“And please call me Melanie,” she says as she hands me a pen.
I grin at her, signing my name with flourish, even adding a heart, knowing that if Evan sees it, he might hate me even more for it. Not that I want him to hate me, because I don’t. But if he’s going to hate me, I may as well make it fun to be hated. Is that a thing?
I sign the last document, and Melanie stands from her chair. “I am so excited to work with you, Rachel. The first stop is Los Angeles. It’ll be so nice to feel the sunshine and get away from this gloom and doom.”
“Are you sure that won’t follow us along?” I ask, tilting my head toward Evan.
Melanie laughs softly. “Well…”
“Very funny,” Evan mumbles, finally sitting back up.
Melanie opens a drawer in her desk, pulling out a checkbook. She writes a five-figure check, which makes my heart flutter. I’ve never been given a check this large. And then she hands it over. To me. Rachel Perry.
“This could change your life, Rachel,” she says.
I can’t help it…A tear slips down my cheek. Another sincere moment. “Thank you.”
Chapter 7
Evan
I’venevermetthewifeof New York City’s mayor. I’ve never had a desire or care to, but now…now I feel like I know Lisa Graham as if she’s an old family friend. Rachel Perry wrote an article inThe New York Standardthat makes me feel fondness for a woman that she describes as sophisticated but warm like a slice of Lisa Graham’s famous apple pie.
Her writing somehow crawls under your skin and makes you feel things you don’t want to feel, and I might appreciate it more if I didn’t hate her. If she hadn’t walked out of Melanie’s office last week with a wide, sadistic smile that seemed to say buckle-up-sir-I’m-taking-you-for-a-ride. Or if she hadn’t elaborately drawn a heart beside her name when signing the contract, something I’m positive was only to irritate me, because what grown woman adds a heart to her name?
My office door creaks open, Lily poking her head through like a yellow tulip pushing through the ground on an early spring day. “How’s it going?”
Her words are drawn out, juggling whether they should be taunting or tender. After Rachel left the meeting on Friday, Melanie held me hostage to the uncomfortable hot seat as she peppered me with questions over the upcoming deadline. I didn’t have theanswers she wanted. I can’t figure out the ending to this book and honestly, the plot is lacking. It feels—empty.
I quickly click out of the news article to erase the evidence of reading Rachel’s writing by choice.
“Struggling,” I admit to my sister.
I would never admit that to anyone else.
“So, it’s probably not a good time to tell you that Rachel will be stopping by today?” Lily’s pink lips press together in a small smile. “And by today, I mean, she’ll be here soon.”
“Why?” I ask, my shoulders tensing and my tone turning gruff.
Rachel isn't exactly what I expected, and I need time to make sense of that—to make sense of her.
When I'd stood up to face her, and possibly intimidate her, which I most definitely did by the way her smile had faltered and her green eyes had grown wide, she'd intrigued me immediately. Her curls were wild, framing her face that was bare, her freckles not concealed by make-up. Her outdated blazer seemed to be an attempt to make her frilly dress classier. Her dress that had flowed around her, clinging to her curves, and the fact that I noticed her curves made me hate myself almost as much as I hate her fanfiction.
She'd cowered under me, but quickly found strength in her words. Her words that are good even if they're laced with too many references to one bed scenarios, found families, and a brooding male lead that happens to be my own character.
“Melanie suggested you two meet at least once a week before the book tour to, you know, remedy whatever caused you two to squabble like an old married couple from the get-go. She said something about learning how to control your bickering,” Lily explains while her eyebrows spring up. “I mean,really, did you hate her that much?”
“She’s worse than you,” I grumble.
“So, she’s an angel, then?” Lily teases. “Perfect, lovely, and all things you aren’t?”
My chin drops toward my chest as I give her a look of disapproval. “You call yourself an angel?”
“Comparatively speaking, of course,” Lily teases.
“When will she be here?” I question.
“Give or take ten minutes,” Lily says through a tight smile as she pulls her phone out of the back pocket of her jeans.
