Page 52 of Keep Your Friends Close and Your… Work Enemy Closer?

"So what are your ideas about Venus?" I asked a loudly crunching Jared. "Do you have any suggestions for how we can coax her to work with us?"

"Nah. Not really. Do you?"

"Not a single fucking one," I admitted.

"What have you done in the past besides the cake thing you mentioned?"

"Honestly, just talk to people. That usually works. Some people communicate better via email, the written word... actually, that's most writers. But others respond from an actual face-to-face conversation. And we've tried both of those already."

"Well, it seems to me like we have to dig deep into what Venus likes and loves and try to convince her that way. I kind of made a list already."

"You did?" I braved facing a nearly naked Jared once more. "Really?"

He shrugged one large bare shoulder. "Yeah. When you had me write that big ole dissertation on her life story, I had that in there, then discarded it."

Disappointment shot through me that it'd been deleted. "Oh, that's too bad."

"I saved it though. I always create a separate document with deleted portions."

Brawn was one thing. But a man with some brains? That was the hugest turn-on ever.

I mentally slapped myself.Get it together. Why on earth are you thinking of Jared in those terms?

As I watched, he pounded away at his keyboard, and seconds later, my computer pinged. "There you go. Venus La Fleur's love list."

"Love list?"

"Yeah. Her passion picks. Her... her favorite finds."

"Oh, my God, Jared. Not the fucking alliteration again."

He laughed loudly. "What can I say? It's a sign of my genius."

"Mm-hmm, whatever you say."

Opening his message, I studied the document, reading every word, a quite random list of things she liked, encompassing many different aspects—physical, spiritual, emotional, and even odd things like the way a man puts his hand on the passenger seat when driving in reverse.

Honestly, that was super hot. I had to agree.

Mostly, the list was about animals. "Maybe we should just send her a cake with her precious Freddie's face on it," I said with a sigh.

He laughed. "She'd never cut into it, though."

"You're probably right."I rolled my eyes. "It's too bad we can't just get Max Sterling to gift the painting he won to her."

Jared stared at me, slack-jawed. "Dee, you're a fucking genius. Of course, that's what we should do."

"Right, like we can just call him up and say, 'Oh, hey, you know that painting you bought forone million dollars, can you just give it to Venus La Fleur so we can get a book deal?'"

"Why the hell not?"

"Because first of all, Max Sterling doesn't take meetings with just anyone, and certainly not lowly worker bees like us. And secondly, well, it's a huge, huge favor to ask of him."

"Maybe we can just, uh, manifest it."

"Manifest it? You think we can just manifest something like this? What the hell does that even mean?"

"You know, will it to happen, send a message out into the universe."

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