The Publicist Book One and Two (33 page)

“Are you coming?” the medic asked.

Mac hesitated by the door. He stepped a foot up into the ambulance.

“I’ll be fine, Mac,” Kate said. “Just go home. I’ll call you in the morning.”

But they both knew she wouldn’t.

“I love you, Katie,” Mac said, his voice heavy with emotion.

“I know you do, Mac, but the problem is you don’t love me enough.” Kate’s voice was even, as if she’d been prepared to tell him that for a long time.

Her eyes never wavered.

Mac didn’t say a word.

The ambulance doors closed and it sped off into the night, leaving Mac standing on the street as cars whizzed by. A warm rain began to fall and Mac turned to head in the direction of his apartment.

First he placed a call. “Information please, I need the number for a Grace Adler.” The operator gave him the number and connected the call.

“Hello?”

“Grace, it’s MacDermott Ellis.”

“Mac?” Grace sounded surprised on the other end of the phone. Quickly she added, “Is everything okay?”

“It’s Kate. She’s been hurt—nothing serious. Edward attacked her; it’ll be all over the morning papers no doubt. They took her to Lenox Hill. I think she’ll need a friend.”

Mac hung up without waiting for a response.

Chapter Twenty-Eight

There had never been a publicist featured or talked about on the front page of
The Post
until now. Well, maybe that publicist in Los Angeles who was driving drunk and drove through a crowd of people. But now, Kate made headlines:

“Publicist Caught in Brawl After Author Found to Be Pedophile.”

Kate stood in front of the newsstand and shook her head in disgust. Leave it to
The Post
to embellish the crap out of a story. Well, who knows? Maybe he was a pedophile. The thought of it made her skin crawl. Kate needed another shower.

The New York morning air was tinged with rain, damp and warm. It was a sticky combination. She should have stayed inside instead of trying to head out and pretend nothing was wrong. Everything was wrong, and Kate wondered if it would ever be right again.

The hospital had released her after bandaging her ankle, and although Grace had insisted she come home with her, Kate had refused. She needed to sleep in her own bed. She also turned down Grace’s offer to stay with her.

Kate wanted to be alone with her grief.

Begrudgingly, Kate picked up another newspaper.
The Daily News
was filled with it too. “Freaking copycats,” she mumbled, thumbing through
The Post
to find Page Six. As she suspected, the story was there as well but it was worse:
“What was Kate Mitchell doing in a state of undress?”
the paper asked its readers.
“Was this a love affair gone wrong?”

“Jesus,” Kate said louder than she intended. A man dressed in a sleek black suit looked up from grabbing his paper. “Bad news, eh?” He threw her a disarming smile. She glared at him and the smile fell from his face. He grabbed his paper, tossed fifty cents at the newsstand worker, and left.

“They freaking think I slept with that bastard?” she said aloud.

“Hey, Missy, you gonna read that or buy it?” the newsstand guy asked. She tossed the paper back.

“No thanks.” Kate stomped off, not sure who to be mad at first. She stopped at Starbucks for a latte then headed back to her apartment to spend the rest of the day huddled under the covers with nothing but a good dose of self-pity and her remote control.

…

Mac had seen all the headlines and spent most of the morning calling the various papers giving the “approved” statement. Well, it wasn’t approved by Edward, who had vanished after he was released from the hospital. He declined to comment to any of the reporters who called him but had left a message for Mac to “spin this so no one gets hurt.” What Edward meant, Mac knew, was spin it so
he
doesn’t get hurt. Edward could care less about Kate. Fortunately for her, she was Mac’s first concern. Mac’s phone buzzed in his pocket. It was Carolyn. Shit. What could she want? He didn’t want to speak with her but he knew he had to. She was more than suspicious, and rightfully so.

“Hey there.” he tried to sound nonchalant but didn’t quite manage to pull it off.

“You sound tired,” she said, her voice tight and disconnected. She sounded like a neighbor instead of his wife.

“There’s a lot going on here.” He didn’t want to offer more; he didn’t want to talk to her about it. His palm felt sweaty holding the phone. He wanted to hang up, tell her he was in the middle of a deal, but she’d know that was a lie. MD was closed today. The company’s future was in question and Carolyn was understandably concerned.

“How are you holding up?” The conversation was tense, as most conversations with his wife were.

“I’m okay; it’s been tough. Listen, Carolyn, can I call you back? I need to get on the phone with a few papers and straighten some people out.”

“Isn’t that the publicist’s job?” she asked, her voice filled with accusation. In an instant, Mac was certain Carolyn knew about Kate. It didn’t matter—not now, anyway.

“She’s laid up; she was injured last night during a scuffle at the office.”

“Are the papers true? Was she sleeping with Edward, too?” she said inconveniently.

Too. Too. Too.
Was she sleeping with Edward,
too,
she’d said. Carolyn was baiting him and he’d had enough.

“No, Carolyn, she was not. Now I need to go. I’ll call you later,” he promised, but they both knew he wouldn’t.

The minute he hung up, he started calling the papers again to tell them what really happened. Yes, Edward was drunk, but Kate fell down the stairs. The elevator was broken; he got the maintenance crew to back him up on this although it wasn’t true. She’d gotten the bad news, was upset, had to get to work, walked up the stairs, and took a tumble. Thank God, she wasn’t hurt worse than a sprained ankle. No, he couldn’t comment on Michael Singer. It was an ongoing investigation and he was working with the FBI. It was a terrible story, Mac knew, but it was the only one he could think of and the papers seemed to buy it. He was able to offer them their view on Singer. All MD support would be pulled, and they’d welcome all returns with full refunds. This would kill them; Mac knew this, but if they had any chance of surviving this was the only way. It had happened with Greg Mortenson, although charity fraud seemed like a fair tale compared to this. Also, Mortenson’s book had been out for a while, so the damage was felt differently.

Mac spent the morning on the phone. In between calls he dialed Kate’s cell, but it was off and going to voicemail each time. He was worried about her but knew better than to just show up at her apartment. He would eventually force her to face him. He wasn’t going to let her go, not now. If nothing else he needed to make her understand that he didn’t know the full story, no one did but Edward. And the despicable bastard let this go on.

…

After her one morning outing, Kate did not emerge from her apartment for over a week. She left her cell off. She checked email occasionally, but she knew after the bashing she got in the paper that her career was essentially over. She tried ferreting through her emails but only got more depressed, so she shut down her computer and went back to bed. She couldn’t return to MD and she would likely never get a job at another publishing house—well none in New York anyway. Maybe she could find a small publisher in Duluth that hadn’t heard of
The Continued Promise
.

Doubtful.

The story had made national news and most of the entertainment shows.

Everything she’d worked for was over, and Mac, well that was gone too. In one night, her life was stripped to its core. She was left with nothing. Winner takes all. She hadn’t won this and she wasn’t sure anyone would. MD had reopened after being closed for a day, and from what she gathered from her emails, Mac was handling all communication surrounding
The Continued Promise
. She didn’t want to care, but she did. She couldn’t help it. Caring about her job was in her blood. He’d left dozens of messages and texts. Finally, she told him to back off, and respectfully he did. Andrew had sent her several sweet text messages.
Hang in there,
he’d said. Kate even saw she missed a call from Janet Easter.

Kate spent most of her time at home lying in bed, reading and journaling and trying to figure out what to do with the rest of her life. Grace left bags of food by her door. She shot her friend a brief email asking for space, and Grace knew Kate well enough to know she meant it. By the following Monday, she was still no closer to figuring out her life. The alert buzzed, someone was downstairs. She assumed it was Grace with another grocery delivery. She buzzed her up. There was a knock at the door.

“Gracie, do you mind just leaving them at the door?”

A husky voice responded, “It’s not Grace, Kate. It’s Nick.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

That same day Edward returned to MD, there were dark shadows under his eyes, although he tried to hide his worry with his trademark flashy smile. Everyone greeted him hesitantly. A week had gone by. Mac had been left somewhat in charge, but all anyone at MD knew was that Kate was on “leave.” Edward was in extensive meetings with the board of directors, and the author of the mega-bestseller was being held in federal prison.

Mac was talking with Lulu when Edward entered, a big, broad smile pasted on his face. “Good morning, Mac!” he said a little too enthusiastically. Mac immediately followed Edward into his office and shut the door.

“What the hell is going on here?” Mac asked as calmly as he could.

Edward slid into his chair; all of the things that had been broken during his attack on Kate had been removed or replaced. Mac’s stomach turned remembering it all, seeing Kate with her blouse ripped open. He fought off the urge to pummel Edward.

“What exactly do you mean, Mac? There’s a lot happening right now.”

“You told me that the Feds had something on Singer. You knew, didn’t you? You knew about his child prostitution ring?”

Edward cleared his throat. “We needed this book to do well, and there was no proof that the FBI was right.”

Mac towered over Edward’s desk. “Generally the FBI doesn’t make random allegations unless they have certain facts. You should have told me, and we should have told Kate.”

Edward fumbled with a stack of files his assistant had left on his desk. “Kate, Kate, Kate!” He looked over his glasses at Mac. “Is that all you’re thinking about, Mac? Maybe it’s time you think less with your dick and more with your head. We have a business to run here.”

Mac took a deep breath. Edward was really trying his patience, but he wasn’t going to bite. He needed to stay reasonable, for Kate’s sake more than his. “She was the publicist working this book. She was blindsided by this. It’s disastrous to her career; you do realize that, don’t you?”

Edward waved a dismissive hand. “Put it in perspective, Mac, she’s just the publicist. She’ll recover. I told HR to tell her to take all the time she needs, that her job will be waiting for her when she gets back.”

Mac was stunned. “You’re kidding me, right? Do you think for even a microsecond she’d want to come back here? To a company that deceived her and an employer who nearly tried to rape her?” Mac’s voice was low, not wanting anyone outside to hear him. This was his ace card and one he intended to play well.

Edward sat up straighter. “Rape? Mac, please. She wanted it as much as I did. Kate likes it rough. Didn’t she ever tell you?”

Mac knew he was being baited. Instead, he turned and faced one of the bookcases that had fallen over that night and pretended to eye the books that lined the shelves. He took a deep breath.

In and out. In and out.

Finally, he turned and spoke. “You and I know what really happened here,” he said in almost a whisper. “And if you make one wrong move, I will bury you.”

Edward laughed, “Threats, Mac? Please. You’re letting this FBI thing go to your head.”

Mac leaned on Edward’s desk. “You let us support a book written by a criminal, all in the name of money and books sales. The thought of that disgusts me more than you do, which is quite a feat, considering how much I hate you. Let me tell you this, Eddie. I’m going to clean up this mess for Kate’s sake, and then I’m going to leave this company. If you so much as breathe a word about my exit to anyone, I will tell the world what you did to Kate.” Mac turned to leave, Edward’s chair creaked, and Mac turned to see him leaning back.

“You should never fall in love with people you’re fucking, you fool.” Edward said.

The door clicked softly behind Mac. He marched from Edward’s office to the elevator and headed outside to clear his head and stop himself from killing his boss.