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Chapter Thirty-One
“So it’s happened. It’s out there. We’re talking damage control,” Aspen said over the screen.
“Okay,” Remy said, rubbing his now-sweaty palms against his jeans.
“I think we should move forward with pulling him from the show tonight,” Vivi’s manager said.
“That’s stupid,” Aspen responded immediately and without a shred of emotion. “First off, the fans who paid to come to the show aren’t going to villainize her. Secondly, it’s an admission of guilt. We don’t need to add any fuel to this cheating fire.”
“They’re going to assume guilt no matter what—everyone is,” Vivi said in a cool, professional voice. “But yeah, I don’t want the headlines to be that I fired him or pulled him from the show because of a lover’s quarrel or something.”
“Right now, the headlines are going to be photos of the two of you onstage together,” the large man at the table said.
“I know, Walter, but they’ve got plenty of us together in Spain and whatnot and a lot of him coming to the hotel in Cologne, so they have some pretty damning photos no matter what,” Vivi said. “They just didn’t have a headline to go with them before.”
Holy shit, that’s Walter, Remy thought and almost,almostsmiled at this—the guy was far bigger and far more Italian than Remy had pictured. Walter’s face, however, was pinched and angry, and when the man’s eyes flicked over to Remy, it was clear smiling was not welcome at this meeting.
“What if you just pull the whole band from the show, then?” someone—Remy didn’t even know who it was at this point—suggested.
“I can’t do that—there’s no time to get it all right, and we’re filming the concert…no,” Vivi said, shaking her head, pursing her bloodred lips.
“Alright, listen,” Aspen said, holding up her hands, commanding the room through a nine-inch screen. “How about you go on as scheduled tonight, everything in place. Remy wears sunglasses so no one can get any shot of him looking at you that’s particularly good. Vivi, justdon’t look at himthroughout the show, okay? That’ll fix that issue, at least. Let’s move on to next moves.”
“Has Noel released a statement?” Vivi asked.
“Not a statement, but he did just tweet the thumbs-up emoji,” a young guy in a snappy suit said, scrolling through his phone frantically. “It might have been before the story released, though. People are interpreting it as passive-aggressive.”
“He’s not smart enough to be passive-aggressive.” Vivi sighed.
“What about Tuesday Rivers? Here’s an idea—can we get Tuesday out to Australia tomorrow?” Aspen asked. “She’s not doing anything really, is she? Get her here, the two of you go out for a girls’ day tomorrow. We don’t address the issue with Noel for two weeks, minimum.”
“Okay. When are we doing the perfume launch again?” Vivi asked.
“August—wait, no, Tuesday won’t work. She just had another thing pop with Nick Maddon. It’ll look like you’re commiserating.”
“What if we schedule something between now and the Billboards—just a commercial shoot or something? It doesn’t need to be real, just something that shows me out and working,” Vivi said wisely.
“I’ll call Porch to let him know,” Walter said. “And any new security concerns for tonight? Big Steve is asking.”
Aspen said, “I think we should be fine. Two hours to curtain…let’s all just be grateful Noel Reid isn’t an Australian darling. Now, Vivi, monologues—do you want to say anything in them about all this? Nothing direct, of course, but maybe something small? I think no, but let’s play with the idea—”
Remy stopped listening. No, that wasn’t true—he was listening, but he stopped processing it. He looked down at his phone screen, at the article, reading through it over and over again. He counted—one hundred thirteen words, and they would change everything. If nothing else, he certainly wasn’t moving to Nashville now.
“What are you doing?” Walter said brusquely. It took a beat of silence for Remy to realize the words were directed at him—that someone else had even realized he was in the room.
“Just rereading the article,” Remy said as casually as possible.
“Don’t say anything. Don’t tweet anything, don’t do anything. You’ve already violated the nondisclosure. Don’t make this worse,” the concert director said, not like a threat but rather like a warning. Like Remy was on a cliff, and it was the director sent to talk him out of jumping.
“I’ve never tweeted, period. I’m not doing anything,” Remy said, offended, turning to Vivi and holding his arms up. “I didn’t do this either, so no, I’m not violating the nondisclosure.” He expected her to talk the crowd down, to remind them that he was a mere mortal in a room with fame robots and gods.
Instead, she gave him a stern look, heavy and intense and not at all like the girl who held her lashes close to his cheeks to feel them flash against his skin. “You said you talked to Val about us after the tour. That’s the only leak we can find,” Vivi said.
“Wait, are you serious? Vivi, Val has kept us a secret formonths,” Remy said, nearly rising with frustration—it was only her gaze, eyes blue and sharp, that kept him firmly in his seat.
“Then who? It’s either him, or the opera house was bugged,” Vivi said. Her voice hitched, went broken, and Remy’s frustration morphed into concern, into fear. She was hurt, and she thought it was his doing, and no, no, no, it wasn’t—
“Then the opera house was bugged—it’s anopera house, you know they’ve got recording stuff there. It wasn’t Val,” he said through hard-gnashed teeth. “He wouldn’t do this—I wouldn’t do this, Viv.”
