Page 83 of A Billion Dollar Romance
I’d spent the rest of Friday–and Saturday and Sunday as well–putting out fires. Fielding phone calls from the other bottom-feeding tabloids in the city. Meeting with Verity’s PR team and lawyers, my own lawyers. I’d called Edie’s alma mater, too, had flipped through my grandfather’s old Rolodex until I found the dean’s personal number, had cringed through an explanation of the whole thing, an apology. Promises of a donation–a large one. He hadn’t been pleased, to say the least.
“I took you on as a favor for your grandfather,” he scolded, and I set my jaw, thinking of the fundraising he’d done offmyname attached tohiscreative writing program. “I should have known it was a mistake, you always were a libertine, Martin…”
I apologized again, through clenched teeth.
I didn’t hear from Edie.
She would be at the cabin now, I thought Monday evening as I sat at my desk. It was early; the office was quiet as the sun set behind my plate-glass windows. Just me.
And Alice, of course. The secretary had frowned at me–hadscowled–as I greeted her this morning, and hergood morning, Mr. Martin, had been frosty.
I had wanted to tell her what I was feeling. That I was trying to do the right thing, for once, that my heart was breaking with the ache of it, that I’d seen her smile at Edie and I’d felt proud of myself for the first time in a long time. Since before Grandfather died, and she’d become my secretary, not his.
But the words hadn’t come.
Instead, I’d just nodded curtly and gone into my office.
This is what I wanted, isn’t it?I asked myself. I’d wanted to work. To earn something. To make something of myself.
I just hadn’t thought I would be doing it without Edie.
By the time Edie got back, she would have her book. I knew she would–she’d been working on it for weeks now–I’d caught her daydreaming about it even when we were together.
It would be good–great, even, if her previous work was an indication. Dense and rich and beautiful to read.
And she’d have gotten everything she wanted. All her connections, all her contacts, her business cards, her time away from everything to write.
I scowled out the window, watching the sky fade to inky velvet.
Edie would be just fine without me.
“Pull yourself together, James,” I said out loud to my dark, quiet office.
I would have to be fine, too. For Verity, if not for myself.
I rolled my shoulders back, turning to my computer and pulling up my email.
Among the reports and the meeting requests was one email with the subject heading ROMANCE UPDATE. For a moment, I thought it was a request for comment–hadNew York Weekdecided they’d gone too far, revised the story? But no–I’d asked to be kept up to date on the romance and I’d been CC’ed the latest draft.
I clicked into the message, opening the folder with the attached draft, skimming over the first few pages. My brows drew together into a frown–it seemed much the same as it had the first time I read it. Had the editors higher up rejected Edie’s edits? Or…
I pushed back from my desk. Her pretty handwriting had covered the manuscript last time I saw it–but the editing staff hadn’t known I had asked her to look over the manuscript, and she’d left in a rush. Maybe she’d left her marked-up copy at her desk. I took the elevator down to the fourth floor and the Editorial department without thinking. Edie had taken her role of editor seriously, and whatever I felt about her right now, I owed it to the department to launch the best romance possible.
The automatic lights flicked on overhead as I made my way through the array of desks, illuminating the rows one by one. It switched on over Edie’s workspace and–yes. There it was. I jogged the last few steps, grabbing the binder-clipped stack of double-spaced papers. There were little sticky flags poking out everywhere.
She’d been working hard for me. My chest grew tight. She’d been working hard forVerity, and I’d been fucking everything up because I’d fallen for my student.
I jogged back to the elevator, the manuscript clutched in my hand, and slammed the button for floor fourteen.I looked down at the documents in my hand, flipping the cover page open.Title TBD. I huffed a bitter laugh, and flipped to the next page.
The elevator ticked upwards–ding, ding, ding–as I read. Edie’s looping, feminine handwriting covered the pages, entire paragraphs crossed out, little notes in the margins. “Trite,” read one, underlined three times. She was harsh, Edie. A better editor than I had ever been, although it was easier to edit someone else’s work, of course.
And then I froze.
“I’m beginning to think you have a thing for bookshelves, Jack,” she said.
“No, darling,” he replied, drawing a finger from her cheekbone to her chin, where he pressed lightly, raising her face for a kiss. “It’s you I have a thing for.”
My heart stopped in my chest.
