Dylan: Ex-Bad Boy: An Ex-Club Romance Read online

  I lean against the wall and press the down button for her, then cross my arms over my chest. “On what grounds? Getting you off the hook?” I ask with a smile I know will only earn me more wrath. “Then again, that would be breaking your NDA, no?”

  She exhales an angry sigh and averts her eyes, now ignoring me.

  I consider her while we wait for the elevator to arrive. In profile, she looks almost regal, the perfect queen for a king.

  “Oh, come on. You can’t be that mad at me,” I tease.

  She continues to ignore me for a moment longer before turning to me with an expression on her face that seems disappointed and surprisingly sad. “Why did you do it? Why would you leak those photos?”

  “A better question is, why didn’t you?” I ask thoughtfully. “That sort of photo would land you a much bigger payday than whatever we were paying you for that party. Probably even bigger than the penalty for violating the nondisclosure agreement.”

  “So Ginny Lawson can be slut-shamed all over social media?” she replies, as though that were the obvious answer. “No thanks.”

  The elevator finally arrives, and she steps in, once again ignoring me. I follow her in and press the button to the lobby for her.

  “Maybe that’s what she wants,” I offer, continuing the conversation. “Pull a Miley Cyrus, so everyone stops looking at her like some child star and starts seeing her as the twenty-one-year-old she really is.”

  “By posting photos of her making out with a rock star seven years her senior? There’s a rude awakening for the girls of America. Besides, she herself claimed it was a moment of recklessness that she didn’t want publicized.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with a woman exploring her sexuality,” I point out.

  “No, there isn’t, but there is something wrong with another woman, or man, or company,” she gives me a pointed look, “exploiting it for personal gain...or out of spite…or whatever the reason is that you did it.”

  The last bit has an undertone of bitterness to it, and I cock my head to the side, wondering what that’s about.

  “So you think that’s why I did it? Out of personal gain or spite?” I ask, more serious now.

  She sighs and closes her eyes. “I don’t know why you did it, Dy—Mr. Sexton, but—”

  “Dylan.”

  She opens her eyes and glares at me. “Mr. Sexton. Like I said, I don’t know why you did it, but it was a cruel thing to do, and you should be ashamed of yourself.”

  I know the reasons, and I’m not about to share them with her, no matter how much it redeems me. Still, I’m impressed with Vanessa’s overwhelming concern for the recently smeared mega-star who probably made more money last year than she will see in a lifetime.

  “Paparazzi with a conscience. As I live and breathe,” I say with a teasing smile.

  She’s having none of it.

  “I am not paparazzi,” she says tightly, staring straight ahead instead of at me. “But I certainly have more of a conscience than some individuals.”

  Ouch.

  The elevator arrives on the first floor, and I let her exit ahead of me. Before I can follow, she turns to me, stopping me in my tracks.

  “Do better, Mr. Sexton. No girl—or woman—deserves this,” she says with that sad expression again.

  That one has me grounded. We stare at each other as the doors close, separating us. I stand there, playing back everything that just happened. Vanessa certainly took this far more personally than I expected. There’s definitely something more going on there, but right now, I have bigger fish to fry.

  I exhale a sigh and hit the button to take me back up to the conference room.

  Time to face the fire.

  Chapter Six

  Dylan

  “Can everyone please leave us alone?” Gene says, giving me a death stare as I settle back into my chair at the head of the table.

  “Gene, I strongly suggest we—” David says.

  “Later,” Gene snaps.

  David stares at him for a moment as though waiting for him to see reason, then sighs. He gives me a brief look of mild admonishment before nodding to the rest of his team to leave.

  Gene waits until the door closes on them before wheeling around to me. “What the fuck, Dylan! Your little stunt has only exacerbated the already very tainted public image problem this company has.”

  I look at Gene, completely unmoved. This isn’t the first time he’s cursed at me. “According to you, we always have a public image problem. But you’re forgetting one thing—this supposed image problem is what made this company in the first place. Or have you forgotten the very first motto based on my last name: ‘sex and a ton of it,’” I continue with a smile, delivering one of the original—and long since upgraded to more palatable offerings—slogans of Sexton Enterprises.

  “Every product this company produces from our hotels to our line of champagne has my name attached to it. People don’t stay at Sexton Hotels because they’re family-friendly. They don’t pose on Instagram with our merchandise because it’s wholesome. And they certainly don’t go to the Sexton Spring Fling to sanitize their public image. Scandal is what makes this company thrive, no matter what our puritanical shareholders have to say about it. They can wring their hands all they want, but when that share price goes up, they keep their mouths shut.”

  Even Gene, as much of a stick in the mud as he is, can’t deny the truth in that. Much like my image, I invented the surname Sexton for myself—upgraded from the ridiculous Serafin I was initially “blessed” with—when I first moved to New York. It started as the Sexton Company, reselling rare and in-demand sneakers twelve years ago when I was only nineteen; at least that’s the public story. From there, it evolved into Sexton Enterprises.

  This handsome face and the absurd miracle of life are just about the only things my mother ever gave to me. Mallory Serafin didn’t even bother throwing in a father while she was busy creating a new life prior to her occupation as a professional heroin addict.

  I quickly put her out of my mind. I’m already pissed-off enough as it is.

  “For heaven’s sake, Dylan. This isn’t some little tryst of yours with a starlet or a raunchy ad campaign! Ginny’s people are already talking about filing a lawsuit, and I can tell you we will not come out as the good guys in all of this.”

  “She’s twenty-one, Gene.”

  “Who plays a girl on TV, Dylan,” he says in a droll tone. “Though for how much longer remains to be seen.”

  I lean in and stare at him hard. “It’s well known that no one under the drinking age is even invited to the party, let alone allowed in. Ginny was the one who chose to attend, and it isn’t as though she snuck in through the back door.”

  “How the hell did she get an invite in the first place?” Gene asks, suddenly suspicious.

  I slowly pull back, settling in my chair with a nonchalant air. We’re now tip-toeing around dangerous territory, and I don’t need him poking around, stepping on a land mine.

  I’ve always been given a long leash when it comes to, well, being Dylan Sexton. This includes the infamous Sexton Spring Fling, which has single-handedly put the Sexton Hotel on the map of New York City—if not the world. Which means I’m in charge of the invite list.

  “Because I sent her one. Happy?”

  “Do I look happy, Dylan?” he replies in a terse tone.

  “As happy as usual,” I reply with a smile.

  He just closes his eyes and sighs. “You need to tell me everything…now.”

  I lean back in my chair and raise my hands behind my head, relaxing into it. “What do you want me to say, Gene? I thought we needed a little diversity at the party. I invited her on a whim. I’m certainly not going to discriminate because she’s America’s Sweetheart. Who knew she’d actually show up?”

  That’s a safe enough reply.

  He just stares at me a moment longer. “That’s the best you can do?”

  “What exactly is the problem here, Gene
?”

  “The problem? The problem?” he exclaims, suddenly animated again. “The problem is her production company. The problem is her manager, i.e., her notoriously aggressive mother. The problem is every parent in America. All of them are looking at us like we’re the next Harvey Weinstein. She may be an adult, but America doesn’t yet see it that way.”

  “Well, maybe now they will.”

  He narrows his eyes at me, and I realize I’ve probably said too much.

  “Besides,” I say, shrugging it off. “this isn’t the first time we’ve been sued.”

  “It’s the timing, Dylan. Need I remind you of what happened with James Knowlton, Sir James Knowlton, in London last year, or have you forgotten that unfortunate debacle?”

  I stare at him a moment, before bursting out in laughter.

  Gene just presses his lips together in disapproval. “I’m glad you find it amusing. The families who happened to witness it certainly didn’t.”

  “Families?” I ask, looking at him to see if he’s serious. “It was one a.m. in the morning for crying out loud!”

  “It’s also all over YouTube, censored thankfully.”

  He’s of course referencing the now infamous video with over a million views at last count. It depicts none other than Sir James Knowlton, the icon of stage and screen in nothing more than a Sexton Hotel robe, which is open and blowing in the—obviously quite frigid, if you happen to have seen the uncensored version—British wind.

  In the video, the beloved actor shouts: “I’m the bloody king of the world!” with a glass of something amber in one hand, raised up to said world.

  After finishing off his drink, he throws the glass back behind his head to crash somewhere in the room. That’s followed by a raucous round of cheers from the crowd below him, several of whom were obviously filming. The man finishes with a bow before spinning around and marching back into his room.

  “It’s all over YouTube because it’s hilarious,” I say. “So a British actor had a bit too much of a good time? Even he laughed it off after the fact. I fail to see how that has hurt the Sexton name. If anything, it was good business for us. Bookings at the hotel went up twenty percent after that. No such thing as bad publicity, as they say.”

  “That was immediately after. They’ve fallen since then.”

  “How much?” I ask, strictly business all of a sudden.

  He coughs before answering, which tells me he’s bullshitting me to make a point. “At the end of the day, London is not Las Vegas. It’s not New York. These sorts of things may be okay in hotels in certain locations, but not in the places we are looking to expand our hotel line. No family is going to stay at a hotel where that sort of thing happens. No business traveler is going to risk it either. Those two groups are a hotel industry’s bread and butter, and you have just single-handedly fucked it up yet again, Dylan.”

  “I won’t apologize, Gene.”

  “I know that, Dylan,” he says in a resigned voice. He sighs, then considers me for a long moment. “I’m going to offer you some advice here that I hope you’ll take to heart.”

  I stare at him, suddenly feeling the air shift between us. This isn’t our usual back and forth after another publicity stunt.

  “Try to work on cleaning up your act. The ad campaigns are one thing, and yes, they are effective in their own way. How you behave in real life, even if it is all just a facade, that’s what you need to work on. The public will give a bad boy only so much leeway before he crosses the line. You, my friend, are teetering dangerously close to the edge.”

  I stare at him, focusing on figuring out what it is he isn’t telling me. What’s hidden in between those lines he’s speaking?

  Before I can figure it out, the phone in my pocket vibrates. I pull it out and look at the caller ID.

  It’s the call that I’ve been expecting.

  “I’ve got to go.”

  * * *

  “Oh, Dylan! I’m so sorry. I had no idea it would get this bad!”

  Ginny Lawson is in tears on the other end.

  “Shh,” I soothe, trying to calm her down. The last thing I need is her hyperventilating on me. “It’s okay.”

  “No, no it isn’t,” she insists, sniffling. “I didn’t think they would…oh God, what have I done?”

  Another round of sobs erupts, and I let her get it out.

  Ginny Lawson, the Go-Girl who has convinced many a little girl that they can do anything now doesn’t seem as capable and self-assured as her TV persona might imply. Never meet your heroes, as the saying goes. Such is the life of a celebrity.

  It’s something I can relate to all too well.

  But at least my fame and fortune were products of my own choices in life. Ginny has been a public commodity since before she even uttered her first word. Her parents, agents, producers, PR reps, and so on and so forth have had their claws in her from day one, manufacturing a brand instead of a normal little girl; a girl who might actually have a chance at growing up into a normal woman.

  I know better than anyone that everyone deserves a chance to recreate themselves despite the random—and often viciously unfair—hand dealt them at birth.

  “It’s just…they wouldn’t let me out of my contract!” she seethes, finally breaking out of her crying spell with all the righteous anger that had her begging me for an invite to the Sexton Spring Fling in the first place.

  “I mean, I get it, Go-Girl has made me rich and famous and inspired so many girls, but…it’s been seven years now! I need to move on.

  “If I’d known way back when—but they just shoved these papers under my nose the second I turned eighteen and didn’t know any better and all these lawyers and agents and, of course, my own damn mother was just pressuring me, and now I’m theirs for almost five more years? How is that fair? I’m a good actress, dammit! I deserve serious roles. They won’t even let me take a look at them! It’s like I’m their property or something!”

  “I know,” I say encouragingly.

  For all intents and purposes, she is their property. I know a thing or two about being someone’s bitch. The number of foster homes where I was nothing more than a paycheck introduced me to that life.

  I’ve heard Ginny’s story at least a dozen times already, so I know it by heart. I also know she needs a friend more than anything right now. I’d rather she get it out over the phone to me so I can talk her down off the ledge before she does something stupid.

  I met Ginny Lawson a year ago at, of all things, the Kid’s Celebrity Favorites awards show. I was the plus-one of another kid’s show producer I was semi-involved with at the time. Without the blue bob wig and Go-Girl outfit, she looked nothing like her TV persona. Despite the age difference, we hit it off. Hell, maybe it was the age difference that made it possible. Ten years younger is a little too close to the ick factor for yours truly. Instead, I think of her like the kid sister I never had.

  When she wanted a few tickets to the Spring Fling, I sent them to her, thinking it might be a fun way for her to step into adulthood. If I’d known what she had planned—hell, I probably would have sent her the tickets anyway.

  I certainly wasn’t the one who took those photos, nor was I the one to leak them. When Ginny called me the day after with sudden regret over anonymously sending them to the tabloids, I was the one to offer to take the fall if it ever got to that point. Better than her being sued by her own people.

  Whether or not it was a wise decision on the part of a newly minted twenty-one year old is a moot point now. Heaven knows I made some bone-headed decisions when I was around that age—and at least one that was much worse than bone-headed.

  Either way, I came into the picture long after the damage had been done, so all I could do was help her repair some of it.

  “I don’t regret it at all. I’m a grown woman, who can make her own decisions,” she asserts, apparently tapping into that Go-Girl ethos. “They need to see that. I should be allowed to…to make out at a party if I want! But he
aven forbid my oh so perfect image be tainted. ”

  “Indeed.”

  “I’m not a little girl anymore! Can you believe it, they’re even talking about suing Pete! Never mind that he’s my fucking boyfriend.”

  Definitely not a little girl.

  She sniffs one more time, then exhales. “I’m going to go public, tell everyone it was me who leaked the photos. Oh, God, Mom’s going to positively kill me. Still, it’s not fair to throw you under the bus like this. All you did was try to help me out.”

  “You’re not going to do any such thing,” I interject calmly.

  “But—”

  “But nothing. You deserve your freedom. If that means I have to fall on the sword, so be it. Besides, you know what will happen to you if you let it be known this was all your doing.”

  I know there is some kind of morality clause included in all those papers they shoved under her nose when she was eighteen. Technically she probably already violated them just by going to the party. But to find out everything after the fact was done on purpose would have her being sent through the shredder, not just legally but publicly and professionally. There isn’t a production company on earth who would deal with someone so “unpredictable.”

  “Oh, Dylan…you’re just too good to be true.” Ginny cries on the other end.

  “Stop, you’re going to make me blush.”

  That manages to earn me a giggle, though it’s quickly followed by a rush of tears. “I can’t let you do this.”

  “Trust me, it’ll all be fine,” I assure her. “This will blow over soon enough, and we’ll both survive. Just don’t forget me in your speech when you eventually win that Academy Award.”

  She laughs again, and this time there are no tears that follow it.

  “You’re a great guy, Dylan,” she says, sighing. “Gosh, if everyone knew just how awesome you were, then—”

  “Now, don’t you go tainting my image, Ginny,” I tease. “There’s no need for both of us to have our reputations ruined.”

  Chapter Seven