Page 92 of Serving the CEO

The line went dead without him waiting for me to respond, but I expected nothing less. I sighed and slumped in my chair, my head starting to pound.

Drew’s words echoed in my mind as I sat there. His accusation that I didn’t care that my actions would hurt not only Jessica but Bristol as well. Except he was wrong.

Ididcare. I had no idea why. But I did.

Bristol would land on her feet if she was as good as Jessica thought. It wasn’t as if I’d gone around telling other publishers not to sign her. Contrary to what most people believed, it actually took time and effort to have a book published. Her agent would need to start shopping the manuscript around again. Annoying, sure, but far from ruining her life.

As for Jessica…

“Fuck this shit.”

Rising, I went to the bar and picked up the bottle of Scotch sitting there. It was still in the middle of the workday, and I was about to start drinking. It was stupid and reckless, I knew, but I had to figure out how to cope somehow. Actually, I needed to go to the club, find a sub and fuck my feelings away. Remind myself that I only had one use for most women. Fucking.

But I only wanted Jessica.

And she was gone.

“Fuck this shit.”

THIRTY-SIX

JESSICA

A dull headachethrobbed at the base of my skull, and all I wanted was to find some place quiet and put my head down so I could cry. All of the hope I’d felt about fixing the things I’d broken, making things right with Bristol, getting to do what I’d always wanted to do…it was all gone. All I could feel now was failure.

Frank Fellows had just called and told me that unfortunately, due to some unforeseen complications, he wouldn’t be able to move forward with our distribution deal. He wouldn’t elaborate and when I’d tried to remind him that we’d already started the contract process, he’d said he’d cover the lawyer fees, but he wouldn’t change his mind.

The fuckingasshole.

He hadn’t even explained if there was a problem with the book or not. If I didn’t know if something was wrong, I couldn’t fix it and I ran the risk of having any future deals fall through too. Unless there wasn’t something wrong on my end. In that case, it was just frustrating.

Either way, how was I supposed to explain this new hiccup to Imani and Bristol? And they weren’t the only ones I had to answer to. I had Amelia willing to act as my financer but without a plan in place for distribution, what the fuck was I supposed to do?

The door to the bookstore opened and several customers came in, laughing and chatting about the rain we were supposed to get later today. I straightened, pasting a smile in place that I didn’t feel. Coming out from behind the counter, I went to meet them.

“What can I help you with today?”

A tall, pretty blonde turned me with a smile and pulled a book from her purse. “We’re looking for more titles by this author. Do you have any?”

Her dark-haired friend added, “And if you know of anyone else like them, that would be great too.”

The popular author was one we had trouble keeping in stock and I smiled as I remembered how I’d had to convince my father to up how many copies he stocked. He’d been glad he had when he saw how fast we sold them. “Come this way.”

After showing them what we had on the shelves, I made a few other suggestions for authors who wrote with a similar style and answered their questions. I’d always enjoyed this part of my parents’ business, matching people with the right books.

As I left the women to browse and make their selections, I went back to the front and tried to solve the issue of distribution.

Between working in publishing and being raised in a bookstore, I had a list of distributors, but Frank Fellows was more open to taking on independent publishers and worked closely with some of the local bookstores in the state. Despite the strides made for indie authors over the past few years, getting into brick-and-mortar stores was still difficult in most places.

The young women came to the counter with their selections, chatting about their fall semester classes at NYU. They looked quite pleased with their haul and seeing the stack of titles made me smile. People always talked about how reading was decreasing in younger generations, so it was always good to see readers my age or younger.

“Are you looking to hire anybody?”

I smiled at the cute brunette who’d asked the question and shook my head. “No. I’m afraid the store’s future is kind of up in the air right now.”

“What?” They all gave me varying looks of dismay though it was the blonde who spoke.

“The building’s been bought, and we have to vacate. My parents aren’t sure what they’re going to do, so…we’re in limbo.” I passed her back her debit card and her books, a knot forming in my throat at the thought of closing the store.

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