“To see if it is actually cohesive, that the characters follow the intentions, and that there are no slip-ups with the plot.” I cut off Max with irritation in my voice. Now I knew what they were asking, but it confused me. I had already been doing this with the final manuscripts I had been receiving and had even gotten with a few of the editors to make sure that they were catching what I had been. Every time I read through a final manuscript now, there was less and less for me to mark. “Have you not looked through my manuscriptsbefore?”
I shot my gaze over to Chase. Both men had confused looks on theirfaces.
“Well,no—”
“I already look for all of this when I read through the final copy.” I walked to the end of the table, taking out sticky tabs, Post-it notes, a notepad, a red pen for grammar errors, a purple pen for plot errors, a green pen for character mistakes, and a highlighter for non-sequential portions of the novels. “I need a hard copy of each character profile and an outline of eachbook.”
I looked up as I grabbed for the first manuscript to my right. Both men were gaping at menow.
“What?” I felt self-conscious then. Was I too rude? I knew I was nervous, but I didn’t want them to kick me off the project. I shrank back into thechair.
“That is why they are always so colorful…” Max said, as if in realization. He was still gaping at me. Max had seen my final manuscripts. A thrill ran through me at the proud look on hisface.
“When I give them back to the editors for the author to make changes, I make a note to tell them that there is a legend at the beginning for all mynotes.”
“I never knew that it was you who did it.” Chase’s sounded amazed at thisrevelation.
“Yeah.” Both men were still staring at me, and I no longer felt self-conscious about my work, but it didn’t mean I felt any more comfortable in this room withMax.
“Did you learn all this from your internship?” Chaseprodded.
“Yes and no.” I tried to flip open the first page to the book, but I knew I needed to explain. “I did some of this for my internship, the rest I learned in my college classes and working for variousauthors.”
They didn’t know a whole lot about my life, but I knew this was one thing I had kept hidden onpurpose.
“Authors?” Max asked the question thistime.
“I do freelance content edits for authors.” All eyes were on me and all I wanted to do was become invisible. I couldn’t sink back far enough into thischair.
“Why didn’t you tell us this?” Chase asked, but then Max overturned thequestion.
“Whatauthors?”
“Romance authors. Genres and authors that we don’t work with here.” I gestured around the room. I loved The Ink Well, but the kind of books I read and wrote would never be something that they would publish, and I didn’t have a problem with that. That meant I could keep my work here and then everything else I had athome.
“Do you still do this?” Max had moved closer, clearly wanting moreanswers.
“Not right now, since I started work here, but I hope to again one day.” I paused, reminiscing about the books I once read. I needed to do a reread tonight. “But I do love the work I dohere.”
I wanted to make sure that they knew I wasn’t thinking about leaving, even though I knew I was going to continue the work I did before. I just had to put it on hold for a moment. I didn’t give them any more information, but instead flipped to the first page of the manuscript and dovein.
I became lost in the story that was in front of me by the second chapter. There was love and hate. The story was full of fantasy, a young adult novel, edging towards adult. I didn’t know how long I had been sitting there before a hand touched my shoulder. I jumped, looking up to see Max’s smile. I relaxed a little after I realized I was still in the conference room. Getting into a good book would do that to you, just allow you to wander off to a newworld.
“Take a break.” Max was holding up a bag of food. I could smell the orange chicken more than anything else. My stomach growled and his smile grew bigger, “See, even your stomach says it’s break-time.”
I checked my phone for the time and saw it was already four in the afternoon. I had almost finished the second book to the series. I was reading for enjoyment right now, making minor grammar marks as I read through. I had already read and reread the first one, making all appropriate markings for the author to know what I was talking about. The boys had been working on the financial portion of the proposition and setting up the outline for the week of meetings with thisauthor.
I could hear them every now and again as I was reading, but for the most part they tried to keep as quiet as possible. A few times during reading, I could feel Max’s eyes on me, and Chase’s too. I wasn’t sure if they were impressed by me, or scared. Both could play in myfavor.
“Fine, but only for a minute.” I moved away from the manuscripts to the other side of the table, where it was clear. Max took out a container of orange chicken and set it in front of me. He had clearly asked Greg what I liked to eat. I opened the container and dugin.
“Slow down there. I promise it isn’t going anywhere.” I stopped and looked down to see that half of the chicken was already gone by the time Max and Chase were starting toeat.
“Sorry. I just haven’t eaten anything since dinner last night,” I answered with a mouth full of chicken. I knew it wasn’t ladylike, but hell, I was no lady. The disapproving look that came over Max’s face shook me. I could see it in the way he moved that he wanted to say something but couldn’t with Chase in the room. Max was definitely an alpha type, just like the ones I read and wrote about in mybooks.
“While we’re taking a break, I think I’ll go see how the floor is doing.” Chase excused himself, and then it was only Max and me. I couldn’t look him in the eye, so I finished my food. I knew the sooner I finished I could get back to my book, but that also meant that I wouldn’t have to speak to Max. He foiled that plan when I finished, patiently waiting to help me clean up my trash. He stood there next to me, without a care in the world that he was acting like astalker.
I stood, but he stopped me, taking the trash from my hands and throwing it out. I stayed planted where I was, not knowing what he was planning on doing next. He didn’t leave me for long, and when he was standing in front of my again, he made sure to grab on tight, one arm wrapping around my waist and my hands going to his chest to steadymyself.
