“Oh.”You can do this, Sarah!“Um … May I come in?”
Raising an eyebrow, Mr. Cavendish leaned against his door, arms crossed over his chest. The pose caused his slim but muscular biceps to flex. “Wishing to follow in the boss’s footsteps, my love, and bag yourself a member?” He referred to Aria Howard, the estate manager, who’d recently gotten engaged to the Scottish actor North Hunter.
The sneer in Cavendish’s words sparked my ire. That’s what people seemed to think of me. Some pitiful creature that scuttled around Ardnoch, crushing on the male celebrities. A good percentage of those members were entitled arseholes who weren’t worth a damn. Theodore Cavendish was the last person I’d ever crush on. I had a crush on his brain. That was it. “That’s not why I’m here.”
He pushed off the doorjamb. “Then why are you?”
Do it!I licked my lips again, looked him straight in the eye, and stated, “We have business to discuss, Mr. Cavendish.”
I’d shocked him. And intrigued him. That gave me courage. “Well?” I gestured to his room.
A reluctant smile tugged at the corner of his mouth and he waved me inside. “This I have to hear.”
Forcing my feet one step in front of the other, I smoothed a hand down my housekeeping tunic. Tonight was the last night I’d ever wear this uniform. Clutching my handbag strap, I forced my grip to loosen. My nails had probably left crescents in my skin.
Licking my lips nervously again, I stared out the large window of the bedroom suite, watching the rain lash the pane, wondering if I could have this entire conversation with my back to Cavendish.
He cleared his throat, indicating that wasn’t going to happen.
Turning, I squared my shoulders and decided to go for it without overthinking. “I’m about to tell you something that very few people are aware of, and I must ask for your discretion, no matter the outcome of our conversation.”
He shot me another amused look as he crossed the room to sit on the end of the bed. Leaning back on his hands, I ignored the visual feast he’d created with the unconsciously inviting pose. “Good God, little mouse, have you killed someone and need a partner to bury the body?”
I frowned at the horrendous pet name that brought back terrible memories. “Please don’t call me little mouse.”
Cavendish huffed. “Yet no denial of murder. Should I be worried? Is there really a corpse somewhere decaying as we speak?”
“Well, considering I only committed the murder an hour ago, I very much doubt it’s decaying just yet.”
For a moment, Cavendish blinked at me warily. Then he let out another huff of air. “You almost had me there, little mouse.”
Scowling at his continued use of the pet name that spiked the ire in my blood, I decided to push through the indignation and get to the point. “I want to write a screenplay with you.”
Something like disappointment tightened his features. “Of course you do.” He moved to get off the bed, his body language turning dismissive in an instant. The man was more temperamental than the Highland weather, unpredictable and quickly changeable.
“No.” I stepped forward to explain. “I mean, I want to write a screenplay with you for the adaptation of my book series.” Tilting my chin back in defiance of any coming ridicule, I continued, “I write under a pen name. No one knows but my cousin. My grandfather knew too …” I drifted off, still unable to talk about losing him. “I write a thriller series about a detective inspector called Juno McLeod.” Opening my handbag, I pulled out the paperback copy of book one,Hollow Grave,and held it out to him.
Cavendish attempted to mask his shock when he realized I was serious, but I saw a flicker of astonishment in his eyes as he took the book from me.
The first time I held a copy in my hand, I’d burst into tears. I couldn’t believe I’d finished a novel. My e-books were self-published. I’d done a lot of research on how to do it, on how to run ads, and as I wrote more books in the series, my incomestarted to increase in very healthy increments. Enough so, if the industry wasn’t so unpredictable, I’d have considered quitting my job. Then, something miraculous happened, and word of mouth on social media platforms led to the series going viral in the US and UK a year ago. I hit number one and even now the first five books were still in the top 100 charts in several countries.
I’d made more money than I knew what to do with. Moreover, I’d gained a literary agent, sold foreign rights in twenty countries, the print rights to a publisher in the US and UK, and I’d been approached by two different and well-respected producers interested in film and television rights.
Which brought me here. With Cavendish. The mind behind one of my favorite TV shows of all time,King’s Valley.
I knew in my gut that Cavendish was the right person to bring Juno to life. She was a complicated human, driven by her trauma and darkness. Her relationship with the main antagonist in the story was twisty and dark, with an underlying sexual tension that would require a nuanced and delicate hand to pull off on-screen. Cavendish knew how to make those kinds of relationships work on film. I’d seen everything he’d ever done, and while he’d directed movies and guest-directed episodes of TV shows here and there, he’d only been the creator of TV shows brought to life from his own screenplays and ideas.
Until now.
I hoped.
In a blushing ramble, I spewed all this to him as he read the blurb on the back of the book.
Heavy, mortifying silence fell between us as Cavendish turned the book over to its front cover. “S. M. Brodie. Interesting pen name.”
“It’s my initials and my grandmother’s maiden name.”
He didn’t react. Instead, he ran his fingers over the embossed tagline along the top of the cover and read, “‘The Multimillion-Copy Bestseller.’”
