Chapter 11
Vodka splatter
Zoey
Ichecked my teeth for lipstick in the glass of the hotel’s revolving door as it shut out the sounds of Manhattan’s Friday night traffic on the street behind me.
I’d had a long day of throwing shit into boxes for the big depressing move tomorrow and wanted nothing more than to curl up in my bed for one last night. But I wasn’t about to miss this.
The Italics was an annual publishing industry gala that benefitted New York literacy programs. It was attended by publishers, agents, and authors who either hadn’t yet figured out how to say no or required an evening of ego stroking.
Each year, the Italics Icon award was presented to an “industry titan.”
The award had historically gone to wealthy old white guys who spent more time on their sailboats in the Hamptons than at the helms of their companies.
The wealthy, old, yacht-owning CEO from Hazel’s former publisher had won the last three years in a row.
He’d also once famously hurled the glass Icon award at an intern who had mixed up his lunch order with a vegan director’s in publicity.
Thankfully, he’d missed the intern and instead shattered the door to his office.
But the face of publishing was changing. This year, the recipient was the president of Hazel’s new publisher. Navya was a sharply intelligent first-generation American whose five-year-old company was disruptive enough to give the big guys a run for their money.
I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to stop by, drink a few glasses of overpriced champagne, and rub my former coworkers’ faces in their loss.
I would only stay long enough to congratulate Navya and touch base with a few contacts before heading home at a reasonable hour since the movers were coming at the butt crack of dawn.
I took the elevator to the third floor and admired my outfit in the mirrored doors.
I’d skipped the New York standard black and went with an eye-catching scarlet Tracy Reese dress.
The suede stilettos I’d paired with the dress had seemed like a good investment when I’d purchased them on a full-time salary.
Given my current financial predicament, they only taunted me.
Packing had led to a rather painful inventory of my life and assets. I was sitting on a gold mine in used luxury-brand wardrobe items. Unfortunately, I was fairly sure my new landlord wouldn’t accept payment in shoes and dresses.
The elevator doors slid open, and I followed the sounds of corporate networking into the ballroom.
It looked like every other generic industry event.
White linens, fancy canapés, two cash bars swathed in purple table skirts to match the ostentatious lighting.
I nodded at a few acquaintances and headed for the nearest bar.
“Champagne please,” I said when the bartender slid a cocktail napkin in front of me.
“That’ll be twenty-two dollars,” she said.
“Seriously? Are the grapes made out of diamonds?”
She flashed me an apologetic smile. “Bottom shelf markup. I can offer you a truly terrible fourteen-dollar tequila that will peel the paint off a wall.”
“I’ll stick with the ‘highway robbery’ champagne,” I decided and dug out my credit card.
“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” a familiar voice crooned behind me.
“Valentino!” I leaned in for a cheek kiss. “Why do you always put me to shame?”
My longtime friend did a runway-worthy spin so I could properly admire his cropped ivory trousers and fitted jacket. His purple suede loafers were bedazzled with chunky crystals.
“You like? I was going for a Cinderella–Prince Charming mash-up.”
“Nailed it.”
He handed me my champagne and tucked an arm through mine. “Let’s take a lap while you tell me everything. I’m hearing buzz that your Hazel is about to drop an absolute gold mine.”
“I started that buzz, but it’s still true. It’s her best book yet, and I’m not just saying that because she’s my best friend and only client, and my entire life is riding on it.”
I could be honest with Valentino. We went way back. We had started out as editorial assistants together in our early twenties. He was now the head of a successful sci-fi imprint for one of the Big Five publishing houses. And I was…barely keeping my head above water.
“Chin up, my little salmon croquette. We all have to trudge through the dark night of the soul once or twice. It makes the victory so much sweeter. What is this I hear about you living in some tiny village in New Jersey?”
We meandered past the canapé table. “Pennsylvania, and it’s temporary.”
“I never pictured you as a small-town gal.”
“Believe me, it’s been an adjustment. There’s a free-range pig that just wanders around. A bald eagle that throws snakes. And the entire town turns out to watch people play bingo. But there’s a gorgeous lake, and the population has an unusually high percentage of good-looking men.”
“I’m coming to visit. The dating pool here has dried up, and I’m subsisting on repeats.”
I laughed. “I think you might actually enjoy yourself.”
“I enjoy myself everywhere…except the dentist and the waxer. Hmm, maybe I could buy one of those sporty vests outdoorsy people seem to like? Now please tell me you haven’t heard the latest about Jim so I can be the one to fill you in.”
I dragged us to a stop near the empty stage.
Jim was not only my former horrible coworker at the literary agency Beau Monde, he was also Hazel’s ex-husband, who had swindled away the rights to the first three books of her Spring Gate series in their divorce settlement.
Thanks to me, Cam, Gage, and Hazel’s mother’s legal team, she had finally won back the rights.
“Is he going to jail? Did he contract some kind of incurable foot fungus?”
“He dropped his newest client after her debut fizzled.”
“That’s not surprising or salacious,” I pointed out.
“Dear me. Did I forget to mention that he’d been sleeping with her since he signed her to what looks to be a rather predatory contract?
She’s a twenty-three-year-old grad student who had the brains to report him to the powers that be.
They’re keeping it hush-hush for now, but I don’t think it’s going to go well for him. ”
“In my heart of hearts, I want to be a better person. I don’t want to be the kind of person who revels in schadenfreude, but sometimes karma is so satisfying,” I said.
“Some people deserve our joy at their misery. It’s a law of nature,” he said, holding his glass of overpriced alcohol aloft.
I clinked my glass to his. “I’ve missed you, Valentino.”
“Try not to be gone so long that I forget how much I like you. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I see a baby author who needs rescuing from having his soul crushed by Earl Wiggens.”
“Wiggens is here?” I asked, craning my neck.
“They tempted him out of his cave with the promise of red meat and a bogus lifetime achievement award.”
“I’d love to steal him away from BM.” I always took great joy in shortening the agency name, Beau Monde, to the abbreviation for bowel movement.
Valentino reacted as if I’d slapped Dolly Parton. “Why on earth would you ever want to do that? The man’s an amoeba.”
“An amoeba who makes Beau Monde a shitload of money.”
“You know I adore you, my little cheese Danish, but that man is a bag of shit disguised as a human. He farts in elevators. He asks pregnant women why they’re out in public. He still smokes in restaurants.”
“And BM depends on his farty, chauvinistic royalties.”
Valentino shook his head. “Darling, I’m afraid this sounds more self-destructive than vengeful.”
I snorted. “I can handle him, and maybe I can even break him of a few of his caveman ways. Go, save your protégé.”
He parted the crowd with the confidence of a celebrity, and I trailed along in his wake to do some Wiggens reconnaissance. I took up a position at a nearby cocktail table and surreptitiously studied my quarry.
He was short and doughy in the middle. His tinted glasses hid his eyes so one could never be sure where they lingered.
Though as he was on wife number five, an athletic, twenty-nine-year-old swimsuit model, I could guess what was usually in his line of vision.
He was in the middle of telling off a young man who was clutching a copy of Earl’s latest release and looking positively stricken.
“Bottom line, sport, I ain’t signing that book to your mother or anyone else. Real men don’t ask other men for autographs,” he barked.
“Mr. Wiggens, how interesting to see you again. If you don’t mind, I’m going to steal Raphael away and introduce him to some actual humans.”
Wiggens gave Valentino a curmudgeonly once-over. “What are you supposed to be?”
Ugh. The man was reptilian with a king-size ego.
I envisioned myself hitting him in the face with a catering tray.
So satisfying. God, maybe my plan really was garbage.
Did I really want to have to deal with a guy like that on a regular basis, or was this just another impulsive idea I’d gotten attached to?
Valentino threw his head back and laughed. “Ah, such a vintage sense of humor. I’m so happy to see you haven’t started listening to the surgeon general. Enjoy that incredibly smelly and off-putting cigar.”
“Well, if it isn’t Zoey ‘I Dropped the Ball’ Moody.”
My eyes narrowed to slits as I turned to greet another someone who deserved a catering tray to the face.
“How’s fired life?” Jim Whitehead, the ex-coworker and ex-husband, sneered at me in Hugo Boss.
He was a medium-height, medium-build nothingburger of a man with the ego of a nepo baby reality TV star.
Next to him, I recognized Colin, fellow agent at BM and Wiggens’s current representation.
I had no beef with Colin other than he had the poor taste of being friends with Jim.
“How’s ‘getting punched in the face’ life?” I asked Jim, referring to our last meeting when Cam had decked him in a conference room.
“I’m surprised to see you here,” he said, ignoring my insult.