International Love

Chapter 19

We were sitting in one of the smaller conference rooms waiting for whoever was attending this meeting to arrive. I didn’t know if Katie had to have lawyers here or who all needed to be here. I could assume it was quite a bit of people that needed to be here seeing as a contract was getting terminated and someone was getting removed from the tour. I had no idea what was in store.

“What is this even about?” Lacey asked sounding annoyed.

“You know as much as we do.” I said rolling my eyes as I moved my rotating chair side to side.

“Why would you put out a video like that?” Lacey asked, “That’s so embarrassing for not only me but your mom.”

“You’ve made it your personal mission to destroy my reputation. I needed people to know that anything that came out of your mouth was a blatant lie. As far as Cathy, she’s dead to me. My mom died the day she abandoned me.” I said, “I don’t give a damn who I embarrass. You’re not going to destroy everything that I’ve worked for because of your jealous rage. And you’re not going to embarrass Derek either. He’s done nothing to you. I’ve done nothing to you.”

“You just think you’re so perfect, huh?” Lacey scoffed. She looked like she wanted to say more but a bunch of people walked in with Katie.

“Hey guys.” She said, “Sorry we’re late. You guys all know your tour manager, Jason. These are our studio lawyers Allen and Jen, they specialize in your contracts. This is Ted and Kyle who are your body guards along with Steve and Mike, all four of them are going to be necessary from here on out.”

“Katie what is this about?” Lacey sighed, “We have this press conference to get done and I want to go out tonight.”

“This is about you Ms. Klein.” Katie smirked, “The last few months you have made it extremely complicated to work with. You’ve put Ivy’s life in danger not just once but multiple times. You destroyed the Grammys performance and don’t even get me started on going to the press accusing Derek of abuse. This is has all gone too far.”

“I never knew any of those things were that serious.” She said stupidly.

“Yes you did, Lacey.” Steven said, “I told you so many damn times that this was all going to one back and bite you in the ass. We’ve all told you. Even your parents told you.”

“So what this is an intervention?” She laughed, “I’ll do better let’s go.” She said standing up.

“Lacey, sit down.” Katie said, “This is more than an intervention. You’ve violated the terms of your contact. Effective immediately you are no longer a member of Harmony Dreams. Additionally, you will be removed from the tour.”

“What?!” She yelled, “Is this even legal?!”

“It’s very legal.” Jen said pulling out her contract, “According to paragraph 26 in your contract ‘you will provide a professional non-hostile work environment. Failure to do so will result contract termination and/or your removal.’”

“You have violated this term and we are cutting ties with you.” Katie said, “We cannot continue to deal with the amount of toxicity you’ve brought into the group.”

“This is bullshit!” Lacey yelled standing up and walking over to me, “And this is all your f*****g fault you selfish b***h!”

“Lacey I did nothing wrong to you. Your jealousy is what got you in this position. You couldn’t just let me be happy. You had to get my mother involved and spread rumors about Derek. You did this to yourself. You even told me you were going to make things worse because I posted the video.” I argued.

“There’s no question. If you would’ve just stopped when we asked you this wouldn’t have ended this way.” Katie said, “Hand over your keys to the tour bus, your access pass for the studio and the tour. Ted and Kyle are going to escort you back to the room. You will get your belongings and move to a separate room for the evening. You have a flight back to California in the morning.”

I never thought things would boil down to this. We were losing one of our members. We were now a trio. With Lacey being removed there’s no telling what direction our group is going to go in. We could stay on top of the entertainment world or we can completely tank. But I wasn’t going to give up on this group. I’d put so much more time and effort into it that she will be a distant memory.

Lacey was escorted out of the room after she turned in all of her things and it felt like a huge piece of cancer was torn out of our group. It already felt more relaxed. Steven seemed happier as well. He and Derek were goofing off before we walked out for the press conference. Typical boys.

The press conference took longer than usual because there were so many questions we needed to answer. There were many places we needed to touch base on especially after it was announced Lacey’s contract was terminated.