Page 20 of Smoke and Fire
“You saw the book through and you wrote twenty others, so there must be something in you that likes the subject matter.”
“I like taking care of my family.”
She sighed. A resignation if I’d ever heard one.
“Okay, I give up.” I could practically hearher shrug. “Regardless of motive here, you’ll still make money after people figure out that you aren’t a woman named Jess, which takes us back to the original point. This reallyisn’tabout a man being Jess because you’d still make money. There’s something else that’s pushing your career decisions, and I think you should figure it out.”
I scowled at the wall. She didn’t even know what she meant. How long had she been talking in circles over this? At least ten minutes. How was I supposed to understand her if she didn’t fully get it or herself? Or maybe I didn’t want to understand.
That made sense.
“Many readers will be loyal to your books no matter your gender,” she continued, “now more than ever. Some readers will drop out, but most won’t even care. Some might even read more books to make a point. If anything, it’ll definitely get you publicity and probably sales. It’s certainly one method of getting your back list to sell, I’d wager. Besides, a lot of readers won’t ever know about the update . . . unless you make headlines,” she added, almost as an afterthought.
Thatafterthought is what made my teeth grind at night.
“Face it, Pri. Jess turning into a thirty-something-male would make the headlines, and not in a transgender kind of way but in a this-author-lied kind of way. It looks terrible.”
“Probably, yes.”
“And that is the lastthing I want. People will descend on my life and I’d really rather avoid that.”
“I know. It would be such a fantastic opportunity to call out some prejudice, though.”
Priyanka had an advocate’s soul and had long wanted to call out and tackle the hypocrisy that could follow the announcement that a man wrote such gentle romantic novels. Then again, maybe this news wouldn’t hit in such a big way. The unknown is what held me back the most.
I’d definitely misrepresented myself when I used a female pen name. Any reader would be right to be upset and have broken trust. I didn’t want that either. But some of them could be aggravated enough to find out more about me. To really abuse the revelation to get some sort of revenge.
The paths of howa reader could find out my real identity were slim and few, thankfully. If a reader came to Pineville, caught me writing, and outed me on it, we’d have a problem. Without that very unlikely possibility, there were only two ways anyone could link me to Jess.
1. Pri.
2. The Merry Idiots.
Neither of those gave me true concern.
For all of our differing opinions on whether I should announce or not, Priyanka 100% respected my decision. So far, no one had outed us from her end. One day, there could be an intern that worked her slush pile, or someone in her office that might snoop and then spill, but it hadn’t happened yet.
The three other Merry Idiots knew nothing about Jess, as far as I was aware, so they weren’t a real concern now. One day, they could figure it out, or I might spill the secret. That day hadn’t come, so my identity was locked fairlytight.
I tilted my head back to stare at the ceiling.
“We’re back to where we started, Pri. This whole thing is about money and privacy. You know I don’t want my life out there.”
“Because you’re ashamed of writing romance?”
“No.”
She waited.But yes,I quietly tacked on. I sifted through all the things her statement brought up, but felt only a giant ball of ugly in my chest.
In truth, I didn’t know whyI wanted to stay so deeply anonymous. Nothing felt safer than privacy. Down the road ofcome cleanwaited a whole lotta not-privacy. That didn’t feel good. In fact, it felt downright terrifying.
Flashes of the Merry Idiots appeared in my mind like fireworks. Jayson, whom we called Hernandez, Grady, and Vikram. The guys figuring out my secret? Big whopping no-way-in-hell.
The thought of their laughter and ribbing after they found out would be unbearable and would follow me for the rest of my life. But I still couldn’t credit them with that much power in my life. No, Priyanka was right. Something else lingered below the surface.
Just . . . didn’t know what it was.
Technically, I could hide behind the computer for however long I wanted, but it would impact sales eventually. An impact in sales meant a bigger impact on Dad and Inessa. I wasn’t about to allow that.
