Page 11 of The Perfect Rom-Com

I shrug. Although I’ll be honest here, I feel like I’m about two ticks away from throwing up. “You have to know everyone does. I’m sure it’s tiring, pretending you don’t see everyone gawking at you. Might as well have it out in the open. So. Skiing?”

His brows crumple a little. He leans forward. “Tell you what. I’ll give you your five minutes—”

“Eight minutes and twelve seconds.”

“—but we’re going to spend it doing something advantageous for the both of us. You say you’re a team player, yes?”

“Yes.”

“And you want to break into publishing, yes?”

“Yes. My ambition,” I say, chin lifting as I rattle off my prepared speech, “is to spread awareness about the immigration services center in my community and use the proceeds to keep The Bridge from going under—”

“Then take a look at this.” And now it’s my turn to have something swiveled around and pushed to my side of the table. The screen is open to a document. A book proposal. Simple and yet roughly a hundred times more professional looking than mine.

I bite my lip, immediately regretting the eight-by-eleven stock photo of a bridge plastered across the cover of my folder and the title in 48 Times New Roman font.

“What’s it missing?” he says in a serious tone.

“And this is . . . mutually beneficial . . . for me how?” I let my eyes drift down the page.

He waves a hand at the phone. “Don’t make me say the obvious out loud.”

It only takes a handful of milliseconds to see what he means. Ah. It’s an example of what is a good proposal.

A boulder lodges in the pit of my stomach, but I ignore it. My nerves are going into overdrive from the length of this manic, adrenaline-inducing conversation. This is, oddly, both a nightmare and a dream come true, and I’m not entirely sure how much longer I’m going to make it until I pass out.

I’m meeting with the prestigious Jack Sterling. But he’s rejecting me while informing me how absolutely laughable it is that I tried to hand off my preschool-level proposal to a man who represents—

My eyes land on the name on the proposal just above his own name and agency seal. I bite my lip, and a painful zing zips through my body.

Amelia Benedict.

No.

Can’t be.

I can’t have . . . in my hands . . . a super-secret book proposal from Amelia Benedict. I’ve passed books with her name on them a hundred times at the bookstore. Her little romances are usually on some table beside the register, always with a new cover. Always with something bold and bright. Somehow this woman puts out a new book faster than my milk expires.

“So.” He leans in till his head is hovering over the phone, his eyes inches away from mine, bouncing from me to the screen. “Take a stab at it. What’s it missing?”

Text notifications are dinging alongside a banner at the top of the screen every few seconds, all of which he ignores, so likewise I try to do the same.

I take a breath.

Focus, Bryony. You can do this.

But now I’m not just looking at a super-secret book proposal from a terrifyingly aloof agent who represents one of the biggest in the biz; I’m also seeing snippets of his private text messages from his private life on his private phone and trying very much to ignore them.

A message from someone named Ty saying: Just told Walt. He says he’s going to sue you under tort law for negligently causing him to break his tailbone falling off his chair. Laughing.

A message from someone named Richie saying: Hanor’s gone upstairs. Trying to get you fired. Not going to work but heads-up.

And then a message from Hanor that sounds very official and terrifying: I want to see you in my office the second you get back. With a solution.

And one from someone with a contact name of 2nd Floor Jann with the 300 Flower Pens saying: Are you kidding me, Jack? Could you just, for once, please leave Benedict’s writers alone?!?

I try to politely ignore the notifications, despite the fact they are coming in from clearly important people in his life talking about very important details of his life.