Page 4 of Foreplay on Words

“Evan? Yes.” I nodded as he straightened and turned to face me.

“And?”

“Well, she said––” Isobel interrupted. I held up my hand to cut her off and turned back to Adrian.

“She said, what is the benefit of doing this favor for your author?”

“You really need to ask that?” he asked, looking at me like I was crazy. “You’d be getting byline credit for consulting on a Stone Evans book. He blows his nose and it hits the Times list.”

“I’m not exactly struggling to get my name out there.” I bristled at his tone, arching an eyebrow in his direction. He didn’t need to know I’d already agreed to hold Evan’s hand.

“Yeah, but your demographic is slightly different than his,” he laughed. Jackass.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Isobel inquired as she shot daggers at him with her narrowed eyes.

“Um.” He cleared his throat, and his cheeks colored as he looked at her. “Just that the female nineteen to thirty-five demo is a little bit less selective than the twenty to sixty, male-female that Evan pulls in. His draw is bigger.”

“It may be a larger pool to pull readers from, but there are a lot of female readers ages nineteen to fifty-five. I don’t only pull the NA demo.”

“I know you don’t, but his books have a wider reach. This collaboration could be good for you. Get your name out there to a new potential audience.” The arrogance was back in his voice. Now I was starting to second guess my decision because it meant working indirectly with Adrian.

“Because I obviously have an issue with my hundreds of thousands of readers.”

This was why I didn’t get along with Adrian. He was a literary snob. He had his head so far up the asses of his writers that he couldn’t see romance as a legitimate genre. It didn’t escape me that most of his MAST writers were male. All waving their tiny dicks around. He saw me as some vapid bodice-ripper-writing airhead.

“Okay, kids, simmer down,” Isobel interjected. I think she could tell I was about to lay into him. “Chase already agreed to meet your precious Evan. She only needs an address.”

Our banter always amused Isobel. She thought it was hilarious that I could so easily wind Adrian up with a few well-placed barbs. It took all my self-control not to reveal that he could do the same to me.

“Oh, she did?” he asked, studying me with a knowing smile. He knew I could never say no to Isobel, no matter how much I despised her ability to get me to bend to her will. I was good at writing sex scenes; she was good at subtly manipulating all the little pawns in her life. Adrian and I were merely pieces on a chessboard to her.

“Don’t look so smug. Someone needs to throw that poor kid a bone. Those pages were just awful,” I replied with faux sympathy.

“Hey, he’s got more bestselling books under his belt than you have notches on your bedpost.”

“Hey! Break it up before I get the hose.” Isobel’s voice rose, and we both looked in her direction. “Chase, stop riling him up.” She pointed a finger at him with a raised eyebrow. He’d gone too far this time.

“Adrian quit slut-shaming and get out of my office before I stab you with my letter opener,” she picked up said letter opener and replaced her finger with her little metallic weapon. “1950 called, they want their misogynistic bullshit back. This isn’t an episode of Mad Men.”

The laughter burst out of me as he turned to her with a look of shock mixed with what I was sure was arousal. Gross.

“You need us. Don’t be a dick. Email Chase the address and a time, and she’ll be there.”

Adrian let himself out of the office quietly, and I turned back toward Isobel before she could avoid my question again.

“So, what is so bad about Evan’s house?”

“It’s not the house that’s the problem.” She laughed at the face I made because I still didn’t get the joke. “It’s the fact that he rarely leaves it.”

“Ever?”

“Pretty much.” She couldn’t hide the cringe, and I felt a stab of apprehension climb up my spine.

Shit. What did I get myself into?

Evan Stineman

Pen name: Stone Evans

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