When Lightning Strikes (Whiskey Creek #1)(9)
Author: Brenda Novak

“It wouldn’t be fake,” Ian said. “It would be real.”

“That makes it worse. I’d be acting my own life.” Simon brought his recliner upright. He spent a lot of time in this room. It had no windows, so it was completely dark if he wanted it to be, and that helped whenever he had a headache. It was comfortable, too. After barging into Gail’s office and ranting like a madman early this morning, he’d come here to calm down and recover from a raging hangover. But he wasn’t succeeding, at calming down or feeling better. Every time he thought of Gail and that rape charge, he wanted to put his fist through a wall. And although beer sometimes helped with a hangover, it didn’t seem to be doing much today. His head pounded as though it might explode.

What he needed was sleep. He hadn’t slept well in weeks. But nothing he did, short of pills, made sleep possible.

“This is what you come to me with?” he asked Ian. “This is how you plan to prove your worth?”

Surprisingly, his manager—possibly ex-manager; Simon was still trying to decide—didn’t back down. He was completely convinced he had the answer to all of Simon’s problems. “Yes. It’s brilliant.”

“It’s crazy!” He winced. Raising his voice had been a mistake. “There’s got to be another way out of the mess I’m in,” he added more calmly. “I’ve got more money than I know what to do with. Let’s put it to good use.”

Ian shook his head. “Money’s not enough this time, Simon. You need a more drastic solution.”

“This is drastic, all right,” he responded with a humorless chuckle. “Are you listening to yourself? You’re suggesting I pay Gail DeMarco, a woman I don’t even like, to be my wife.”

“She’s a PR professional, the best in the business. We can’t expect her to give up two years of her life for free.”

“Two years?” The sour taste of the beer was making his stomach queasy. He should’ve eaten something.

“You’ve got to create a track record of stability, give her time to build the illusion of peace and happiness, a life in control.”

Simon said nothing. He was too busy trying to subdue his nausea. Maybe he didn’t want to admit it to Ian, but he knew one thing—he couldn’t go on like this. He’d known that for a while.

“Think about it,” Ian said. “You won’t have much to do with her. It’s mainly for appearances. You get married, you lie low, you get Ty back and then you part amicably. This is a PR campaign, not a marriage in the normal sense. You’re taking it way too seriously.”

“Then you marry her.”

“I would if it’d help.”

Simon tried to picture Gail as his wife and couldn’t. They’d worked together too long in carefully defined roles that rarely crossed into their personal lives. And what he’d seen of her on a personal basis hadn’t impressed him. Talk about a straight arrow. Could he tolerate having this person in his life on a day-to-day basis? “Who picked the length of time?”

“She did. But it’s a worst-case scenario. If our plan works sooner than expected, we can make adjustments.”

He sure as hell hoped it wouldn’t take two years. At the moment, Bella had full custody of their son and, thanks to a hard-ass judge who’d ranted on about his “moral corruption,” she’d managed to deny him visitation rights. Yet she was leaving Ty with one nanny after another while she had surgery to fix cosmetic flaws that didn’t exist, took expensive trips with men she’d barely met and tried too hard to be seen, to be part of the Hollywood “in” crowd, as if she wanted to be famous herself. After his mother died, Simon had been raised by nannies. He didn’t want that for his son.

“It beats rehab,” Ian murmured when Simon didn’t respond. “Something has to be done.”

Surely marriage would do more for public perception than a rehab program. But it would only work if he could get his drinking under control.

He turned his beer around and around in its holder. “How much is she charging?”

“The price of the wedding photos. Whatever we sell them for, that’s what she’ll get. She’ll even negotiate the sale and handpick the placement so we get maximum publicity.”

“People magazine will want them. And they’ll pay a couple mil, at least.”

“That’s a lot, but it’s money you wouldn’t have without her, so she’s essentially paying for herself, right?”

He didn’t care about the money. He just wanted to understand the setup. “Apparently you two have thought of everything.”

Ian smiled. “This will work, Simon. If you’ll let her take charge for a while, do everything she tells you, you’ll get Ty back. I fully believe that. Will you meet with her?”

“Not today.” He wasn’t sure he could trust himself not to lay into her again. Every time he remembered that whole assault thing, he wanted to go ape shit.

“Tomorrow, then?”

Why not? It was worth a shot. Gail DeMarco wasn’t the most appealing woman in the world, but she was better than the alternative. “Fine.”

Ian slapped his knees and stood. “Fantastic. So…are we good? Are we back in business?”

Simon hated to give in so easily, but in his current condition he didn’t have the wherewithal to do much else. “Yeah, I guess so. For now,” he added grudgingly.

“You’ll be glad you hired me back. I promise. But…”

“What?” Simon said when he hesitated.

“No drinking tonight, okay? I don’t want Gail to see you like this.”

Simon gave him a wry smile. “You think she’ll walk out on two million dollars?”

“I know she will. Her reputation will be on the line. She’ll only do it if she believes we can succeed.”

He was probably right. That was partly why Gail had always made him a little defensive and uneasy. His money didn’t matter to her. Neither did his fame. And he wasn’t too strong in any of the categories that did.

* * *

It was a beautiful Saturday afternoon. Pale October sunlight drifted into the living room of Simon’s Beverly Hills mansion through a series of large front windows, but Gail barely noticed. They’d just come in from outside, where Ian had taken pictures of her and Simon wrapped in each other’s arms, their mouths only millimeters apart as if they’d just kissed or were about to. They planned to kick off the campaign by leaking those suggestive photographs to the press. It was all calculated and arranged. It meant nothing. And yet…standing so close to Simon had left Gail a bit breathless.