SLEAZE: A Hollywood Comeback Story (Book #1)

Chapter 11

            Thick globs of dressing dripped from the salad leaf speared onto Melanie’s fork as I told her about my Friday night over lunch the following Monday. Bonded by our equal status of being at the bottom of the company’s totem pole, we’d started taking our lunch breaks together fairly early on in my internship. I’d come to consider her a pretty good friend, despite the fact that she refused to eat anywhere that wasn’t organic, authentic, or horribly overpriced. It had been six weeks, but I still didn’t know how to tell her that her so-called healthy eating habits were cancelled out by the obscene amounts of ranch that she drowned her kale and quinoa in.

            “Wow,” Melanie said between thoughtful pauses in her chewing. “That’s nuts. No one saw you taking her home, though, right?”

            I shook my head. “We had a close call with some photographers but I don’t think they recognized her.”

            And if they did, at least they didn’t get a picture of her, I thought to myself as the image of White Hat’s knowing smile taunted me from a place in the back of my mind.

            “I was actually more worried about you,” Melanie said, wiping her mouth with the napkin draped across her lap.

            “Me?” I asked, unsure if I’d heard her correctly.

            “Yeah, didn’t you know? Our company was hit with a huge sexual harassment lawsuit a few years ago. Apparently some of the agents had been getting jobs for their clients in exchange for the clients performing some jobs for them, if you catch my drift.” Melanie raised her eyebrows suggestively and I couldn’t stop my ears from reddening. “Penny told me that after the case settled, the company started looking pretty closely at employees who were caught hanging out with the talent after hours.”

            “Nothing happened,” I said defensively.

            “No, I believe you,” Melanie said. “Though, I will say that if yelling at a girl is your way of trying to get her to hook up with you, we should probably talk.”

            “Shut up,” I groaned, pushing my half-eaten veggie burger away from me. I really needed to start pushing for us to go to more mutually appealing dining establishments. “If you’d seen the amount of vomit in Sophie’s hair Friday night, you’d know that was the last thing on my mind Saturday morning.”

            “Still,” Melanie said, pausing to thank the waiter who’d stopped by to refill her water glass. “If I were you, I’d apologize a few more times about yelling at her, just in case she’s the vengeful type.”

            I frowned at her comment. “I said I was sorry when I thought she was crying and she laughed at me.”

            “That’s probably because it was a lot easier for her to pretend like she didn’t care than to admit that you actually hurt her feelings,” Melanie countered and I stared at my plate, waiting for her to continue. “Parker, Sophie Winters used to be the prized gem of Hollywood. Sure, the tabloids rip on her all of the time now, but I doubt anyone she’s close to has ever called her out for anything, let alone knocked her off her pedestal like you did.”