Page 17 of Between the Lines

Eric is the one to break it. “All the paperwork is signed, including the NDAs, and we’re set to begin.” He holds up atablet and clicks open what looks like a schedule. “We’ve worked in blocks of time every week for you to have access to Mr. Hartman.”

I look at the schedule. Most of the weeks are blocked out with black squares, but there are a few slots of green with text in them.

Car ride to office. 20 mins.

Lunch break in office. 15 mins.

There’s a whole lot of black and very little green.

I look over at Aiden. My thoughts must have been clear on my face because he shrugs. “I’m a busy man, Ms. Gray.”

“Charlotte, please,” I say. “And I understand that you’re busy. You run a company, after all. But with the intense timeline we’re under with this memoir, you and I might need to work a bit more closely than this. At least in the beginning.”

“This is what we have to work with,” Eric says decisively. “If you have any questions, want more material, pictures, or background information—please reach out to me. My office will put together dossiers for you to refer to. This schedule has been forwarded to your email address, and the shared calendar will be continually updated.”

I look back down at the schedule. The little ten, fifteen, or sometimes twenty-minute intervals will have me running around the city.

This will be a far cry from spending a summer living in Minnesota right next door to the former athlete and his family who opened their doors to me and gave me access to every aspect: the bad, the beautiful, and the ugly.

“All right,” I say. “We’re just going to have to make it work.”

“We will,” Aiden says. His words are confident, but there’s a furrow between his brow. I wonder how involved he’s really been in this entire process.

He wants a memoir?

He’s only thirtysomething.

But Titan Media has been in a storm of bad publicity recently. News broke that the former CEO had been charged with embezzlement and fraud. The company had nearly gone bankrupt.

Along with my family, I’d cheered for it to go belly-up.

The realization that I don’t even know the basics about this man, didn’t know hisnameuntil this morning, makes me want to scowl. I need access to make this work.

And I don’t even know if Iwantaccess.

“I believe that’s everything. All communication will go through me,” Eric says. “You have my number, and I’m only a text away.”

I look from the poised man next to me to the man in a suit across the desk. He’s staring back at me with an inscrutable look in his eyes.

I can’t tell what he’s thinking.

“I won’t have your number?” I ask.

Aiden blinks once but doesn’t look away. Doesn’t answer right away, either. Humiliation rests heavily on my shoulders, adding to the maelstrom already raging inside me, but I don’t look away. I gave himmynumber. He said he’d call.

But he never did.

“Mr. Hartman has decided that?—”

Aiden cuts Eric off with a raised hand. “May I have a few words with Ms. Gray alone, please, Eric?”

Eric’s eyebrows fly skyward. For a passing moment there’s a tense look on his face, and like he’s worried about having done something wrong. It seems that Aiden inspires loyalty in the people around him, or at the very least, respect and fear.

I wonder how he does that.

“Of course. You have… four minutes until your next meeting.”

Eric leaves, and the door closes behind him with a sharp sound that rings out ominously loud in the quiet space.

---