Bad Reputation Read online

  Some speculate that the rise of his name in association with the Bad Bachelors website might have something to do with it. The website, which allows New York women to rate and review their dates, has slowly taken over Evans’s online presence.

  Since Marchetti has previously spoken about the “filth” infiltrating the entertainment industry, perhaps Evans’s association with the Bad Bachelors website and his dirty little nickname—the “Anaconda”—were enough for him to turn down a funding request.

  Or maybe Evans’s show simply isn’t any good. We’ll have to wait and see.

  Spill the Tea has reached out to Evans’s office but has yet to receive a response.

  Wes picked up his water bottle and squeezed, crumpling the plastic in his fist. When he couldn’t squeeze it any harder, he threw it across the room, where it hit the wall of his office and bounced back across the floor, stopping at his foot. He was about to crush the damn thing under his boot when the door flung open.

  Mike didn’t ask permission to enter. Ever. The big guy took a seat on the other side of Wes’s desk. “What happened?”

  “With what?” Wes drove his fingers through his hair, resisting the urge to throw something else. “The fuckups are growing so fast I can’t keep up.”

  His brother-in-law grunted. “Chantel sent me that article about the funding withdrawal. Did Leonardo back out?”

  Wes snorted. “Yeah, I guess you could put it like that.”

  Marchetti was one of the biggest players on Broadway. The guy loved theater and dance, and since he had more money than God, he chose to pour a decent chunk of his wealth into fledgling productions.

  On their first meeting, Leonardo had been a ball of energy. The older man was loud and slightly flamboyant, with a shock of white hair that he meticulously styled and an endless collection of pinstripe suits in every imaginable color. He’d claimed that Wes’s idea was a goldmine waiting to happen and had promptly agreed to invest in the show. Contracts needed to be drawn up, but there was a verbal agreement.

  That was until Wes had gone in for a meeting, where he was due to present the current status of the show—the theater location, casting, and an updated running budget. Only that had all been waylaid when Leonardo announced he was pulling out. He hadn’t even bothered to take a seat in the boardroom where Wes had set up his laptop. He’d simply walked in, firebombed their deal, and walked back out.

  There was a chance Wes could fight it and claim he’d proceeded based on Marchetti’s verbal agreement, but that would sap the money he had already allocated to Out of Bounds. And if he didn’t win, then the show would die for good.

  “What happened?” Mike asked again.

  “He said that he couldn’t have his name attached to someone who swings his dick all over town.” Wes rolled his eyes. “That he wanted to keep Broadway filled with old-fashioned values like what my parents have. And the fact that women I’ve dated are writing about me on the internet is out of line with what he represents. Then he told me he wanted to clean up the minds of New York like Giuliani cleaned up the streets.”

  “He’s running for office.” Mike smacked a palm to his forehead. “Fucking hell.”

  “He didn’t say that.” Wes spun on his chair and looked out over the city. Central Park stretched out in front of him like a great green blanket. The view normally calmed him, set his mood straight. But not today. “But it sure as hell sounded like a campaign slogan.”

  “So that’s it? He’s out?”

  “Definitely out.” Wes swung back around and slapped his hand down on his desk, the sound cutting through the air. “Goddammit, everything was going so well too.”

  A loss of funding wasn’t simply a minor setback; it could cause the whole show to go under. Last week, Wes had thought of the Bad Bachelors site as a blip on the radar, an annoyance at most. But now it had cost him something dear. Something important.

  Frustration ripped through him, and he clenched his fists so hard his knuckles turned white.

  “Does this mean you’ll consider taking some of my money?” Mike asked. He leaned back in the leather chair and interlaced his fingers behind his head. Wes knew that pose—it was the power-play pose.

  “Shut up, Wall Street. I don’t want your shitty banking money.”

  Mike snorted. “Why do you have to be so pigheaded about it? I have the money, and I’m happy to help.”

  It would have been the easy option. But Mike’s money belonged to his family—to Wes’s sister, to Frankie and Daisy. They were well-off, but most of their wealth was tied up in investments or in college funds for the girls. And while he was certain the show would be a success, there was no way he’d ever risk putting his nieces at a disadvantage.

  Besides, having that kind of thing hanging over his head could affect the way the show was produced. He didn’t want anything to influence him to take the safe route with Out of Bounds.

  “Save it.” Wes held up a hand. “Take the girls to Paris or something.”

  “You’re as bad as your sister, you know.” Mike grunted. “Bullheaded and stubborn, the lot of you.”

  “Hey, you married into this family. No sympathy. You knew damn well what you were setting yourself up for.”

  “That’s what I get for marrying my high school sweetheart.” They fell quiet for a few seconds until Mike cleared his throat. He wasn’t going to let this go. “Is this Bad Bachelors thing really so bad?”

  Wes glanced at his laptop. The Bad Bachelors website was open on his screen, the overtly feminine pink banner featured a set of plump, shiny lips with a manicured finger held up in a shhh motion.

  Wes’s page on the site contained a press photo that had been taken during a work trip to Amsterdam, where he’d gone to visit the Dutch National Ballet. Underneath was a set of five stars with the figure 89% listed next to it. According to what he could find out, the site now required men to sign up themselves, but his profile appeared to have been created very early on. There was no way for him to delete it that he could see. Not without contacting the Bad Bachelors admin, anyway.

  Threatening legal action was certainly an option, but Wes was reluctant to go down that path with his public image already overrun with less-than-ideal messages. If he poured fuel onto that fire by trying to get the reviews removed, would it make the situation better or worse? He really wasn’t sure. Besides, rule number one of the internet was that it never forgot anything. There were already screen captures of his reviews and quotes featured in articles. Deleting his profile now wouldn’t solve this problem.

  “Here.” Wes turned the laptop around. “See for yourself.”

  Mike leaned forward, his eyes widening and a smirk developing on his face. “Wow.”

  “Don’t look so smug, man,” Wes said. “We haven’t checked if you’re listed on there.”

  Mike chuckled. “Unlikely. I’ve been a one-woman guy since I was in my teens. So I can crow all I like without fear of repercussions on this one.”

  “Bastard,” Wes muttered under his breath.

  He leaned back in his chair while Mike continued reading the reviews on the site. Wes didn’t have pages and pages of them like some guys did. He dated a bit, but no more than the average single guy. And lately, he was all work and no play, which meant most of the reviews were from women who’d dated him before the site was even created.

  Curiosity had compelled him to look around Bad Bachelors in an effort to justify his anger at Marchetti. And he did feel justified. The reviews were nothing. Nonsense. All they confirmed was that he’d dated women and liked sex.

  Certainly nothing terrible enough to warrant backing out of a business deal.

  “Jesus.” Mike’s booming laugh ripped through the quiet office. “These reviews are fucking hilarious.”

  “This isn’t a joke. It’s affecting my work.” Even to his own ears, it sounded stupid to be u
pset over something so trivial—after all, everyone knew the internet was full of stupid shit like that. Wes knew he should be able to rise above it. But Marchetti pulling out had put a major dent in his plans.

  “They’re comparing you to a foot-long, saying you need an expert snake charmer…” His brother-in-law scrolled down, mouth open in shock. “How does this website even exist? It’s a miracle they haven’t had the pants sued off them.”

  “Maybe they haven’t attacked the right person.”

  “You know, now that I think about it, there was some big deal about a guy being New York’s ‘most notorious’ bachelor a few months ago.” Mike tapped a finger to his chin. “Maybe it had something to do with this site.”

  “Doesn’t ring a bell.”

  Mike reached over the desk and grabbed the cordless mouse. “Give me a sec.”

  A few minutes later, he turned the laptop back to face Wes.

  “This guy.” He tapped on the screen where a picture of a guy in a sharp suit stared back at him. “Reed McMahon. Used to be some hotshot PR guy. They called him the ‘image fixer.’ This site pretty much destroyed his career…at least that’s what I heard.”

  Wes studied the picture. “I don’t recognize him.”

  “I knew a guy who hired him a few years back after his ex-wife doctored photos of him and sent them to the guy’s clients.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “Check out the last article on the Bad Bachelors site about him.”

  Wes scrolled down the page. “It says he’s getting married. So what?”

  “And they reiterated their policies about reviews and announced some changes to how they’re managing the site.”

  “Okay.” Wes stretched the word out. “Am I missing something?”

  “You think the crazy person who decides this kind of website is a good idea retracts their opinion of someone publically without a reason?”

  Hmm, Mike had a point. “You think he threatened them?”

  “I think something happened.” He rubbed his hand along his jaw. “And that makes me think this guy would be worth talking to.”

  “What good will that do? The damage with Marchetti is already done and, frankly, after our meeting the other day, I’d be more than happy to show him how wrong he is.”

  “If it were me, I’d reach out to this Reed guy and see what he knows about Bad Bachelors. At the very least, he might have some tips on how to manage any bad press. I’ll see if the guy at work has a contact number.” Mike folded his hands in his lap. “What are you going to do about the show in the meantime?”

  That was the million-dollar question.

  “Out of Bounds is going ahead, funding or no funding.” Wes drummed his fingers on the top of his desk, letting fury bubble away inside him. “I don’t care if I have to scrape every last penny together myself.”

  “Oh yeah? And how are you going to do that?”

  “No idea. Sell my apartment and my car. Move back in with Mom and Dad.”

  Mike snorted. “I give it two weeks before a homicide is committed.”

  “Who’s your money on?”

  “I’ll plead the Fifth on that one, thanks.”

  Wes nodded. “Smart man.”

  Maybe it had been naive, but Wes had thought himself above engaging with this kind of gutter-dwelling gossip. Hell, his family had dealt with it often enough—gossip rags had announced his parent’s divorce a few times, and they’d even tried to claim Chantel had an eating disorder. “Scum,” his mother had called them. Vultures who preyed on people in their weakest moments. Not worth the air they breathed.

  There was a chance, though, that his silence was the reason this whole damn thing hadn’t gone away. He’d allowed the story space to grow by not providing an alternate narrative. Still, wouldn’t talking about it add more noise to the fray? He didn’t agree with his mother that a press conference was the right way to deal with it. Wouldn’t that make him look defensive?

  But maybe Mike was right. Chatting to Reed McMahon might give him an idea how to tackle all the noise from Bad Bachelors. Even outside his experience with the site, the guy dealt with this kind of thing for his job. He should be able to give Wes some advice.

  “Let me know if you can get a number for that PR guy. I’ll talk to him,” he said eventually. “And if Marchetti wants to get his panties in a bunch over such a stupid, shitty little thing, then let him. The show will go on…no matter what.”

  Chapter 9

  “Women who say size doesn’t matter are lying to themselves. Nobody in their right mind would choose a pickle over a foot-long.”

  —DancingQueen

  Remi’s body ached in a way that only other dancers would understand. It was like winter had settled into her bones and made a home there. There was a unique point beyond pain and fatigue where ballerinas dwelled. Everything creaked. Without having danced at her usual pace for the past few years, all her hard skin and time-earned calluses had disappeared, leaving her feet soft and vulnerable. Open to blisters. It would take a while to build that hardness back up again.

  Even an evening foot bath with Epsom salts hadn’t helped.

  And that was only day one. Which meant for the time being, she would have to wear her Ouch Pouches and push through. The inside of her lip was shredded from gritting her teeth through it, but she knew her body would adjust.

  Sighing, she tilted her neck from side to side and then swung her arms in circles, trying to loosen up. This choreography would not beat her.

  “Feeling a little stiff?” One of the other dancers approached her. Her name was something starting with L… Lilah?

  “First day back is always a painful one.” Remi sat on the floor, legs stretched out in front of her while she bent forward.

  “I was sure I hadn’t seen you around before.” Lilah’s dark eyes studied her. It was like being peeled apart layer by layer. “Has it been a while since you were part of a production?”

  Remi wasn’t sure how much Wes would want her to say. Or how much she wanted to say. “It has. I was with a company back in Australia, but I decided to take a break when I came to New York.”

  “Seems like the opposite of what most ballerinas do when they come to New York.” Lilah sat next to her and crossed one ankle over the opposite thigh, twisting to open up her hip. “You’re in the best city for dance in the whole world.”

  Like she didn’t know that. Remi tried not to bristle; it wasn’t like Lilah meant to insult her. Being objective, in her position, she probably would have been surprised too.

  “Sometimes it takes walking away to realize you have a true passion for something.” Remi drew one foot to the inside of her thigh and stretched back down again.

  She eased into the position, her muscles already starting to loosen. Thank God she’d been teaching barre classes the last few years. Her feet might not have been prepared for full days en pointe, but at least her flexibility was still there.

  “Right.” Lilah nodded. “So how did you come to audition for Wesley?”

  Remi bit down on her lip to stifle a smile. Wesley. His full name seemed so formal and stiff. Not like the sweet joker she knew. “Totally by chance. He saw me dancing and invited me to audition. I was thrilled, obviously.”

  The other dancer continued to study her, not looking entirely convinced of Remi’s story. “Well, you must have impressed him. There was a lot of competition for your part, you know. The original lead has gone on to dance with the Cincinnati Ballet. I heard they’re talking about giving her one of the little swan roles in Swan Lake.”

  “Dance of the Little Swans” was a notoriously difficult piece of choreography due to the quick pace and linked hands of the four dancers, meaning any slight misstep or missed beat was instantly visible. Not to mention the sixteen pas de chats in a row.

  It wa
s a role that would only be handed out to incredibly talented dancers.

  This is not the time to start indulging your imposter syndrome. Wes put you in this role because you earned it. He cares too much about the show to do it for any other reason.

  And, given what she’d witnessed in rehearsals yesterday, the cast was brimming with talent. So he would have had plenty of choice within that small group alone for the lead role.

  “I’m very grateful that Wes gave me the opportunity,” Remi said, keeping her voice smooth in the hopes she might be able to keep the doubt where it belonged—hidden. “I’m going to give it my best shot.”

  Lilah nodded. “I’m sure you will.”

  Something about her tone filled Remi with a sense of unease. She’d watched Lilah in the rehearsals yesterday. Like everyone else here, she was talented. But there was a hardness to her, a glinting edge to her words. To the way she danced. And, Remi suspected, to her personality as well.

  In Remi’s experience, most dancers stuck together. Delivering a performance worthy of a standing ovation was always a team effort. The lead dancers couldn’t deliver a story without the character performers, without choreographers and costume designers and shoemakers. Everyone had to be on the same side for a performance to work.

  At least that’s what Remi believed. But every so often, she’d encounter a dancer whose ambition was such a driving force in their lives that they had no problem stomping on relationships to get ahead. They were the minority, thankfully. But something told her that Lilah was one of those people. Maybe it was intuition.

  Or you know what it could also be? Paranoia.

  “Wes assigned me to be your alternate,” Lilah said as they continued to stretch.

  Of course he did. Freaking great.

  “Well done.” Remi forced herself to smile. She would not engage in any feather ruffling so early into rehearsals. “I’m glad we’re going to be working together.”

  “Me too,” Lilah replied, but the smile didn’t quite reach her eyes.

  After the warm-up and classes were completed, Sadie picked up right where they left off yesterday.