Page 105 of Don't Look Back

“I can’t.” He closed his eyes and leaned on his hand. “The charter is two grand a night, and the deposit was my left testicle. I’m fucked.”

Vicki let out a low whistle that ended in an exploding sound. “Shit. I’m sorry. I really thought Jerry would love the book as much as I did. It’s possible the publisher wants out of the contract, but if they back out now we can fight them. You turned in a solid product.”

Rand jumped to his feet, getting into the role. “I don’t understand how this could happen. I thought the numbers for book two were good.”

“They are good. Just not as good as book one. That’s normal, though. You’ll earn out, but it will take a few months.”

“But I’ll never earn out book three. The advance was twice what they paid for one and two.”

With the groundwork for his desperation laid, Rand sat down again. “We have to fix this. We’ll spend the next two hours brainstorming fixes, then I’m back on vacation. I’ll begin my rewrite when I get home in a week and turn it in by the end of July.”

“When I turn in your new outline, I’ll insist they release partial payment, since you did turn in the book on time. But to do that, we need a solid outline. We’ll go over the letter point by point. I like your oligarch’s daughter idea, but how can we fit that in? Calvin’s love interest in the first two books can’t have a secret father. Her background is established.”

Rand was not looking forward to returning to DC and facing Freya’s husband, former Green Beret Cassius Callahan, who everyone called Cal, and admitting that yes, his character Michael Calvin—called Cal—mighthave been sort of named for him. But it was just a name, and a nickname at that. The character was an amalgamation of a half dozen men in various special forces units that he’d known over the years, but better, stronger, and faster, as fictional military action heroes needed to be.

His saving grace was that the love interest was based on no one. Freya was smart and beautiful and tough as nails—all traits the love interest shared, but he’d known from the start eventually she would either turn traitor or be killed off, and he couldn’t do that to a friend, not even in fiction.

“Well, I was planning to wait for book five, but I think to shake things up, she’s got to die at the first turning point.”

From there, Rand and Vicki went to work on the technical aspects of the game they were playing—her team sent him links and code to upload—while they verbally plotted a book he would never write. Not only would he never exploit Kira’s pain in that way, he’d also never put her on the page as a character. He would never share his Kira with readers.

He might have a better understanding of how to describe love now than he did before, but the person who inspired the feeling would always be private and not fodder for fiction.

While they fake-plotted, Freya gave him updates on their progress through Laskin’s computer network. Rand did his part, following links and opening more doors, inserting code where needed. They identified devices and combed through emails and contacts, looking to match someone on the network to Ben Kinder or Cousin Andre.

Laskin had to be connected to one or both, and they needed that connection if they were going to identify others Kinder had conspired with to launch some sort of attack on Little Creek.

ChapterForty-Eight

Kira stared at the painting on the wall of Grigory’s private, one-room art gallery, heart pounding with shock. Her hand went to her throat as she followed the chain down to the pendant with the Black Forest design—careful not to turn off the camera or microphone—that was reproduced in exquisite detail in the painting before her.

The face could be a mirror, with the exception of Kira’s forehead scar and the length and style of hair. But none of that was what had her heart racing. No.

The reason her hand trembled and she felt dizzy was this wasn’t an old work, an unsigned self-portrait painted when her mother was Alesya Ivanova Kulika.

No. This was painted by Anna Hanson five years ago.

Kira knew because she had posed for it. The painting was her, not her mother.

“How much do you want for it?” she asked Grigory.

“It is not for sale.”

“I’ll accept it as a gift, then.”

“Marry Aleksandr and it’s yours.”

Bile crawled up her throat. “I thought you wanted me for yourself.”

“I considered it, but I prefer Juliette’s company, and I don’t think she would be content to be my mistress if I married you.”

“How charming that I have no say. At least you considered her feelings.”

Juliette had left for her art studio when Aleksandr was introduced to the party. She’d said she was feeling creative and wanted to work, but Kira guessed the woman wanted to be away from Grigory’s son, who hadn’t bothered to hide his disdain for his father’s mistress.

Aleksandr had left right after running off Juliette. Now it was just Kira and Grigory in a room that could easily be part of an art museum.

“When did you get this?” she asked.

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