He is known to play hardball, though. Three years ago, I got an exclusive video of him and a certain woman, a married woman even, who just so happened to be his best friend’s wife. They were on a yacht somewhere in the middle of Italy, and the hour before my story was set to run, he put out a press release that they were dating, and she was getting a divorce. Needless to say, I spent much of that night getting drunk and slurring a few choice words for the asshole. I don’t know where his spies are, but they are all around with their ears to the literal ground, so I learned quickly not to show my hand to anyone. But even with that, he remains one step ahead of me. Every. Damn. Time. It’s the most irritating thing.
“Thirty days,” she says, my mind still out in Tyler Beckett Purgatory, so I’m not comprehending what she’s saying. “Jessica, they are going on a thirty-day tour.”
“Thirty days?” I look up at Stephanie, not believing what she’s saying, but then I look back down again. Realizing she’s dead-ass serious, I roll my eyes at the audacity of a tour that lasts longer than some relationships in Hollywood. “That’s insane and dare I say a tad overkill.” I walk back to the chair and sit down. “How the hell are they going to pull that off?”
“They bought a plane, a big ass plane.” She stops talking, allowing that last part to sink in. “A select number of press are going to be traveling with them. They are doing ten worldwide stops. The stop in Paris will be the official movie premiere, then it will end in Australia, but the press tour stops before that in Los Angeles. There is talk of taking a few of you to Australia, but it’s still up in the air right now.”
“That schedule alone is crazy. Can you imagine a whole press tour and the logistics of something of that magnitude?” As I shake my head, my mind’s a whirlwind of what it would take to pull off a press junket that lasted that long.
“I honestly can’t fathom it.” She taps her finger on her desk, staring me down. “But they are taking ten journalists with them.” We stare at each other when she drops the bomb on me. The reason I’m here in her office right now. “You are one of the select few chosen.”
“No.” Sitting up straight, I look her dead in the eye, not even believing what I’m about to say to my boss. But there’s no other way to say it. “Not a chance in hell, Stephanie . . . no way.”
“You know what’s so damn funny?” She wears a knowing smirk on her face as she leans back in her chair, tapping her index finger on her chin. “That is exactly what Tyler said when he saw your name on the list of press members who would be joining him on the month-long tour.”
“He said that because of me?” I ask, shocked. I mean, I’m not shocked but still. “Me?”
“I need to know what that is all about. You aren’t telling me the whole story, and before I send you off to be a part of history in the making with this exclusive opportunity, I want the goods.” She knows I’m holding something back, yet refusing to say a word of truth.
“I have no idea. We don’t exactly run in the same circles.” I think we’ve been in the same room maybe ten times, and during each of those encounters, we were surrounded by hundreds of other people.
“Well, according to Ryan from HillCrest, yours was the only name he dragged his heels about.” Her eyes remain on me, waiting for me to confess all my dirty little secrets.
“Good.” I cross my arms over my stomach, mumbling under my breath to no one in particular. “He’s an asshole, and I don’t want to be anywhere near him either.” I think about the times I got cheated of an exclusive story because he got the jump ahead of me to put out his own story. The times on the red carpet when he would walk right past me, only to stop at the reporter next to me. The times I interviewed him, pushing his buttons by asking him questions I knew were off-limits. So it really comes as no surprise that he doesn’t want me on the tour.
“Ryan overrode him,” she tells me. My eyes plead with her to override Ryan even though I know her hands are just as tied as mine are in this situation. She then says the sentence I’ve been dreading to hear since she mentioned a thirty-day press junket and Tyler Beckett in the same breath. “Pack your bags, Jessica. You’re going on tour.”