Chapter 14
The bestseller list goes public that afternoon, and my phone blows up.
Social media notifications curtain the screen as I answer calls from friends and associates.
Laura is over the moon, and Meredith exclaims that this is the best way to celebrate her last week at Woodsworth.
I wish we could celebrate together in person, but that will have to wait till I’m back in the city and can shower her with the adulation she so thoroughly deserves.
Nadia is a blur when she video-calls me while dancing around her agency with her assistant, Quinn, and an hour later, a bottle of champagne and a glaringly yellow flower arrangement is delivered to my hotel room with many xoxos on the notecard.
Maral pops the cork and sloshes uneven pours into four plastic tumblers from the coffee bar, which we all cheers heartily together.
The sense of satisfaction hits deep. After all that hard work, all those sleepless nights poring over draft after draft, So Proud of You has achieved a designation that, for better or worse, validates its existence within the publishing sphere.
Whether or not the book meets Mom’s standards of success, whether or not literary snobs believe in its value, it has reached people—the people for whom it was written.
The whole point of this venture was to help a huge community of individuals feel a sense of validation and empowerment, to make them feel less alone in a world that often denies them.
If this book can make them feel some modicum of acceptance, of pride, for who they are and what they do, then the more copies that get into people’s hands, the better.
We polish off the champagne, and Shanthi declares that we should keep the party going, brooking no arguments from Maral, Ryan, or me.
We get as far as the hotel bar, where she orders a round of shots and another bottle of bubbly.
Our cheerful, too-loud-for-the-space banter keeps getting waylaid by my phone’s chirps and rings, and eventually Maral slides it out of my hands, effectively taking over its management.
I’m flying so high that I practically launch it at her before demanding, politely, that the bartender play strictly Beyoncé power jams for the rest of the night and yanking everyone to a space I claim as a dance floor.
Including some hapless patrons who, if you ask me, are only too happy to get caught up in our celebrations.
We are midway through botching the lyrics to “Run the World (Girls)”—not knowing the verses doesn’t stop us from shrieking them at full volume—when I notice Mar pulling off to the side to check my phone. Her eyes go wide, a smile blooming across her face.
My pulse leaps. Is it Nadia? Did Waters hear the news? Maybe he’s decided we don’t need to even have a meeting—he’s green-lighting the show!
I squint—oh wait. That’s her phone. Nadia would likely send any news to both of us…but doubt niggles at me. Mar’s smile is big. Bigger than it’s ever been when we’ve discussed the show.
Come to think of it, she’s been on her phone a lot lately, more than usual. And that morning we left Chicago, she was being cagey about me seeing her screen.
She never keeps things from me. What’s going on?
Could Maral have…a secret boyfriend?
The room spins a little. I steady myself with a hand against a nearby pillar.
Is it possible? She tells me about all her dating escapades, but could she be seeing someone seriously and keeping me in the dark?
Obviously yay for her if she’s with someone who makes her smile like that.
Literally nothing in this world—not even ten TV shows—would mean more to me than Maral being happy.
But why wouldn’t she tell me?
I force myself to inhale and exhale slowly three times.
My heart rate obeys the command to calm down, and I dance my way over to her, leaning slightly behind her so I can sneak a peek at her screen—but it’s black now.
She tucks it into her pocket and turns to me, the smile still plastered across her face.
She’s so radiant that tears prick my eyes.
“Boyid mernem,” I say, earnestness dripping from my buzzed voice.
Her brow furrows in question, but then she responds in kind, “Yes ko boyid mernem.” She pulls me into a tight hug. “I knew it. I knew this book was going to take the world by storm. There’s nothing you can’t do.”
A tear breaches the dam of my eyelashes, tumbling down my cheek. I whisk it away. “You know—” I exhale. “You’re the most important person in the world to me. You know that, right?”
When I pull back, her expression is wary. Caught?
“I know,” she hedges.
“And you can tell me anything.”
She shifts from one foot to the other. Her eyes won’t meet mine when she says, “Then you should know…your singing is way off-key.”
“That’s not news.” I’ve never been able to carry a tune.
“Okay. Ryan hasn’t stopped ogling you the entire night.”
It takes every ounce of effort that exists within my body not to turn to see if she’s right. She’s a sneaky devil, turning the tables on me. “Speaking of…guys.” Smooth segue, Ana. “Anybody on your radar these days?” I ask, feigning innocence as I peruse the dance floor.
She shakes her head wistfully. “We can’t all have dreamy publicists drooling after us.”
I huff a laugh. “I don’t know if that’s how I’d characterize it.”
“That’s exactly how I’d characterize it.”
Not meaning to—totally unwittingly, I swear—I catch a glimpse of Ryan. Not drooling, exactly, but there’s something definitely akin to salivation in his expression. His irises are dark, his mouth set in a firm line. A mouth whose skills I’ve become pleasantly familiar with…
Want spreads through me like a gnarled root.
“Damn. I don’t even want to know what he’s imagining doing to you tonight,” she says. “You better hydrate.”
If I could last, I’d fuck you as hard as I want to, make you scream from it.
I order a water and down half the glass.
When I turn back, Mar’s off dancing again, yelling along about working hard till she owns it.
I wonder briefly if her pushing me so hard toward Ryan is intended as a distraction from whatever it is she’s trying to hide.
But her joy is so infectious that I decide to let it go for now and join in, linking our fingers and twirling her into a dip.
We sing and dance and drink and eat into the evening, and I daresay this little hotel bar on an unassuming street is the hoppingest place in town.
I stick to water for the remainder of the evening and my buzz wears off considerably with food in my belly. Which is a good thing, because I do not want Ryan turning down my advances for a reason as stupid as integrity. I want the least gentlemanly version of Ryan that exists tonight.
When the bar starts to quiet down, Shanthi packs it in, and Maral jumps up from the table alongside her—Queen Wingwoman in action.
She hands me back my phone, telling me with a wink that she’s silenced my notifications.
We agree to meet in the lobby tomorrow, which I read as her covert way of saying she won’t come to my room for our usual morning routine, since I’ll likely be occupied.
As soon as the elevator doors close behind them, I slide my hand under the table and onto Ryan’s knee. “Damn,” I say. “There goes my fantasy.”
“Fantasy,” he says, intrigued. “Do tell.”
“I envisioned us carrying out some kind of clandestine operation to evade discovery. You know, you slipping me your key card under the table, telling me when to meet you in your room.”
He’s watching my lips. “If you want to role-play, I’m down.”
“You say that now. Wait till the ball gag and zapper come out.”
He smiles tenderly. “I can’t wait to learn all about your kinks. Tell me over dinner?”
My stomach drops. Not at the implication that he’ll do anything I want in bed, although I’m pretty sure he knows I won’t ask to electro-stimulate him. But because he’s…asking me out? Like…on a date?
A prickle crawls from my chest up my neck, bristling the hair at the base of my scalp.
Much as I want to deny Maral’s assertion that Ryan may have more-than-casual feelings, the evidence is mounting against me.
His tenderness during sex, that expression on his face at the studio this morning, asking me out-out rather than just back to his room.
I can’t deny something that’s staring me right in the eye.
I should be touched. The tingly sensation unfurling in my chest suggests I am touched. That this man, whose interest any woman would be lucky to have, wants more from me than just sex.
But I also know where more leads. More may start with benign warmth in your chest, but it morphs, overheats, becomes a malignant fire that burns all your carefully erected defenses to the ground. Leaves you grappling in the ashes.
It’s safer to keep things strictly about sex.
No, not just safer. Necessary. There are practicalities to consider, after all—how exactly is more even possible when he works for my publisher?
Has he forgotten that teeny tiny complication?
I certainly haven’t—it’s a get-out-of-jail-free card. A lifeline.
I square my shoulders. I can right this train, keep it on the correct track. The only track. I just have to stay focused, and keep him focused. Should be easy enough—he’s already drinking in my every move like I’m an oasis in the desert.
“The only thing I want in my mouth is you,” I say. My pinky brushes the evidence of his arousal. “And it seems like you want that too.”
“I’d have to be dead not to want that,” he breathes.
Good. Yes. “I believe you also promised to make me scream from it.” I affect a pout. “Are you the kind of person who reneges on promises, Ryan? Because I don’t think I can abide such a lack of honor.”
His voice drops dangerously low. “I’m a man of my word. And I’ll deliver, believe me.”
Hot. Damn. “Then what are we waiting for?”