Page 17 of The Perfect Rom-Com
He read my story.
The image of Jack in his hotel room, leaning back in the hotel chair with his fancy shoes propped up on the executive desk, sunshine pouring through the window beside him, folder gripped in his hand. Lips moving as he reads. Eyes wide, zeroed in on each word. The TV is on, but he no longer hears it. Somebody is knocking at the door—food service—but he doesn’t notice.
He is moved.
Moved enough he drops his feet down with a thud and slams the folder on the table with a declaration I had dreamed about happening over and over (never with him, but it still works): I want this book!
He must want my book. It’s the only logical conclusion.
“I’ll call you back,” I murmur into the phone and hang up amid Gloria’s protests.
I turn fully to Jack now. Face him head-on. “You liked my book?”
And to my surprise, he looks like this question is of little significance. He’s actually waving with one hand like my question is a fly he’s trying to swipe away.
“Your book. Yes. I read through the forest of trees you chopped down for pages you left me, and yes, once you’re past the initial thirty pages, you have something. It’s not ready by any stretch of the imagination, but it has potential. And no, I don’t throw that word around like confetti to every wannabe writer I meet. I don’t tell everyone they have ‘potential.’ But that’s not my proposition here. I have an offer for something that’s . . . well . . . quite frankly, unturndownable. Much, much bigger than your book.”
My stomach drops at his words about my novel—only the passion project that has gripped my heart and soul the past two years—and the way he so casually tosses it aside.
But however I look he doesn’t seem to notice, because he continues. “I want to see if you’d like”—he pauses momentously, steepling his hands to his lips for a long moment and then letting go with a flutter of his fingers as if they are needed to accompany his next grand words—“to be the ghostwriter for Amelia Benedict’s next book.”
My entire body freezes but for the tiny sliver between my brows that creases into a tiny line above my nose.
I stay this way so long that Jack drops his hands. Points vaguely at my head. “See, now, what’s this mean? I’m sorry. I don’t know you enough yet, so you’ll have to clarify. Are we in shock now? Because, unfortunately, we will have to quite literally run to the airport in a matter of seconds—”
The elevator dings and flings the doors open. A man steps inside. A couple follows suit. The doors slide shut and down we go to the final floor.
“I know this is a . . . unique offer,” Jack continues, his voice lowering.
“I’m thinking,” I say, and this time it’s me waving away his words like a fly.
“Then I’ll help you process,” he continues, not missing a beat. He’s closed the gap between us now. I can actually smell the this-is-my-special-first-class-seat aftershave on his skin. “Amelia Benedict releases three books a year. Seventeen are out to date. Six more under contract to release through this year and the end of next.”
“How many ghostwriters are there?”
“Three.”
“Has she written any herself?”
“Just the one. Her first.”
“Was it any good?”
“As a doorstop it’s excellent.”
“Then why did she become a hit?”
He gives an incredulous little screw of his brows. Inches back from me just enough to gaze at me properly. Gives a little don’t you know? smile as he surveys me. Like I’m some adorable little Girl Scout who just stumbled upon his front door and asked about stock trading. “Because we’re in publishing, Bryony. We stack the deck.”
But of course. Little Amelia Benedict. Daughter of multimillionaire father in the hotel industry. Celebrity mother in entertainment. Heiress with money and time to spend how she pleases. I suppose it should come as no surprise that her publisher would pick her books to soar.
“Anyway,” he continues even more quietly, “one of our writers is midway through a novel set to release next October. One just took maternity leave. And the last one, the one for the book you previewed yesterday, left recently due to”—he pauses, then settles on the words—“an incompatible work environment.”
“You dated her.”
“I went on a date,” he counters briskly. “I was just unaware that the conditions of a date with Greta meant I was supposed to become immediately blind to all women henceforth and forevermore.”
“And evidently this situation wasn’t your first time,” I say.
