Page 53 of Between the Lines

Her smile falters. “Yes, well, I prefer my point.”

“And I prefer mine.”

“It’s what the Board wants from you,” she says. “It’ll be an odd memoir if we don’t go into the… troubling stuff.”

“We can mention it. Gloss over it.”

“Glossing over things doesn’t fill a book that needs to be at least two hundred pages.”

“It’s a corporate fluff piece,” I say.

“It’s a chance for you to becomemorethan your father’s son,” she shoots back.

My teeth grind together on instinct, and my gaze lingers on the wine cellar. Two of the few things my dad imparted was a love of the ocean and an appreciation for high-quality wine.

And Titan Media, of course, and the media storm.

“Aiden,” she says. Her voice is softer, and I roll my neck, trying to shake off the unease. I can’t handle her pity. Showing weakness isn’t something the Hartman household is good at.

“People will see it as a strength if you own the narrative,” she says, and my eyes snap back to hers. It’s like she heard me. “Not to mention it’ll make it a more compelling book, leave them with a sense that you had something to overcome.”

I narrow my eyes at that. It makes sense. Of course it does. “We’ll need to go through it with a fine-tooth comb,” I tell her. “I don’t want a single misplaced sentence that can be pulled out and turned into sensationalized headlines.”

“Got it.” She leans forward, a smile hiding in the corners of her lips. “We’ll triple-check every phrase. I can easily work together with the editor on that.”

“Okay. Good.” I sigh and look at her laptop again. On the back of it, she has a tiny sticker with a sunset and the name of a national park I’ve never heard of.“We could make a deal about this, too.”

Her hand pauses over her notepad. “We already have a deal.”

“Yes, we sure do. Which means,” I say and meet her gaze, “if we’re discussing what it was like to walk into a courtroom filled with thirty photographers and my father in custody, we’ll be talking about your most shameful moments, too.”

She takes a deep breath, like that rattles her. But then she nods and there’s steel in her eyes. “I know.”

Curiosity burns through me. What can she possibly have in her life that she doesn’t want to talk about in return?

“How about this,” I say. “You can bypass that requirement by doing something else for me.”

Her eyes narrow. “And what’s that?”

“Let me read the newly written chapters of your book. The one you want to publish after my memoir.”

“Oh.” Her mouth remains open, and then she chuckles. “Really?”

“Yes. You can’t be spending all your time every day working on just my book, can you?”

“That’s what I’m hired to do,” she says carefully.

I want her to work on herself, too. It’s not right that she has to spend these weeks focusing only on me and my story when this memoir won’t come close to how good a writer she truly is. I’ve read her other stuff.

“But you can do more than that,” I say. “Send me a few chapters of your new book, and I’ll give you a free pass for a hard question. No need to answer it back.”

“Will you read the chapters?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Of course.”

She leans back in her chair, too, and I love this. Squaring off like we’re negotiating. “Okay,” she says slowly. “But you need to remember that they’re just draft chapters.”

“I won’t judge.”

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