‘We don’t have to do this now,’ I murmur. His wife died just over seven months ago. I’m not at all sure that he’s ready for this. I’m not sure that I am.
‘It’s fine,’ he says, leaning in and taking the mouse. I scoot my chair over to the left, watching as the arrow hovers over a blue folder on the dock at the bottom. The name comes up: ‘SECRET’. Charlie moves the mouse to the right and clicks on a folder called ‘CONFESSIONS’.
‘Is that the title of the sequel?’ I ask, alight with interest.
‘Confessions of Us,’ Charlie tells me. ‘Sara wasn’t sure about it.’
Sara was Nicole’s agent, too, of course.
‘I like it,’ I tell him, peering more closely at the contents of the folder:Characters… Confessions… Research… Synopsis… Timeline…
‘You’ll have to check out herSecretsfolder, as well. I’m not sure she moved everything across.’
‘Okay.’ I nod.
‘If you want the job, that is.’ He lets go of the mouse and straightens up.
‘Isn’t that up to you?’ I ask him carefully.
He stares down at me. ‘I’ve read a couple of your blog entries,’ he replies instead of giving me an answer. ‘Fay was right. Your tone of voice is very similar to Nicki’s.’ Charlie leans against one of the filing cabinets and folds his arms across his chest. ‘But are you sure you have the time to take this on?’
‘Absolutely,’ I state. ‘This will take precedence over all of my other work,’ I assure him. ‘I can blog in my spare time – I don’t have a deadline and there are no other pressures on me.’ I take a deep breath before announcing, ‘I think I’d do a good job.’
He eyes me thoughtfully as the seconds tick past, and then he finally nods in what I hope is agreement. ‘I’ll speak to Fay.’
