The woman’s eyes widened, but she turned to Merritt. “And you are?”
“Merritt Pryor,” she said with a smoothness she was proud of. “An associate of Mr.Longacre’s.”
“Fine,” the woman said, as if growing bored. She cradled a black phone against her ear and called an extension. As they listened to her repeat Édouard’s words to the faceless person on the other end of the line, Merritt tried to look serious and fully at ease but also a little impatient.
“He said they’re with...” The woman put her hand to the receiver. “Sorry, what was the firm?”
Édouard shot Merritt a performative can-you-believe-this look.
“Mulryan, Martineau, andPoore.”
“Mulryan, Martineau, and Poore. They represent Helen Albright Longacre and—”
“Her husband.”
“Her husband.”
Merritt nodded approvingly.
“Mm-hmm,” said the woman. “Yes, I think so... No... No... All right, thank you.”
She hung up the phone.
“If I could just see your IDs, please, we’ll get you upstairs.”
As the woman fiddled with their cards, Édouard shot Merritta conspiratorial wink, which she would have returned had she not been close to fainting from relief.
In her daydreams, and occasionally her real dreams, Merritt had pictured herself being escorted into the offices of an imprint at one of the country’s most prestigious publishing houses. It had looked about like this. There were books and bookish people everywhere, as well as trinkets and statuettes from canonical and not-so-canonical texts. But it had not felt like this. In her dreams, she was an author going to meet her editor or on her way to approve potential book covers or meet audiobook performers.
Instead, she was now on a covert mission. As merely Whit’s associate, for all anyone knew, she sat in a glass-walled conference room, waiting, occasionally catching people in the open offices beyond looking her way with curiosity. What did they think of her? What had they heard?
“Look more confident,” Édouard admonished, and Merritt sat up straighter, earning a nod of approval. She tried not to appear like she was doing mindfulness exercises, which were in fact what she had turned to for support. Deep breathing, feeling the ground holding her feet, sending a kind wish to the Shreya woman—humiliating stuff, and none of it working. Her heart beat like a bouncy ball in a contained space. Her upper lip was sweaty and the small of her back, too, and she kept crossing and uncrossing her legs. Not very Christine Baranski–like behavior.
When the door opened, she was surprised to see two people: a forty-something South Asian woman in a black dress and red spherical earrings and a dowdy, square-shaped white man with patches of curly gray hair on the sides of his head and glasses that could have been borrowed from a trunk labeled “Senior Citizen Props.”
“Mr. Marchand? Ms. Pryor?” the woman said, extending her hand. “I’m Shreya Ramanathan.”
Merritt stood to shake the editor’s hand, ignoring how intimidatingly perfect her silky chin-length hair was and how Merritt’s own had more of a panicked-and-also-it’s-wintertime vibe.
“And this is Alan Binford. He’s a member of our legal team.”
Alan, who was wiping his glasses with a microfiber cloth, held out his hand and missed the mark so spectacularly that Édouard had to take a large step to his left to shake it.
Merritt yearned to say, “Nice to meet you,” but she followed Édouard’s serious, disinterested lead and sat silently opposite them at the table.
“I apologize for being caught a bit off guard,” Shreya said, through a polite smile, “but I don’t think I knew you were coming in today.”
Merritt sighed. She had talked with Édouard and Evie the night before about what they would do if they made it this far. Édouard had given her oodles of examples of the language he could use to make his case and threaten this woman into capitulation. But now that she was here, Merritt realized that getting in was the complicated part. Now it was best to go down the path of least resistance.
She placed a hand on Édouard’s forearm to stop him from speaking first.
“Please don’t apologize,” she said. “I appreciate you meeting with us.”
Alan had pulled a notepad from an old leather briefcase and had not looked up since, but Shreya was staring, her expression unreadable.
“And may I askwhyyou wanted to meet me?”
“Well, I’m not just an associate of Whit’s. I’m his coauthor.”
