me.” Grace peered over at her mother, who watched her impatiently. “Listen, George, this isn’t about Ms. Pearce’s sexual orientation. I couldn’t care less about whom she does or doesn’t sleep with. I just don’t want people to think I’m preparing to come out.”