Phone in hand, she holds it out triumphantly. "Klein Madigan is your cousin."
I can't see what's on her screen, but it doesn't matter. My eyebrows lift. "So?"
Sally stares me down with wide eyes like she is trying to prove a point. I'm not sure what point that might be.
"I thought signing books as favors to friends harms the reputation of the agency?" She has agotchatone, but she's cherry-picked the words I spoke a minute ago.
"I said signing books you know won't do well harms the agency." Klein's writing speaks for itself, so there's no need for me to defend my representation of a relative. But Sally? Her insistence that this pile of horseshit book get published is suspicious. My attention switches to John, who has officially lost all my respect. "Have you read that manuscript?"
"Of course he's read the manuscript," Sally bulldozes. "He signed the author."
John shifts in his chair. Fidgets with his paper cup of coffee on the desk in front of him. "Yes." The way he says it makes it sound like an admittance. John knows the book is terrible, and he knows precisely what he has signed up for. "I was planning on working with the author. Developing her." He clears his throat. "Him, I mean."
"Great," Dee says. "Let's move on."
The other agents take a turn, but I tune them out. There's something more to Sally and her determination to publish this book, and as much as it piques my curiosity in the same way it would any normal observer, all I want is to be away from it. For the first time since I started at Whitaker Literary Agency, I picture life beyond it. What would it look like if I didn't work there anymore?
Someone on the screen drones on, but all I see is Cecily. Sly grins, quirked brows, and a heart that has so much love to give. She's witty, and daring, and stubborn. Intelligent, too, with a smart mouth, and so beautiful it makes me rethink anything I thought of as beautiful before her.
Right then and there it comes to me.
I know what I'm going to do.
CHAPTER 48
Dominic
I exitthe lodge to find the bright sun climbing up the eastern sky. My steps are certain, and quick, my mind filled with the look on Cecily's face when I tell her?—
"Dom."
I pull up short, whipping around to find Duke seated at an outdoor table. He does not have a phone, or coffee, or anything to suggest he just happened to be sitting there when I walked out.
He was waiting for me.
"Good morning," I say in a clipped voice. Whatever he has to say to me, I hope he makes it short. Cecily is probably warm in our bed, and I'm anxious to return to her. I want to tell her my idea, and then I want to have a private celebration for two.
Nowhere in my plans for this morning waschat with Cecily's big brother.
"I learned something interesting last night." He crosses an ankle over the opposite knee. His posture is relaxed, casual, but it's only designed to look that way. So far I've thought of Duke as a nice guy, but he was raised by Glenn Hampton. Nature mightbe strong, but nurture is tenacious. There is no way Duke has escaped his father unscathed.
"Yeah?" I ask, schooling my voice into polite interest. Duke pushes aside the only other chair at the small table, a silent offer for me to take it.
Stowing my sigh of irritation, I sink down. I hope he makes this quick. I have big plans to make his little sister's back bow off our bed.
"Let me spare you the trouble." I meet his gaze. "I understand that if I ever do anything to hurt your little sister, I'll have you to answer to."
Duke chuckles dryly. His hair, equally in need of a haircut as mine, swoops sideways. In another conversation, where the tone isn't mildly threatening, I might ask him what he uses to deep condition. The guy has the hair of an early 2000s Abercrombie & Fitch model.
Duke looks out at the sweeping expanse of Sky Island. There's movement in the distance, a guest on the lake in a canoe. "Presently, you have a lot more to answer for than my little sister's future heartbreak."
The sentence grips me, and not because it's the kind better found in a suspense novel. I don't know what Duke's talking about, but in the back of my mind, I am afraid I do.
"Please do me the favor of cutting the suspense portion of this talk. Tell me what it is you think I have to answer for."
"Last night, my sister let it slip that your Vegas wedding was something you did while under the influence of alcohol."
I try not to show how much this surprises me, but it's not without difficulty. Cecily made it very clear from the beginning she did not want the rest of her family knowing this truth. Why tell them now?
