The speaker in the middle of the table beeped, and Vi’s voice floated out of the speaker. “Jerry, the production team is here.”
“I’ll be right out.” He took a deep breath. “I’ve done a thousand of these, and I still get nervous.” Pulling the door open, he headed out and into the lobby.
“You all ready?” Hardy asked, and looked at his new assistant.
Raphael swallowed hard. “Deep end of the pool,” he said, nodding.
“If he starts singingShallow, I’m out,” Gabe said, but the smile on his face didn’t match his anger.
“I can’t sing like Gaga,” Raph answered.
I patted him on the shoulder. The poor guy was in here for the second day on the job. He was nervous as Hell, but Hardy had liked him so much he’d hired him on the spot. HR was still trying to get everything processed for him, but Jerry was as enthusiastic as Hardy.
We could all see Jerry walking through the hall through the opaque film of the windows, and heard him chatting with the four people following him.
He opened the door and motioned everyone in as we all walked behind our own chairs and pulled them out to sit. With my ass halfway down to the seat, my worst nightmare walked into the room.
Edward George Roberts.
Eddie.
Ed.
The man who had helped to destroy my entire life so badly the implications were still ringing through the past six years.
His eyes landed on me, at first growing round with shock, and then sliding into his snake oil smile I knew too well.
I couldn’t be on this contract. I couldn’t. It was bad enough I had to do work for him early on, but he didn’t know it was me-me then. Now he was staring at me.
“Gentleman, ladies, let’s sit and start a conversation about your contract on postproduction sound for this show,” an older man with J. Jonah Jameson hair said.
“Sir, if I may,” Ed said, leaning forward. “I don’t know if we want this particular team.”
“Ed, this is the team that did your last episodes of—”
“Hadn’t realized that Marcus Romano was part of that,” he bit out. “I would have turned down the replacements. Mister Romano doesn’t have the best reputation in mixed company.”
I slammed my hands on the table and stood. “I’m out. Don’t worry about me touching any of your audio. Sorry, Jerry, I’ll go work on my other assignments.” I snatched my cup of coffee and marched out of the room.
“That solved itself.” I heard Ed laugh as the door was closing behind me.
Furious, I marched through the office and back down the stairs to my dungeon studio and slammed the door. I started up all the equipment and ripped the newest paperwork off the wall so I could see what my day was going to look like.
“Marcus!”
I snapped my eyes up to the door. Sorcha was standing there.
“What the fuck is this?”
“I’m off the project,” I said. “Don’t ask me to go back, don’t ask me what this is about. Keep me away from Ed Roberts, and keep him away from me.”
“Marc, this is a huge contract. Jerry wants you—”
“Jerry is not the issue. Ed is the issue. He will destroy this, us, the company if I am near him. I need to stay very very far away from him. I should probably take a vacation day every time he comes into the office.”
“Jesus, Marc…”
“Go back to the meeting, Sorcha. I’ll handle everything else you guys can’t during the show.”
