Читать книгу Cover Girl - Nic Tatano - Страница 10

Jill handed Keira a contract and a check. “You think this is enough?”

Keira looked at it and smiled. “Yeah. No debut author is gonna turn down this amount of money and a three-book deal. Bella would never let that happen.” But one worry still ran through her mind. “You clear this with the CEO?”

“Nope. Thankfully he’s on vacation on a cruise ship the rest of the week and for whatever reason I was unable to reach him.” She shrugged as she flashed a wicked grin. “Those satellite phones are so damn unreliable. And, you know, since I’m in charge when he’s out of pocket…”

“This is exactly why I love working for you. He thinks there’s still a glass ceiling in this place and has no idea we broke it and installed a trick circus mirror.”

Jill’s face tightened. “Stop. The thought of him looking even fatter than he is will kill my appetite for the whole day.” She sat opposite Keira. “Well, when this book hits he won’t have a problem. You’re right, it’s incredible. So what time does Bella get in?”

“Nine. I already emailed her and told her I would have an offer at nine-oh-one.”

“Okay. Let me know how it goes. And look, if you need to sweeten the pot a bit, go ahead. You can go twenty percent more if you have to. More than that, call me.”

Alex Bauer looked at the grandfather clock in Bella’s office. The pendulum seemed to be swinging in slow motion.

Bella shook her head. “Will you stop checking the time? Trust me, when Keira says she’ll have an offer at one minute past nine, she’s not kidding. She’s as much a deadline nut as you TV people are. And by the way, don’t ever miss a deadline with her.”

“Never missed one in TV. Not about to start doing it now.”

“Good. Now please try to relax. Your life is about to change in an amazing way when that phone rings in two minutes.”

Alex released his white-knuckle death grip on the arms of the chair opposite Bella’s desk. “Sorry. I’ve been waiting a long time for this.”

“Trust me, I’ve seen that look before. And you can actually hear it over the phone if the sale isn’t done in person. Making the call is the best part of my job.”

“I can imagine. I’m sure it’s like playing God.”

“In some ways. I mean, I have helped change lives in a big way. But it’s still the author who has to put the words down on paper. Without the unique voice to sell, I’ve got nothing.”

“Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“How do people change when they suddenly become bestselling authors and millionaires?”

Bella leaned back in her chair and folded her hands in her lap. “Interesting question. That’s one I’ve never had asked of me by a writer.”

“Well, I am a reporter.”

“True. Anyway, it runs the gamut. I’ve had some authors become huge egomaniacs and impossible to deal with. Some don’t change at all. A few turned out to be one-hit wonders, blew all their money and are back where they started. A writer can fall off the mountain a lot faster than it takes to get up there. So don’t go out and spend your advance on a Maserati.”

“Who the hell wants a car in New York City?”

Bella smiled and nodded. “That’s the attitude I need to hear. So, you figured out a plot twist to meet the redhead?”

“Well, actually—”

“Hi, Bella!”

Alex saw Bella’s eyes widen and turned around to see who had interrupted him. His eyes matched those of his agent.

It’s her!

I’m not ready—

Oh my God, she’s even cuter up close…

Bella shot Alex a quick look as she stood and moved around the desk to greet the editor. “Keira… I, uh, didn’t know you were actually coming by.”

“I figured for an offer like this I’d bring it by in person. And you know I’m an old-school face-to-face gal.”

Alex stood up and turned to face her.

Keira looked at him and smiled. “Bella, sorry if I interrupted a meeting. Rachel buzzed me in. I told her you were expecting me.”

“Not a problem,” said Bella.

Keira stuck out her hand toward Alex. “I’m Keira Madison, Senior Editor at Starstruck Books.”

And I’m star struck.

Think fast!

“I’m, uh, the author’s cousin, Alexander Bauer,” said Alex, as he shook her hand.

“Nice to meet you,” said Keira. “Is she not coming?”

Bella raised her eyebrows as she looked at Alex and folded her arms as if to say, okay, let’s see you wiggle your way out of this one.

His plan wasn’t completely formulated and his heart slammed against his chest, but he used his considerable television skills to wing it. “Well… she’s, you know, incredibly shy and actually borderline agoraphobic. Plus she, uh, weighs about four hundred pounds and is real sensitive about her appearance, so it’s all I can do to get her to leave the house.” He caught Bella rolling her eyes in his peripheral vision. “We share a place in the city.”

Keira shrugged as if it were no big deal. “Well, shy authors are nothing new. So, you two are Alex and Alexander?”

“Our family has a fondness for the name and all its incarnations. Alex, Alexander, Alexis, you name it.”

“Ah, so that’s why the heroine is named Lexi.”

“Uh, yeah. In any event, I always represent my cousin in business matters and she trusts my judgment.”

“Good to know,” said Keira, whose spectacular turquoise eyes locked with his for a moment and sent a bolt of electricity through his body. Her warm smile was accented with dimples and freckles, her face framed by shoulder-length red tangles. Overall it made her look like a little girl. She was tall, about his height, maybe five-nine or five-ten, and skinny, with not much on top but a great pair of legs shown off in a knee-length emerald-green dress. Not stunning by any means, but beyond girl-next-door cute. What Bella saw as plain, he found irresistible.

Definitely his type.

And the look she was giving him told him he might be hers.

“Well,” said Bella, taking a seat behind her desk, “what sort of gifts does my favorite editor come bearing?”

Keira sat in one of the seats opposite the desk as Alex took the other, then reached into her satchel and handed Bella some papers in a blue cover that Alex recognized as a legal document.

A contract.

This is it!

Keira leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, rocking one shoe on her toe. “Well, you were right. We want this badly, Bella. And I hope this is the number you had in mind that will knock your socks off.” She turned to Alex. “And those of your cousin. It’s a three-book deal, so we’re looking to build a brand. I assume she’s working on the next one.”

“Absolutely.”

Bella looked at the contract, smiled, and nodded. “Keira, this is extremely generous.”

She handed the contract to Alex and it was all he could do to keep his jaw from dropping as the dollar amount jumped out from the legalese. “I, uh, would say that’s more than fair.”

“You think she’ll be happy with that?” asked Bella.

Alex nodded. “I feel certain she’ll accept. In fact, I know it.”

“Good,” said Bella, who got up. “Let me give her a call and make it official.” She shot Alex a wink.

“You want me to wait outside?” asked Keira.

“Nah, you two get acquainted.” Bella smiled at Alex as she pulled out her cell phone and headed out the door. “Be right back.”

Alex looked at the contract and tried to sort through it. Keira slid her chair next to his a bit, bringing with it a hint of floral perfume. “If you have any questions about all the legalese, fire away.”

He tried to concentrate, but the perfume was very distracting, as was the glimpse of her legs visible over the top of the contract. “So, uh, do you have a ballpark publication date for the book?”

“I’d like to fast-track it, so about nine months. That’s actually lightning-quick for publishing as we often move at the pace of continental drift. But I’ll be editing it personally and I’ve got a great idea in mind for the cover, so I’ll get with our art department later today. Assuming of course, your cousin accepts.”

“She’d be crazy not to.”

“Good. I’ll look forward to working with her.”

Time to tap dance.

Like Richard Gere in Chicago.

“Well, you’ll probably be working through me a lot. But don’t worry, I’m intimately familiar with the book.”

She raised her eyebrows as she leaned back and folded her hands. “Really? You read romance?”

“I know, I should turn in my male membership card, but I got hooked a while ago. There are some terrific writers in the genre. Anyway, I’ve read Ring Girl several times. Even did the proofreading.”

“Well, my compliments. I hardly saw any typos or grammatical errors. If you ever wanna be one of our freelancers, let me know. By the way, what do you do for a living?”

“Used to work as a TV reporter. Now I teach journalism at a small college.”

“Oh, that’s interesting—”

“Deal’s done!” said Bella, as she blew back into the office and extended her hand to Keira, who stood to shake it.

“Excellent!” Keira let out a loud exhale. “Whew. Now I can relax. I was so nervous I couldn’t eat this morning.”

Bella’s jaw dropped. “You couldn’t eat? Stop the presses.”

“Smart ass.”

Alex saw an opening. “I didn’t have anything either. I, uh, would be happy to take you guys to breakfast.”

“Thanks, but I already ate,” said Bella, obviously getting the message. “You two go.”

Keira turned to him and smiled. “I’d like that.”

“Uh, okay, great. So, I gotta ask… why were you nervous?”

“Long story. Feed me something sweet and I’ll be happy to tell it to you.”

Bella laughed and turned to Alex. “You will shortly discover that the way to Keira’s heart is through her stomach. With sugar.”

Keira sat up straight and smiled as she watched Alexander make his way through a Denver omelet. The Greek diner was a throwback: a hundred things on the menu, huge portions, a jukebox selector at every booth. He’d offered to take her to an expensive restaurant, but she loved this place. The dozens of different smells that wandered by every time a waitress passed their booth, the classic oldies that filled the air. It offered comfort food; something she’d needed a lot lately.

But it all took a back seat to what had fallen in her lap in the past twenty-four hours.

A sure-fire bestseller.

And the fact that she’d be working with a very cute single guy while putting it together. Who ever thought that buying a book written by a morbidly obese author who wouldn’t leave the house could bring a bonus?

She took a bite of her pancakes that she had turned into a maple-soaked sponge and let the sugar flow into her veins. Not that she needed a rush because the man sitting across from her was sending her pulse up a good bit.

Down, girl. Breathe.

Jill, I got your cardio workout right here.

Fifteen minutes into her conversation with the man, she knew something was there. Something she hadn’t felt for ages. Something she hadn’t seen across a dinner table in, like, forever.

Something right out of a romance novel.

He was about her height, dark and slender, with terrific eyes. A lean face with dimples running the length of his cheeks. A bit nervous, but that might be chalked up to intimidation, as she’d seen the same body language from most rookie authors who walk on eggshells around their first editor. But he was funny as hell. Not at all classically handsome but boy-next-door cute. Very much her type. It had become obvious that the author had used her cousin Alexander as a template for the hero in Ring Girl. The men in her romance novels actually existed. Who knew?

But was Alexander the richly drawn character in the book or simply the physical version of the heroine’s love interest?

And was he attached? Surely a guy like this with a great personality had a girlfriend.

Inquiring minds wanna know.

“So,” he said, washing down a bite with a sip of orange juice, “you were gonna tell me about why you were nervous this morning. I thought authors were the only ones who had that problem.”

“I guess Bella never told you about Jennie Dunway.”

“Who?”

“Exactly. But that’s the end of the story.”

“What’s the beginning?”

Keira dabbed her mouth with her napkin, folded her hands and leaned forward. “Okay, so one day Bella calls me up with this terrific novel. Sorta like she did yesterday, but Ring Girl is much, much better. Anyway, I read it that weekend and wanted to buy it so I headed over to Bella’s office on Monday with an offer. But by the time I got there the author had dropped her as an agent.”

“Someone dropped Bella Farentino? What writer does that?”

She put her palms up. “I know. Whoda thunk it? Anyway, apparently over the weekend the author goes to a barbecue and her Dutch uncle tells her there’s no way an agent should get fifteen percent and that he can represent her for nothing.”

“Was he an agent?”

“No, he was a retired longshoreman.”

“Huh?”

Keira put up her hand. “Patience! The story gets better. And you can’t make up stuff this good even if you write fiction for a living. So she agrees to let Uncle Longshoreman pitch her book.”

“But she already signed with Bella.”

“Ah, but as you know, Bella operates on a handshake so there’s nothing in writing. So the author dumps Bella, who had already told her I was the editor that wanted to buy the book.”

“Which means Bella could’ve filed a lawsuit if you’d bought the book, since she’d done the legwork.”

“True, but that was never gonna happen for reasons I will explain shortly. So the Dutch uncle contacts me and starts to play hardball. I have no intention of buying the book because I’d never screw Bella, but I let the guy ramble on just to mess with his head. He wants double what I was going to offer and a laundry list of perks. National book tour with first-class airline tickets, hotel suites, limos, you name it. The book was good, but it wasn’t that good. Anyway, after I turned him down the guy was like a bull in a china shop and no editor wanted to deal with him. So the book went unsold.”

“Why didn’t the author go back to Bella? Or find another agent?”

“She tried both, but by that time the story had gotten around and no one wanted anything to do with her. And, if you cross Bella once, you’re basically dead to her. Publishing is a very small, closed group, and gossip moves at the speed of light. Gossip between agents and editors went viral way before the internet existed. Bella knows everyone. Everyone knows Bella.”

Alexander nodded. “So that’s why you were nervous.”

“Yep. Bella says there’s always a possibility of Dutch uncle deja vu. Which is why both of us like to make quick deals. And why I showed up at one minute after nine.” She offered him a soft smile. “Of course, now that I’ve met you I realize I obviously had nothing to worry about.”

“Nope. Never worked as a longshoreman.” He returned the smile, which sent a warm feeling through her body. “Obviously I have nothing to worry about with you either.”

She furrowed her brow. “How do you mean?”

“Oh, you know. There are all these tales on the internet about ball-busting editors and those who change the story completely and drive writers crazy. Bella had already assured me you were the perfect editor for the book, that you could actually make it better without changing the plot. But, you know, a person always worries until they actually meet someone.”

“So we both have nothing to worry about.”

“Apparently.”

They both went back to their meals and then it hit Keira. One thing was definitely different about this guy.

He actually listened to her.

Keira beamed as she walked into her office.

Gretch was bouncing up and down on her heels. “You got it?”

“Signed, sealed, delivered.”

“Yessss!” Her assistant threw her hands in the air, then studied her face. “Wait a minute… you got that look.”

“Yeah, I just bought a bestseller.”

She shook her head as her eyes locked with Keira's and looked closer. “No, there’s more. You got that look you get when you meet a nice guy.”

“It’s that obvious?”

“You’re all flushed like you’re ready to lay back and light up a cigarette even though you don’t smoke. What, did Bella get a hot new male associate?”

“Nope. But get this… the author is a four-hundred-pound agoraphobe.”

“A what-a-phobe?”

“One of those incredibly shy people afraid to leave the house.”

Gretch grew a worried look, bit her lower lip and took Keira’s hands. “Oh, sweetie, if you’re getting turned on by an antisocial morbidly obese woman, this is a cry for help.”

Keira couldn’t help but laugh. “No, Gretch, I’ve not given up on men. But, you’re right. I met one.”

“So if it’s not someone in Bella’s office, who is it?”

“The author’s cousin. Apparently she’s so terrified of being out in public, he acts as her intermediary. And you’ll love this part… he’s exactly like the guy in Ring Girl.”

“Excuse me?”

“The hero. Jamison. Obviously the author wrote the character with her cousin in mind.”

“So what’s his name?”

“Alexander Bauer.”

“And the author’s name is Alex Bauer, right?”

“Right.”

“So let me get this straight because I’m getting confused… a writer named Alex, who is a very large woman that never leaves the house, uses her cousin Alexander as the template for Jamison?”

“Sure seems that way. Anyway, he took me to breakfast after we did the deal at Bella’s office. And it turns out I’ll be working closely with him on the book.”

“You’re gonna work with a guy on a romance novel?”

“He said he was intimately familiar with the book. Just to be sure, I asked him about a few obscure facts that were in it and he wasn’t kidding. He knows it like the back of his hand, and even served as the proofreader. And he reads the genre. Big fan of Rose. Anyway, I think there’s some chemistry there.”

“With Jamison.”

“No, Alexander, who I think is based on Jamison. Wait, I got it backwards. Jamison is based on Alexander.”

“Who was written by Alex. Who is a woman.”

“Right.”

Gretch shook her head. “I’m gonna need a scorecard on this… ménage-à-whatever. Considering one of those involved is fictional. So why do you think there’s chemistry?”

“He played one of my favorite songs on the juke box. Bobby Darin. Mack the Knife.”

She rolled her eyes. “Oh, for God’s sake, you went to that Greek diner to celebrate a six-figure deal?”

“You know I love that place.”

“And because you two like the same golden oldie you think he’s interested?”

“That was just one little thing. When I was talking he was actually paying attention instead of the usual guy-tuning-me-out bobblehead. But at one point he locked eyes with me and gave me this look that went right into my soul. Anyway, you’ll meet him tomorrow morning. I invited him to the office to give him a tour and meet the team.”

“You sure that’s safe with a floor full of women who are working in the equivalent of dating Guantanamo?”

Keira narrowed her eyes, folded her arms, stretched to her full height and looked down at her assistant, who was about six inches shorter. “Hands off, Gretch. I saw him first.”

“Fine. Does that mean you’re going to finally get over your phobia of relationships and actually go after a guy? I mean, it has been two years, since, you know…”

Keira bit her lip, felt a demon start to dance in her head, then quickly shoved it aside. “We’ll see.”

“Sorry, didn’t mean to bring up old wounds, but it’s about time for you to rip the band-aid off. You’re way overdue.” Suddenly her eyes widened. “I just realized something.”

“What?”

“Well, you said this Alexander guy seems to be the Jamison character. Remember what you said about the heroine when we were reading the book yesterday?”

“Yeah. It sounds…” her eyes widened to match Gretch’s. “…like me.”

“Tall, skinny, girl-next-door, smartass, freckle-faced redhead chocoholic. If that’s not you, I don’t know who it is.”

“So if the writer based her male character on Alexander—”

“Maybe she knows him so well she based the heroine on his type.”

Keira shook her head. “Nah, that’s too much of a stretch.”

“Did he say anything that indicated he was interested?”

“He mentioned that my hair was such a pretty color.”

“There ya go. You’re livin’ it, honey.”

“Living what?”

“The book. Ring Girl. You’re Lexi to his Jamison.”

“We’ll see. So, you wanna go out to dinner and celebrate tonight?”

“We’re not going back to the Greek diner, are we?”

“Nah, I think the company can spring for something a little more upscale.”

“While your loyal assistant is flattered you want to celebrate with her, don’t you want to spend the evening with a man? C’mon, we’ll go down to the bar and I’ll be your wing girl. Find someone hot you can ravish.”

Keira shook her head. “Not interested.”

“This guy really shot an arrow into your heart, huh?”

She shrugged. “Maybe. In any event, I can’t wait for tomorrow.”