Page 39 of The Perfect Rom-Com

“That? That is your concern?” Amelia interjects with a laugh. “So his name is Nate,” she says, flapping a hand. “I have so many books. Authors forget their characters’ names all the time.”

“But he is also a serial killer.” Mona cuts to the point. “And you said he was inspired by your real-life childhood crush.”

Amelia pauses and looks up. Blinks several times. “Nate is a murderer? The dog-loving love interest?” She shoots me an accusing glare.

“He isn’t a love interest.” I feel the rising need to defend myself. “He’s the neighbor.”

“How can he not be a love interest?” Amelia says. “I have pages of emails from fans telling me they love Nate.”

“Sounds like there’s something wrong with your fans,” I reply, and Jack’s knee jabs mine beneath the table.

“I think what everyone’s trying to get at here,” Mona jumps in, “is that you are right.”

She lets that sink in for a moment, because we all know Amelia likes to hear that phrase.

“You do have a lot of books coming out each year, and because of that it’s just becoming easier and easier to make a misstep. We need to change something about our setup because, unfortunately, some of your answers to the questions about the book just didn’t line up with the content inside it. And if you weren’t able to go over the PowerPoint that was sent over—”

“I was traveling last week,” Amelia snaps defensively, as though this is a logical excuse to dismiss the fact that I created and sent the PowerPoint over four weeks ago and it was a sum total of ten slides. Ten. She’s not even asked to read my books anymore. They asked me at the last minute to whittle down my eighty-thousand-word novel into a mere ten slides that would take a total of ten minutes to go over, and she couldn’t even manage that.

“Traveling makes it tough,” Amelia says.

Susanna is nodding like a bobblehead in the face of this comment, despite the fact she herself has told me she sometimes reads over three hundred pages a day for work. Three hundred. A day.

Mona looks to Jack, and Jack takes the lead. “And what that tells us is that you are just far too busy and need some help. Your work is extremely demanding, Amelia.”

Flagrant lie.

“You are busy.”

Another flagrant lie.

“And frankly, we just can’t afford any more near misses. The world is watching you”—Amelia smiles at this little reminder—“and recording every second of it. And right now, the worst thing that can happen is if people start puzzling bits and pieces from every second of your life and drawing conclusions we’d rather them not draw. If we don’t take this more seriously, this whole thing could slam to a stop. It’s hard enough to get every question right at these interviews even when you are the writer of the book. And we’re starting to deal with obsessed-level fans, the kind who annotate every other line with color-coded pens and Post-its and form diagrams on their walls to discuss on fan accounts. These people are getting their PhD in Amelia Benedict books. And soon enough, we’ll have one misstep too many, and no offer of free signed bookplates can cover it up.”

He finishes, and a tingle goes down my spine.

This is the closest he’s ever come to giving any of his clients a true critique, which can mean only one thing: He means it. Whatever happened at that event last night was truly so close a call that he was willing to put his neck on the line for this.

Amelia, with a firm exhale of breath, flips her phone over and puts it on the table face down. There’s a finality to the movement. A symbolic seriousness to her motions. “Fine. What do I do?”

“You can cancel the tour—” Mona begins.

“Absolutely not,” Amelia snaps.

But of course she won’t.

We are all entirely convinced the motivation for Amelia isn’t so much the money (given her being a Benedict heiress, she’ll never lack for anything) as the fame. It’s the need to talk to people. To be seen by people doing important things at important places. Sitting in prominent seats at said important places with her lovely, bouncing, shining hair.

Amelia Benedict, in her very own shiny spotlight, just like her mother.

To take that away is to take away her reason for life.

“Or,” Mona says pointedly, “we have another, potentially better, plan in mind. And it’s Bryony we have a couple requests for.”

Oh no.

“Bryony.” She shifts her attention to me. “We’re going to try to reel in as much interview time as possible from now on. Take out the spontaneity factor. Of course there are always going to be those spontaneous questions that come in during the signing portion or Q&A, but at least for the first portion, we can try to control the situation.

“I’ll email the venues a list of ten preplanned questions we can all agree upon here, tonight, so we can all feel confident knowing we are reaching the public in a more contained atmosphere. Sometimes venues are particular about their events, sometimes the panels and the structure of the event just won’t allow it, but overall, we think this is a good plan. We have a second step to the plan we want to initiate to try to cover any problems that arise from those open Q&A sessions, but right now, can you help us by answering these specific questions?”