Page 2 of Mark my Words

She may have been able to put up with his childish bullshit, but I didn’t have to. There wasn’t enough bonus pay in the world to put up with Adrian regularly. “Hard pass.”

“She’d better watch her mouth around my intern,” Adrian told her, clearly pretending I wasn’t in the room. “He’s good at his job, and I don’t want the fire this dragon spews out to scare him off. Quality talent shouldn’t be stifled because you won’t control your pet bully of an intern.”

“Are you implying that I’m not good at my job?” I turned in my chair and pinned him with a scathing look. I was not about to put up with him degrading my work. He was not my boss, and I did not and would not ever report to him.

“You can infer whatever you’d like from my comment,” he said dismissively, swallowing hard as I glared at him. He may be trying to play the tough guy, but I wasn’t intimidated by him.

“If your intern can’t handle my fiery personality, then he can take a flying leap off of—“ I started in on him.

“Kristine! Stop.” Pausing mid-rant, I looked over at Isobel’s outburst.

The death glare she was giving Adrian even shriveled my balls. “Seriously? Must you fight with everyone, Adrian? We get it. You think your shit smells like roses.”

“At least it doesn’t smell like—“

“Eh!” She warned, putting her hand up in front of his mouth. “Knock it off. If you tried hard, I’m sure you could be a professional.”

“I am professional,” he huffed, his voice taking on an annoying, whiny quality. Clearly, he didn’t like Isobel calling him out on his behavior.

“Pffft...” The noise came out of my lips all on its own, but Isobel’s head still swiveled in my direction.

“You’re not helping.” Damn, I might have pissed her off. I still wasn’t Dickhead though; she was super angry at him.

“Well, sorry if I can’t help but laugh when someone says something stupid.” My face also apparently did this thing where my top lip curled and my eyes showed my unimpressed thoughts. My brother had given me a shirt for my birthday last year that said, ‘If my mouth doesn’t say it, my face certainly will.’ My mother had been horrified, but it wasn’t wrong.

“You could learn something as well about knowing when to stop.” She pointed at me just as Adrian made a face at me over her shoulder. He was lucky I couldn’t reach the stapler. “Not every sarcastic remark sent in your direction needs to be returned with something ten times worse.”

I snapped my mouth shut and crossed my arms over my chest. This was turning out to be a shit day. Chase was supposed to be writing another steamy romance novel, not helping a mystery writer—with a limp noodle—figure out how to pleasure a fictional character.

“Alright, what exactly do you need from me?” Isobel wasn’t letting me off the hook with this project, and I knew I was pushing the envelope of her tolerance.

“Adrian will send you the first draft of the manuscript. Check it for plot holes and start marking up copy with edits.”

“Sam’s already done that,” Adrian said smugly. Of course he’d give his intern a head start. Lord knows what Sam had done to that markup.

“Did she ask you for direction?” Isobel gave him a pointed look, and he opened his mouth but shut it again before he responded.

“No, but he’s my—“

“If you want to continue to utilize my writer when she’s mid-contract, and taking time off from her book, not to mention my copy intern, then we do this my way,” she told him, leaving no room for interpretation.

“But—“

“Either Kristine checks the first draft, or we’re wasting our time.” We would see if I could salvage whatever Sam had done to the original draft.

“Evan has been on the New York—“ Adrian sputtered, pulling out his usual line of ‘my author is more important than yours...blah blah blah.’

“Times bestseller list, we get it,” Isobel finished for him, not sounding the least bit impressed. “You’ve beaten that horse to death. Enough with the macho posturing. You asked for help. We’re providing it, but you don’t get to dictate how this goes.”

“There’s a reason they put me with Isobel. I’m good at combing through the text to ensure the plot is cohesive.” I had better attention to detail than some of the more experienced senior editors and certainly the pool of other interns. He may not like me, but I was damn good at my job.

He turned to look at me with an eyebrow raised. “Mystery and suspense novels...”

“Are still novels,” I pointed out in a bored tone. “They all have a formula, and it’s my job to find the holes.”

“There are no holes that need to be filled.” He tried to look intimidating, crossing his arms over his broad chest.

I snorted as I tried to hold back the laughter. Adrian didn’t realize what he said could be taken in an entirely dirty manner. “Well, obviously, some holes aren’t filled right if you need Chase as a consultant.”

---