Chapter 6
“Bishop, Maxwell, and Shore Literary Agency, this is Margot, how can I help you?” I chirped in my cheery phone persona.
“Margot, just the woman I want to talk to,” came the familiar voice of Kari, Rob’s long-standing and best client.
“Hi, Kari. How are you?”
“I’m okay. Well, no, I’m not. Rob rejected one of my proposals this morning. Told me to rework it.”
“He did?” That was a surprise. What Kari touched was gold.
She wrote commercial, feel-good romance that sold exceptionally well.
Most of the time she didn’t even run ideas by Rob; she would just turn in another beautiful family-centered, tug-at-your-heartstrings book that needed very little work before being sent along to her editor.
“Yes. He did. I thought of an idea that has taken over all my creative energy and I want to write it.”
“Why doesn’t he want you to?” I was used to phone calls where I had to talk clients down or help them figure out what Rob really said or meant. And I fully expected to play Rob Translator in this instance as well.
But then she said, “The book is a thriller-slash-romance with a horror-style ending.”
My eyes went wide. “Oh. Well, um… your readers won’t be expecting that. They’re used to happily ever afters.”
“That’s what Rob said. He said I couldn’t screw with my brand.”
“He said screw ?”
“I speak Rob. That’s what he meant.”
“Right.” Of course she did. She’d known him longer than I had.
“You know the market,” she said. “You talk to editors. How do you think something like this would be received?”
“It might be a hard sell,” I said.
“But not impossible?”
“Definitely not impossible.” I needed to shut my mouth. She was not my client. I was overstepping here.
“Can you work on him?” she asked. “I don’t even know if Rob has read any of my last five books. But you have, right?”
“What?” Unless I was the junior agent on a project (and I definitely wasn’t for Kari Cross), clients usually didn’t realize I was the one giving the feedback on their books.
Rob would sometimes use the royal we when relaying notes, but mostly he just forwarded them as if they were his own.
I assumed he read through my comments and agreed with them.
I also assumed he read the books himself.
But maybe with clients like Kari, who consistently put out good books and had for years, he didn’t feel the need to.
After all, at the end of the day, her editor was the one whose opinion about content mattered most.
“You’re the one reading and making notes on my books?”
“Um…” What was the point in denying it? She obviously knew. “Yes. I love your books.”
“Your feedback is always spot-on. But I’m ready to try something new. I’m not saying I’m going to completely give up traditional romance. I love writing romance. But this idea has grabbed me by the tits and it won’t let them go.”
“Sounds… painful.”
“It is! So you’ll talk to him? Rob?”
“I’ll try. I’m sure you said everything that needed to be said. Not sure my opinion will matter.”
“I can be kind of brash, and sometimes alpha males like Rob dig their heels in and need, I don’t know, a softer ask. I hate that I have to play this game, but can you do that?”
“I can certainly try,” I said.
“Great! Because this book is getting written and I need him on board.” With those words, she hung up.
Speaking of a thriller/romance with a horror-type ending, how would me getting up and walking into his office right now, after his obvious invitation to join him, play out? Hopefully with both mine and Kari’s needs being met. The need that involved all my clothes firmly in place.
I walked down the hall and stopped in front of Rob’s closed office door. I took a deep breath and turned the handle with a knock.
He was in front of his desk, sitting on the edge, as if he thought his pull was too strong for me to resist. In the past, he would’ve been right. “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he said, even though his position in the room contradicted his statement.
I left the door wide open, a sign of my intent, and stepped inside. “I actually have a few things I want to discuss,” I said, crossing my arms and staying outside the area rug that anchored his desk. “I just got off the phone with Kari.”
“I miss you,” he said, like he hadn’t heard me. He pushed himself off his desk and took three slow steps forward.
Shit. My body liked that statement. I needed to flee.
Come back tomorrow after I’d given myself a million lectures about why this couldn’t happen again.
About how wrong this was. About my future.
About how it shouldn’t… couldn’t include him.
Even if a relationship with him were appropriate, he’d broken my heart several times over.
I didn’t need to hand it back to him for another attempt.
I stayed where I was. “I’m here every day.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes, I mean, no, Rob. I’m here to talk to you about Kari.”
He stepped past me and looked out the door and down the hall both ways before he shut it and turned to face me.
“Did you know that when you look at me, sometimes you bite the inside of your cheek, which causes these adorable little dimples to form on your chin?” He was in front of me now, and with those words, he brushed a light finger over my chin.
“Rob…” I started, staring at the wood floor by my feet.
“It drives me crazy.”
“No, I didn’t realize I did that.” I lifted my hand to brush his away, but he captured it in his, pulling me closer. I finally looked up at him.
“And your eyes. Those gorgeous dark brown eyes are so intense. Sometimes I think you see right through me.” His blue eyes were pleading and fiery at the same time and they made my insides twist uncomfortably.
“My future here… and Kari, she has a new…” I was losing my courage.
“I know,” he said. “A career-destroying idea.”
Wait, was that in reference to me or to Kari?
He smiled his thousand-watt smile. “Did she request that you soften me up?”
Kari. He was talking about Kari.
I nodded because that’s all I could do at the moment with him so close. The heat from his body was making me claustrophobic, like I couldn’t breathe.
He chuckled. “Little does she know the ways you plan to do that.”
“No,” I said, shaking my head, which seemed to give me a little clarity. “I’m not trying to… I just want to talk. Her idea isn’t bad. Authors genre-hop all the time. If she markets it right, it could be good.”
“It could be good,” he said in a silky voice, stepping closer. “ Really good.”
The backs of my thighs hit his desk. When had I traveled that far into his office?
“Yes,” I said. “It could be.”
My hands went to his chest, to push him away.
He must’ve thought it was an invitation because he was suddenly pressed against me, his hot breath on my neck, his hands at my waist. My palms went back on the desk, to stabilize myself, but that really just opened me up even more.
He stepped a foot between my legs, his thigh hiking up my skirt.
“Yes?” he said.
“Yes,” I muttered.
Then he covered my mouth with his.
My body melted against him as his hands moved up, brushing the sides of my breasts.
I hated that I missed this. Missed feeling wanted, desired. I missed being touched and kissed. I wanted to be someone to somebody.
His tongue slipped past my lips.
No. The word entered my mind forcefully.
I didn’t want just anybody. I wanted the right person. And that wasn’t Rob. Everything in me was trying to remind me of that—my twisty stomach, my sweating palms, my stiff back. Why had I let him get close again?
I pulled back as far as I could, considering the desk behind me. “I can’t do this.”
His forehead sank to my shoulder and his arms wrapped around my waist. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”
I somehow managed to untangle myself from him, sure that when I was free and standing on my own, I would be grounded in reality again. “I just… this didn’t… this is wrong…”
I rushed out of the office.