“Not even the employees and departments at Harchester that need you? You are Harchester’s number-one author. Most of the company relies on the revenue your books bring in. You don’t do some kind of smoothing-over makeup distraction, and that revenue is going to keep going down and down and down.”
“Publishing companies always behave as though they’re surviving on scraps.”
“And the organizations your millions support. They do that, too, I guess.”
“I have only a very small number of those types of commitments.”
She snorted around a mouthful of heavenly hash browns. God, was there anything as good in this world as American hash browns? “No you don’t. You pour every penny you earn into a bunch of them.”
“Hey, I spend a lot of it on luxuries. Last year I bought winter tires.”
“You thinkwinter tiresare aluxury? InMaine?”
“Well, I don’t really go anywhere. So I don’t technicallyneedthem.”
“Technically nobody needs toilet paper, but I promise you it is not living the high life to wipe your ass withthat instead of fucking fistfuls of tree bark or whatever the fuck you like to use,” she said between bites. Because the thing was, the food wasn’t just filling her belly.
It was also a wonderful way to help her seem casual.
She was able to cram bacon into her mouth instead of looking directly into his forever furious eyes. Wrap toast around a sloppy egg, rather than think too hard about the next chess move, the next possible vulnerability. She didn’t even mind groaning when she took a swig of the tea. After all, it told him that she was enjoying herself. And in a way he’d always seemed to hate: lusciously, lovingly, like every bite and slurp were utter bliss.
It threw him.
He took a second to answer.
And when he did he sounded blustery and unsettled.
“One-ply. I use one-ply, all right,” he blurted out.
Much to her delight. “Oh mygod, one-ply is a thing?”
“Look, my toilet habits are beside the point.”
“Yeah, the point being that you dump so much on various charities that they would go under without you. Which is going to happen if you keep doing nothing about your terrible behavior and violently revolting fanbase. So you tell me: Can you live with that?”
Nowshe looked at him. Over the top of her mug as she brought it to her lips.
Mostly because she knew she had won this round. And he knew it, too.
“This is dirty pool, Emmett.”
“I do what I have to.”
“For what, though?”
“My professional reputation—if I fail at somethingthis high profile, it’s going to hurt my company. And I love my company. I want my company to do well. I want my future to be safe and secure,” she said as she took a sip.
Certain, as she did, that he was going to say something scathing.
A losing shot, a parting shot, she thought. She was even braced for it, when something seemed to flicker across his gaze. A strange dimness, it seemed like. The way light would usually show excitement in someone’s eyes, but theopposite.
And before she could think it meant anything, he sighed.
He looked at her like she was the most annoying thing in the world.
Then answered, as brusque and resentful as she had ever heard him be.
“Fine. I’ll do the tour,” he said. “Now eat your fucking breakfast.”
