Page 89 of Writing Mr. Wrong

They ended up at the boathouse, which held a boat, not surprisingly. It was locked, and they talked about getting the key, but then the daily delivery arrived—fresh fruit and veggies—and after that, Mason ducked inside to prepare lunch while she wrote.

Lunch was meatball soup and rustic bread and a side salad of oranges and olives, with sponge cake for dessert. Gemma dug in like she hadn’t just devoured a huge breakfast a few hours ago.

Then it was back to writing, and she tried not to balk at that. She wanted to explore the island more. She wanted to go swimming. She wanted to be with Mason. Most of all she wanted to be with Mason. But she was here to get the damned book done.

She glanced through the open villa door to where Mason was fixing a snack. Her gaze slid down his bare legs and then to the food he was so carefully preparing for her.

Seeing the whole of him.Appreciatingthe whole of him.

Mason silently deposited her snack on the table. Then a slushy fruit drink appeared, hovering over her, and when she turned, Mason waved at the shot of rum he’d put on the table, beside the plate of tropical fruit and ring-shaped cookies.

“Actually, I kinda need that,” she said, dumping in the rum. “Thank you.”

“Writing troubles?” he asked.

She shrugged and took a long drink of the cocktail, letting the frozen burn of it slide down.

“Anytime you want someone to talk to about it…” he said. “My writing experience is pretty much limited to a few school-paper articles under the tutelage of an amazing editor, but that editor was always there to talk things through if I got stuck.”

When she hesitated, he settled in beside her, perched on the edge. “You said you made some changes, but it’s obviously not flowing the way you expected. Do you need to change more?”

“I can’t. It sold as a two-book deal, and I gave them an outline for the second book. I’ve already tweaked it as much as I dare. The guy needs to be a dominant alpha male hero.”

“Is that industry code for assholes?” He waved off her answer. “I’m guessing Lilias is the heroine?”

“Lilias… whodiedin the first book? You did read it, right?”

“I did, and I noted that, while she fell off a cliff into the ocean,her body wasn’t recovered. Which means she’s actually alive. No body. No death. That’s how it goes.”

“Her body wasn’t recoveredbecauseshe fell into the ocean.”

He tilted his head. “Wouldn’t that mean she’d wash up onshore?”

Shit. “No, the tide was going out.”

“And carried her still-living body with it. Fine, Lilias is not the heroine of book two. Who is?”

“Morag. She’s—”

“Edin’s little sister. Who is even more of a doormat than Edin. Which was kind of a feat, Gem. Doyouread about heroines like that?”

“No, but… if you pair an asshole hero with a heroine who doesn’t put up with his shit, you get a very different dynamic.”

“Like ours. Which, while I may be biased, is really hot.”

She sputtered a laugh. “But it changes the dynamic, and that’s not what I sold.”

“Okay, so if you give the publisher a different book, they could refuse to pay your contract, which means you’d be out…”

She named the figure.

His brows shot skyward.

“I’m a debut novelist, okay?” she said. “I have to start somewhere.”

“I suppose it’d be wrong for me to just give you that much to write what you want.”

She shook her head. “It’s not about the money, which, yes, is very little. It’s about launching a career.”

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