The next clip had Mal saying he was on the tour to get laid a lot, which Vic seconded as he walked through the interview shot.
From there the footage shifted to the tour’s kickoff event at Magellan’s, displaying the city and date before a montage featuring the club, the fans, and all of the tour participants mingling in the VIP area. There was some audio footage from the fans talking about the bands and individual performers. After one fan said they couldn’t wait for Suddenly Something’s arrival, the scene switched to exactly that. Brandon swaggered in and exchanged his artificially polite greeting with Archer.
“One of the reasons I came along on the tour was to be a source of support for Archer,” Lily said in an interview snippet. “Everyone expects the tension between him and Brandon to be high. I think my being here helps Archer stay focused.”
It cut to the shouting match between Archer and Brandon after their first duet, Brandon snarling because Archer had taken control of the number. The clip implied Lily wasn’t succeeding at keeping things calmer between them.
“That isn’t why Archer asked Lily along on the tour,” Brandon said in an interview, giving the camera a pointed look. The show flipped to the grainy footage of Lily and Archer making out in the SUV, then flashed back to Brandon. “See?”
The first commercial break came on after that. The volume rose around the theater as everyone began discussing the first part of the show.
“I think they did a good job on the quality considering the time constraints,” Lily said.
Keith thought she looked pale. He saw the worry in Archer’s eyes.
“It’s been good so far,” Sydney agreed. “I sure wish I’d known that I’d be in the introduction.”
Lily’s lips pressed together. “Yeah. That caught me by surprise. We should talk to the producers to find out why.”
Keith wanted to know the answer to that, too. He figured it had to be because she was now his girlfriend and she’d be there throughout the tour. The sense of impending disaster continued to hover over him.
When the show returned, it began with some footage of their concerts in Seattle, Santa Clara, and Glendale. All of the participating acts on the tour were featured, followed by some interview commentary about what it was like in each city. The House of Archer producers had made the differences between the acts clear, including rather tame responses from The Void, Brewer Street, and Genevieve Shaw while airing crude and often vulgar commentary from Suddenly Something.
The scene transitioned to some after-party footage featuring some more commentary from the bands and their interactions with fans. Keith felt Sydney’s hand tighten briefly on his as the scene shifted to him standing with Nikki at a cocktail table. The camera focused on him looking in the distance and Nikki following his stare. The perspective followed their gazes to Sydney.
“I see Little Miss Perfect is all coordinated again today,” Nikki sneered.
Keith watched himself shrug and return his attention to his food. Now, he tried to remember the exchange as the scene played out. Had he said anything that would hurt Sydney?
“Do you know what I overheard her say earlier?” Nikki continued. “She said that she had come on the tour in hopes of catching Archer’s eye.”
Sydney made a sound of disbelief beside him. Keith felt his temper rising as the memory of the conversation returned to him even as it played out on the screen.
“But she’s changed her mind now that he and Lily are together,” Nikki said. “Now she has her sights set on you.”
Keith’s temper continued to simmer as he remembered how he had reacted to Nikki’s lies. He had believed Sydney was manipulating him, and he had brought his resentment over that into their first tutoring session, basically assaulting her because he thought she was there to seduce him.
He had fallen right into Nikki’s trap and Sydney had paid the price.
He barely registered the next scene, showing Vic attempting to pick up Sydney and her refusing him. That was followed by an interview with Vic saying he was just messing around with her since he knew Sydney was really after someone else. The footage advanced to later that night, showing Sydney looking unhappy while watching Keith and Nikki together. Audio from one of Nikki’s interviews played over the footage.
“It can be tough being in love with a rock star because everyone lusts after him,” she said.
Keith glanced at Sydney beside him and saw the tension on her face. He had to concentrate on not crushing her hand as his anger festered. He should have anticipated the show would go in this direction after what the producers had done to twist things with Lily. They were turning Sydney’s love for him into something depraved.
They were making her out to be anything but what she was.
The next scene also featured Sydney. She stood on the porch of the staging area at Jenny Kingston’s birthday party admitting to Archer that she had feelings for someone who was already in a relationship. That flashed to the brief, stumbling encounter she had with Keith when she almost fell off the porch. Keith remembered the moment of awareness that had passed between them then. He remembered looking into her guileless blue eyes, smelling her delicious scent, and feeling a strange sense of longing.
What viewers were seeing was an unscrupulous woman who seemed to be making a play for him.
The next commercial break was a welcome reprieve. His gaze moved sharply down the aisle to Lily and Archer.
“What the hell was that?” he asked in a low voice, ignoring the many curious glances now being aimed at him and Sydney from around the theater.
“I don’t know,” Lily whispered, looking troubled. “I thought the show was going to focus on me and Dane. I’m sorry, Syd.”
“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Sydney replied.
She looked like she had been punched in the face a second time. Keith wanted to strangle someone, but there was no one on which he could take out his ire.
It was with significant relief that the next stretch of footage actually did focus on Lily and Archer. Some of it had already appeared in the trailers, such as Lily approaching Archer with an irritated look on her face where he stood with a group of women at Magellan’s. That cut to an interview with Nikki explaining how Lily screened out females for Archer, followed by footage of Lily and Archer sitting together, looking like they were having a great time while the female fans watched unhappily from a distance. Yet another scene showed Lily talking to two female fans at an after-party, followed by a calculating look in Lily’s eye when one of the women revealed they were after Archer. The scene ended with the two females being escorted out of the party.
Other footage showed Lily and Archer dancing at Magellan’s. The heat between them was undeniable. The camera panned to Brandon, who was watching them with a cool stare.
“Lily Montgomery was responsible for Archer’s departure from Suddenly Something,” Brandon said in an interview clip. “She turned his head from day one and that’s why she’s going to be The Void’s downfall.”
“Brandon loves to cast blame on everyone else,” Archer said in another interview. “He’s got to get over himself or he’ll be his own downfall.”
The final commercial break came and went with Keith not saying a word. Sydney continued to sit stiffly beside him. Her hand had grown clammy in his. He knew that, like him, she was watching and hoping there wasn’t going to be any more footage featuring them.
The show returned. He frowned when he realized that the footage showed his apartment complex. He hadn’t known there were any cameras there.
A cold, dark feeling crept into his chest as he observed Sydney’s car pull into the parking lot with him in the passenger seat. When he saw what they were wearing, his gut iced over.
Holy fuck, he thought.
“Oh my God,” Sydney whispered beside him.
He couldn’t think of anything to say as the scene showed him exiting Sydney’s car and striding away from her even as she scrambled after him. He tried to convinc
e himself the show wouldn’t have any footage beyond that. Then the point of view changed from the parking lot to one from somewhere outside his front door.
His heart pounded viciously in his chest as he realized what was about to air on worldwide television. He couldn’t even begin to think of all the ramifications of what was about to happen. His brain had gone completely numb.
There was nothing he could do but watch the scene play out. He saw the shock and bewilderment on Sydney’s sweet face that he had missed at the time after he closed the door on her and went to collect her things. He heard the audience murmur when he returned and shoved her overnight bag at her.
He knew how it must look to viewers...like she had stayed the night after sleeping with him and he was kicking her out.
“Wait a minute, Keith,” Sydney said on the screen. “What is happening here?”
“What the hell does it look like? I’m sending you home. I don’t want you here.” Sydney’s reply had been edited out, so his on-screen image swiftly issued the coup de grace. “The last thing I want to do is get involved with a woman whose single experience with sex resulted from a bastard armed with a date rape drug.”
Keith felt his own words like bullets shredding his chest. He heard the sharp intake of breath throughout the theater. And he knew he had just managed to destroy the reputations of his band and the woman who loved him in one unrecoverable blow.
Chapter Forty-Three
Archer exchanged a slack-jawed look with Lily after Keith’s coldly issued smack-down on Sydney played on the screen. He ignored the show as it continued with Sydney weeping in her car. So many thoughts ran through his head that he had trouble grabbing onto just one.
The show was implying a number of things that Archer knew weren’t true about him and Lily. It was even showing things out of sequence regarding their relationship, as well as how things started with Keith and Sydney. He quickly deduced that the scene they had just viewed was what had caused Sydney to withdraw from the tour, which meant she and Keith hadn’t been sleeping together yet like the clip implied.
So surely this was all more bullshit, right? Had Sydney really been raped? Had Keith really treated her that way because of it?
From those rapid thoughts, his mind immediately went to one: no matter what was true, Sydney now looked like someone desperate enough to do anything to steal Keith from his girlfriend and Keith looked like an unbelievable bastard.
Archer’s gaze shifted beyond Lily’s shoulder and met Keith’s. Archer had never seen the lost look he read in Keith’s expression. Beside him, Sydney was staring down at the purse she held in her lap and blinking back tears.
I didn’t know about the cameras, Keith signed.
Archer hadn’t either. There really wasn’t anything he could say to ease his friend’s mind. They were well and truly fucked.
“What are we going to do?” Lily whispered to him as though she heard his thoughts. “The press is going to be all over this. Sydney shouldn’t have to endure that.”
Neither should you, Archer thought, but that was an issue for another time.
“We’ll have her and Keith escorted out first,” he whispered back. “Let them know.”
Lily nodded and turned to Sydney. Archer shifted in his seat and waved at Trey and Ryan behind him until they leaned forward. After a few exchanged words, the two bodyguards nodded and sat back. Archer figured they would spread the word to Simone, who was patrolling the lobby, and Frederick and Barney, who were stationed outside the theater.
He saw Xander and Aria talking in hushed voices to his left and figured they were also discussing the awful scene. At the moment, the screen was featuring the band meeting where Archer announced he wanted to begin a relationship with Lily. He listened once again as Noelle pointed out that Lily was engaged. It made him realize that Keith wasn’t the only one coming out of this premiere looking like a total douchebag.
Everyone grew silent as the last scenes of the show ran across the screen. He watched the unedited and violence-inducing footage of Lily turning down Johnathan’s plea to reconsider their breakup and the forced kiss that followed. His hands once again tightened into fists as he battled the desire to choke the life out of the guy. Lily reached over and placed her hand on top of his.
The last scene conveyed his reaction to finding out that Johnathan had been at the hotel and had kissed Lily but she hadn’t mentioned it. “You know what, Lily? You’re right. I’m not interested in discussing this right now. It doesn’t look like there’s much to say anyway.”
The camera panned to Lily, who looked wounded by his words. That was the last clip of the episode, ending on the strains of some dramatic music.
Archer’s experience in the business had part of his brain praising how the show’s producers had ended the episode in a way that would have viewers hungering for the next one. The other part of him wondered how he, Lily, and the band were going to weather the likely fallout from a show that had essentially obliterated their positive image.
He had wanted this show to propel them to greatness. Instead, it just might cost him everything he had worked so hard to achieve.
Previews for the next episode began to play as the show’s ending credits scrolled. Archer turned and met Trey’s gaze. Both Trey and Ryan rose and edged out of the aisle. Lily noticed and nudged Sydney. Sydney and Keith also stood up. Thankfully they only had to walk past Sage and Noelle to escape the aisle.
Archer half-expected the audience to start jeering as they noticed their departure. It took him a moment to note that everyone was glued to the screen. He wished he could be happy about that since it meant viewers really were interested in the show. Instead, he dreaded to think what they were seeing.
By the time he had tuned back in after ensuring Keith and Sydney were free and clear, the clips had finished and the screen went dark. The theater filled with thunderous applause.
Lily looked at him with a small smile. “Guess they liked it,” she said.
He figured she was trying to hide how watching the show had made her feel. There was no hiding it from him, though. He saw her hand pressed to her stomach and the strain around her eyes. She was pale enough that he could see the smattering of freckles across her nose.
“Thank you all for attending tonight,” someone boomed over a loud speaker. “We’re looking forward to celebrating with you in the Grand Ballroom. First, please follow our event staff to the lounge for cocktails so we can kick off the festivities in style.”
The last thing Archer wanted to do was attend a party. He wanted to take Lily away from the theater and the drama he knew she hated. He silently thought of possible ways to make that happen as Trey and Ryan returned and they all got to their feet. One look at Christopher staring at him from the aisle was enough to tell him they weren’t going anywhere. He knew there was a press conference taking place while the attendees were at the cocktail reception. They were all expected to participate.
“We have to get the media’s focus off Keith and Sydney,” Lily said under her breath as they exited the theater. “Maybe I should say the scene was my idea...that I wanted to try and get ratings or something and I put them up to it.”
“No,” he said more loudly than he intended, prompting Ryan to look back at him over his shoulder. Lowering his voice, he went on, “You can’t take this on yourself. You’ll lose all credibility if you say you scripted that scene, never mind what everyone would think of you if you said you had put one of your best friends through that just for ratings.”
Her mouth thinned. She didn’t respond since they were soon surrounded by people making their way upstairs to the lounge next to the ballroom. He wished he knew whether she agreed with him or not. Her tendency to sacrifice herself for those she loved made him fear what she might do.
She had sacrificed enough for him and The Void. He couldn’t allow her to do this, too.
She was right that they needed to get the press’s attention off of Keith and Sydney. He just ha
d to think of something that would do it so Lily wouldn’t be tempted to further damage her reputation.
The press conference was set up inside the ballroom, which was why the event staff was keeping the guests out in the lounge for the first half-hour. Archer, Lily, Noelle, Sage, and Xander followed Trey and Ryan to the stage that had been set up for the press conference. Suddenly Something was already there, sitting in the back row of two levels of tiered chairs. Cameras and boom mics had been set up and aimed at the stage.
Each of the conference participants was also given a lavalier mic. There was a brief delay while they were all wired. Archer used every moment he had to come up with a plan.
While Lily was getting miked, he moved over to Noelle, taking care to keep her hidden from the cameras by blocking her with his back. He spoke only four words to her. Fortunately she didn’t question him and their exchange was brief and subtle enough not to catch anyone’s attention.
Once they were all miked up, he guided Lily to the seat in the center of the front row with her name on it. He exchanged looks with his bandmates as they filled all but two of the other seats in the row. His concern was mirrored on their faces. He wished that they had time to confer about what they’d say, but the show’s producers had set this up for that very reason. They wanted genuine responses to the show.
He took his seat on Lily’s right, ignoring the look Brandon was giving him. The conversation taking place among Nikki and Suddenly Something was an incomprehensible hum in his ears. He had far more important things to focus on.
The questions from the press started only moments later. Much as Archer had expected, they went right for the jugular.
“Where are Keith and Sydney?” the first reporter asked.
Lily opened her mouth to speak. Archer immediately sensed what she was about to do.
So he spoke first.
“I asked them not to attend,” he replied.