Page 37 of Love Out Loud

Chapter Fourteen

“This isn’t working,” Jake muttered under his breath. The cursor blinked at him from the top corner of the blank page on his screen. Ordinarily, written projects were easy for him. He’d written plenty of advice columns and essays over the past years, but this one wasn’t happening for some reason. He couldn’t even figure out what he wanted to write about. It only needed to be a case study illustrating a challenging success story.

With a sigh, he snapped the laptop shut and checked his phone. There was still an hour before his reservation at Chez Ari, and he really needed to get a start on this damned article. Maybe a change of venue would break the block. He strode into the conference room, flipping the light switch with his elbow, and set up on the end of the long, shiny table with his back to the door. The cursor was as uncooperative here as it had been in his office, though, blinking against the white as if taunting him.

“Shit!” he said, louder than he’d planned.

“Really?” Charise’s smooth voice said from behind him.

“Yeah, really.”

She slid into the chair to his right and arched a brow in the way she did when she wanted him to talk. Only, he had nothing to say…just like he had nothing to write. When it was clear he wasn’t going to dish, Charise strode to the huge gridded whiteboard at the far end of the room and wrote something. “Alan Johnston didn’t get the sportscaster job. I’m still waiting on the audition tape. Would you mind giving me a second opinion when it comes in?” She ran her finger down the board and stopped at Fiona’s name. “Still in the planning stage of the speech?”

“No. She’s got a draft and has made it through it. She’s memorizing it.”

She nodded and checked off the appropriate boxes by Fiona’s name. “I’ll help you with that if you’ll look at the audition tape.”

Usually, he’d jump at the chance for a second opinion, especially from Charise, but for some reason, he didn’t want anyone’s help with Fiona. “I’ve got her. Thanks, though. Just send the Johnston audition file when you get it.”

For a while, she simply stared at him. “What’s wrong, Jake?”

“Nothing.”

Again, she arched a perfect eyebrow.

“Nothing,” he said, as if repeating it louder would make it true.

“I’m calling bullshit on that.” She glanced at his computer. “Why are you working in here instead of your office?”

“I was having trouble focusing. I thought a change of space would help.”

“With what?”

“I’m under contract for an article forToday’s Psychology.”

“Nice.”

“Yeah, except I have no clue what to write about. They want a case study.”

Her brow furrowed. “How about that actress with the stutter from two years ago?”

Jake shook his head. “She’d never give me permission to write about it. She hired me so that she could keep it on the down low, remember?”

“Yeah.” She tapped her finger on her lip. “You’ve helped with some pretty heavy-duty politicians.”

He shook his head. “No politics. I’ll lose more or less half the audience no matter who it is. I was thinking maybe that scientist who—”

“No,” Charise interrupted, eyes bright. “Do Eliza.”

He racked his brain for a client by that name. “Who?”

She rolled her eyes. “Your new client.” He evidently looked as confused as he felt, because she continued. “The one you’re working with so she can pass herself off as something she’s not. Like Eliza Doolittle in the playPygmalion.” When he didn’t reply, she gave a frustrated huff. “They made a musical based on it calledMy Fair Lady. Ring a bell?”

Of course it did, but he didn’t see how Fiona was Eliza.

Charise’s eyes had narrowed, and she was wearing that look she got when she was working something out. “Think about it, Henry Higgins. You’ve agreed to take a woman who is so introverted anyone who meets her notices it within seconds, and you are mentoring her in order to put her on a stage to make a speech by herself. You’re passing her off for something she’s not in a ballroom full of people, just like Eliza Doolittle. Only in your case, you didn’t accept the challenge on a bet—you did it for the money.”

God, that sounded shitty. This was not the kind of client he usually accepted, and it wasn’t for the money. “I did it as a favor to Claire Anderson.”

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