Shit.This isn’t like all the other rejection letters. This is from the agent who requested Natalie’s manuscript. This rejection carries more weight, and at the worst time. Leaning forward, I capture the paper from the coffee table with two fingers and start to read.
Dear Ms. Shay,
Your writing style is lovely. You are very talented. I am rejecting Much Ado About You because it’s too sweet. Readers want to feel desire when reading romance, and while your book had a great romantic element, there wasn’t enough sexual tension, or realized sex, to keep readers of this genre turning the pages.
Thank you,
Christina Evans
To me,this does not sound like a problem. Readers want sex? Write sex. End of discussion.
But I know better than to say that.
“Hmm,” I say instead, setting the letter next to me on the couch.
Natalie narrows her eyes. “Don’t say it.”
“I didn’t say anything.” I lean back against a pillow and cross an ankle over the opposite knee.
“Your face is saying it for you.”
“I can’t control what my face does.”
“Actually, you can.”
Scrunching up my eyes, I bare my teeth and attempt to push my lips in opposite directions.
Natalie laughs. “Ew. Stop that right now. It looks awful.”
My lips burn as they return to normal, but I made Natalie laugh. Mission accomplished.
“Are you going to write more sex?”
“I don’t want to.” She bites her lower lip, looking away. Following her eyes to the TV screen, I see what she sees: a man on bent knee in the pouring rain, while a woman cries and holds her hands to her mouth. It makes me cringe. When I look back at Natalie, she’s got this yearning look in her eyes.
She points at the screen. “I write that. I take characters and I make them feel real.”
“Real people have sex.” This is needless to point out, but Natalie needs a good kick in the direction of reality. She’s so bogged down by the fairy tale that she misses reality.
Natalie looks back to me. “I’m aware of that. But the kind of sex they want me to write has a lot of words that feel unauthentic to me.”
My interest is officially piqued. “How do you know that?”
“Before I went back to work today, I looked through the romance category on Amazon. I bought a couple of books and skimmed them and”—Natalie points at the paper beside me—“the agent is right. My heat level is nothing like them.”
“What kind of words do they use?” I can’t help my smirk. This should be fun.
She grabs the remote from the arm of the couch and lifts it. I know what she’s going to do, and I pluck it from her hands before she can hit play.
“Just say it, Nat. You won’t burst into flames. Nobody is here but us.”
Burying her head in the crook of an elbow, she says, “Plunge. Drive. Writhe. Flick. And so many more.”
“You know, a car canplungeover a guard rail. A person canwrithein pain.”
She removes her arm and lifts her head. “Not in this context.”
I smile. I can’t help it. “You need to loosen up.”
