Undue Influence

  “What?”

  “That…person in the photo from GossipTO…”

  “She going to talk to the press?” Matty did the dismissive waving thing again. “That’s no problem. We can spin that to our advantage.”

  “I don’t think so. It’s more that she…wasn’t a she.”

  Matty blinked rapidly.

  “But I don’t think he actually knew who I was,” Jesse continued quickly. “We didn’t really talk, and he didn’t say anything about recognizing me. I met him at—”

  “What are you saying, Jesse? You’re gay? Because that is not going to work with the brand I’m envisioning for you.”

  “Not gay. Bisexual. And not even that much.” It was true. Jesse thought of himself as mostly straight but…open to other possibilities. But he figured Matty probably didn’t care about shades of gray here.

  Matty got up and walked around to the front of his desk. Jesse stood, thinking he was being dismissed. Fuck. That picture really had ruined his life. He’d had the biggest agent in all of Canada almost locked down.

  “Sit.” Matty leaned back against the front of his desk, like he was a school principal.

  Jesse sat.

  “I don’t want to hear another word about this. From this point onward, you are not…bisexual.” Matty spat the word like it was a curse. “You are Jesse Jamison, the bad-boy rock star next door. What does that mean? You’re a fucking rock star. As I said, no one wants you to be a saint. You’re brilliant and prickly and you live large. Or rather, you give the appearance of living large. You do what you need to do to keep yourself clean enough that your head is in the game, but you are not to speak publicly about having a problem with booze or any of that. Jesse Jamison the recovering alcoholic is not what we’re going for here. When you appear at high-profile events, you have a fucking craft beer in your hand. You’re single now, and we’re going to use that. You are going to date casually. You are going to break a heart or two. All that’s the rock star part. But you have a soft side. You’re a little vulnerable. A sixteen-year-old girl can imagine reforming you. She can imagine you taking her to the fucking prom. Hell, I might make you actually do that. That’s the boy-next-door side.”

  Jesse could see where Matty was going with this. It made sense. Matty’s “brand,” as much as Jesse hated that word, picked up on Jesse’s natural tendencies and…magnified them.

  Well, some of his natural tendencies.

  “But one thing I need to be absolutely clear about is that both the rock star and the boy next door are straight. Those hearts you’re breaking are female hearts. Those teenagers fantasizing about you are female teenagers. If you don’t agree one hundred percent with this right now, we’re done.”

  Something pinged inside Jesse’s chest, like a pebble being dropped into an empty box. And for some stupid reason, he thought of Dr. Hunter Wyatt, the heartbroken pediatrician.

  Then he thought of the cover of Rolling Stone. He thought of what he’d been striving for his whole goddamn life.

  He stuck his hand out. “It’s a deal.”