Desire Me

by Kayla C. Oliver

  So I was still keeping my options open, and I acknowledged that there was a good chance I’d end up signing with Tarvish. I didn’t like mixing business with pleasure, but I was confident that Callum could keep things separate.

  While I was working, my phone went off. It was the basic ring tone, telling me I didn’t know the caller.

  I considered letting it go to voice mail, but I was annoyed by the suggested edits for the manuscript. I had Sara look it over and give me feedback before I submitted it to a publishing house—whenever I’d decided on one—and generally, she was spot-on. Officially, she was a friend who I paid generously to help me out. Unofficially, she was my secretary, my editor, and on occasion, my therapist and romantic-date counselor. We were purely platonic, one of the few beautiful women in my life who I’d not been interested in sleeping with, and that made her special.

  But not special enough that she didn’t get a day off, which was why I was fielding my own calls and griping about the notes she’d made on my manuscript.

  “I like the damn mage,” I grumbled, tossing the manuscript aside and going for my phone. I glanced at the screen. It was a number here in Seattle, but beyond that, I didn’t recognize it.

  After a moment, I answered. “Hello?”

  “Hello, I’m trying to get ahold of Mr. Trent Parker’s agent,” came a serious but sexy woman’s voice over the phone. Her timbre was deeper than most women’s and lacked a lot of that high-pitched charm that a lot of women tried to use to get their way. Instantly, I appreciated the dark chocolate tone that came through the receiver.

  “Agent?” I asked, a little surprised. I hadn’t had an agent since my first novel, and I’d been burned bad enough that I wasn’t interested in changing that. Sara handled a lot of that for me, too, but… But she’s not here right now. A grin slid across my features before I could help myself. “This is him,” I told the woman. I paused, scrambling to come up with a name to use. “Uh, Malcom. Malcom…” I searched the books on my shelves to come up with a plausible last name. When I landed on Resner, I blurted it out before I could reconsider. “Resner.”

  There was a pause, and I wondered if I’d just screwed myself with my sloppy naming practice right there. You’d think I’d be better at this, given my profession.

  But then she said, “Mr. Resner, this is Courtney Hughes. I’m calling on behalf of S&W Publishing. I assume you’ve heard of us?”

  “Malcom,” I told her, ignoring her question.

  “I’m sorry?”

  A grin spread across my face. “Please, call me Malcom.”

  There was another pause then. “As I was saying, Mr. Resner, I work for—”

  “Nuh-uh,” I said, deliberately being a pain in the butt. “I only talk business with people who are willing to use my first name.” Or middle name as the case may be.

  I waited a beat, then the woman sighed. “Fine. Malcom. I work for S&W Publishing, and I’m calling from the office of Marnie McKenna. She’s one of the best editors in the business, and she’d be very interested in meeting with Mr. Parker to discuss his latest novel.”

  All my playing with the poor woman aside, there was honest business to be discussed here and I had to acknowledge that. “I see. And why should Mr. Parker consider S&W?”

  In all honesty, I was 98 percent positive that I couldn’t sign with S&W. I could go just about anywhere and not get a lot of flak for it, but S&W was Tarvish’s main competitor. If I signed with them, Callum would fucking lose his shit. I couldn’t do that to a friend.

  But I was all about equal opportunity. I wouldn’t completely write someone off without at least giving them a chance.

  Plus, this Courtney person had a fucking sexy voice.

  “We’re a highly rated publishing house,” she informed me, that low voice firm and serious. “We have services that range from cover design to marketing to—”

  “Which any publishing house worth their salt will have,” I interrupted her rudely.

  “In that case, maybe Mr. Parker should go indie,” she snapped. “Hire a bunch of no-names and give them a chance—they all offer the same services. See if he can’t make them some gold at the cost of his latest novel’s success, what do you think?”

  Before I got the chance to answer, she pushed forward.

  “Or he can go with the best. High-quality design and printing. An impressive, unprecedented e-book deal, not to mention editing from one of the best in the business today and a firm that has made a point of doing all it can for the sake of their clients. We don’t make money until you do. That’s the policy here, and if you think Mr. Parker can do a halfpence better anywhere else, then I invite you to risk it. Just keep in mind that he wasn’t happy enough with the last ‘any publisher worth their salt will have those services’ publishing house to renew a contract with them.”

  I was grinning like an idiot with my eyebrows high on my forehead when she was finally done. I was impressed, I could admit it. She was a ballbusting, broke-no-shit kinda woman, and I found that insanely sexy.

  All of a sudden, I wanted to know what she looked like. What she was wearing. How she liked to touch herself in the middle of the night when no one was around.

  And yes, I was a horny bastard and I didn’t care. Getting told off by a woman was fucking sexy.

  When I got myself under control again, I cleared my throat and said, “You bring up some interesting points.”

  “Will you consider a meeting with my boss?” she asked instantly.

  “Well, that depends,” I said, pretending to be thoughtful.

  She waited a beat, then, “On what?”

  “Can I call you Courtney?”

  She hesitated. I could picture her in my mind—well, my fantasy version of her which was big-busted with wide hips and pouty lips—rolling her eyes, annoyed with me already. But she said, “I suppose.”

  I was grinning again. “All right, then. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll make sure that I—” I broke off, forgetting that I was Parker’s agent, not Parker. “I mean, that Mr. Parker will meet with your boss—what was her name again?”

  “Marnie McKenna.”

  “Right. Ms. McKenna. He’ll meet with her—under one condition.”

  “Which is?” she asked impatiently.

  My smile was downright wicked and I knew it. “Which is that you will owe me a favor.”

  She hesitated. “A favor? What favor?”

  I shrugged, which of course she couldn’t see. “A favor to be decided at my discretion at a later date. Do we have a deal?”

  There was a long, extended pause. It was long enough that I checked my phone to make sure that the call hadn’t been dropped, but she was still there on the other end. I wondered if she was sitting at her desk, cursing her unfortunate stars, or if she was imagining some of the naughty favors I might ask her.

  I hoped the latter.

  Finally, she spoke again. “Fine. Deal. Have your client stop by our office tomorrow afternoon. Tell him not to be late.”

  She hung up before I could say anything else.

  Tomorrow at the office, eh? Guess I’ll see if that secretary is half as sexy as her voice is.

  My hopes were up. I wanted to know what Courtney looked like on the other end of the phone.

  Chapter Five

  Marnie

  I adjusted the papers on my desk again, the third time in ten goddamned minutes.

  Proving that Courtney was a damn goddess, she’d gotten me a meeting with Trent Parker that afternoon. It was in thirty minutes, and we’d been getting ready for him since Courtney confirmed the timing with him. She’d been doing research on the man—she probably knew what type of drink he liked to order at the bar by now—and I’d been getting a contract ready. I was doubtful that I’d be lucky enough to get him to sign this first one. He was an experienced author. He’d been signed with three other publishing houses now, the first two little indies that had given him a leg up into the publishing world, and the last one a big name
that had propelled him into stardom.

  And apparently fucked it all up by treating him poorly, I thought.

  Still, I wanted to have an offer ready for him right then and there. That way we had somewhere to go. Something to talk about. It wasn’t hypothetical, or “we’ll see what we can do.” Instead, it was all about fine-tuning the details.

  There was a knock at my door and I looked up to see Courtney standing there. She was dressed in one of those cute little vintage dresses with the wide belt. She didn’t have the petticoats today, but her hair was curled perfectly in victory rolls.

  “You look like you have cat ears,” I told her bluntly.

  She shrugged. “As long as it doesn’t look like a cat is sleeping there, I’m good.”

  “Fair enough. What have you got for me?”

  She was only holding her phone, but I knew better than to think that meant she didn’t have anything. She was a whiz with electronics, vintage styles, and making people do what she wanted them to do. “I’ve got as much dirt on Parker as I could find—the intern at Wyndham said he made her cry twice and that the only reason she stayed was because he was switching publishers.”

  Wyndham was Parker’s last publisher, and they’d done him wrong in one way or another, leading him to decline signing for another term.

  “You think she was bullshitting us?”

  Courtney thought it over. “Probably. She seemed a little on the dramatic side, but I will say that every piece of information I’ve gotten on Parker suggests that he’s a real player. He uses and loses ’em, if you know what I mean. So there’s every possibility that he simply did something along those lines with the intern, and now she’s upset because he didn’t turn over a new leaf for her.” She snorted inelegantly. “Women. Always got their noses so deep in those damn romance novels that they forget how men are in real life.”

  I raised an eyebrow at her. “And how’s that?”

  “Dogs,” she replied instantly.

  Once upon a time, Courtney had been heavily into the bad boys. She liked ’em riding motorcycles, wearing leather, or getting into fights. If they didn’t have a bad streak, she wasn’t interested. Unfortunately for her, she’d gotten badly burned by one of them and now she had little faith in men. Especially the ones with poor reputations.

  “Sorry that all us women disappoint you,” I told her dryly. “What else did you get on Parker?”

  She swiped a manicured finger across her phone. “More of the same. He’s a player, notorious flirt, but pure genius. He has the soul of a poet—that’s a direct quote, so don’t give me that hairy eyeball, okay?”

  I held up my hands defensively. “Okay, easy there, Tiger.”

  She continued to swipe to the next screen. “He came from humble beginnings—inner-city kid with a mother who died young from an accidental shooting and a father who went to prison for murdering mommy number two.”

  “Jesus,” I muttered. “Hell of an upbringing.”

  “Yeah, poor kid.” Courtney sounded genuinely sympathetic. As much as she could be a hardass, she had a heart of gold—if you could dig deep enough to find it. “After his father was put away, he ended up living with a grandparent—not sure which side—who insisted he go to school, stay out of trouble, and all that jazz. Parker has been quoted as saying his grandmother ‘saved his sorry excuse for a life.’ He’s paid off her house and, as far as I can tell, makes sure she doesn’t pay for a damn thing.”

  I raised an eyebrow at that. “For someone who’s been denounced as a horrendous flirt on basically every website that’s said a damn thing about him, he seems like a pretty decent guy.”

  Courtney shrugged. “Yeah, the same way famous celebrities are ‘decent people’ just because they give to charities. We all know it’s for the sake of publicity and tax cuts.”

  “Anyone ever tell you you’re kind of cynical?”

  “Says the editor at a publishing house who thinks all editors are assholes,” she countered mildly.

  I grinned. “Must be why we’re still friends.”

  “It’s the only explanation,” she agreed. Glancing at her wristwatch, she looked away from her phone and back up at me. “Seriously, though. Be careful around him. He may be a dick since you’re a woman. Guys like that think they’re entitled to sleep with any woman just because she has tits and other such lady parts.”

  “Lady parts?” I laughed.

  She waved me off. “You know what I mean. Just watch yourself.”

  “Don’t worry. I can hold my own with the boys, you know that.”

  Courtney gave a single nod. “Yeah, I know. Just giving you the heads-up. Give me a call if you want me to throw his ass out, though.”

  I smiled at her, actually touched by her concern. There weren’t a lot of people important to me in my life now, but Courtney had managed to stick with me for a long time. It was good to have someone on your side.

  Courtney looked back at her phone as she left, and I waited for Parker to show up for our meeting.

  I didn’t have to wait long.

  Right on time, Trent Parker walked into my office at exactly one o’clock, looking like someone who had just stepped off a GQ magazine. He was dressed nicely in a fitted suit, the color a shimmery, dark charcoal that should have been too flashy but worked well on him. He had paired it with a dark purple tie and a pair of shiny loafers. There was a single earring stud in his right ear, and his lashes were long enough that he could have been wearing makeup but probably wasn’t.

  “Mr. Parker, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” I greeted with a smile, coming around from my desk to shake hands with him.

  He accepted my proffered hand and grinned at me, his teeth white and straight, contrasting nicely with his darker complexion. “Marnie McKenna, I presume?”

  I nodded. “Yes, sir. Please, have a seat?” I gestured to the large comfy chair in front of my desk.

  “Thanks.”

  He sat down and I went back around to the other side of my desk. I shuffled the papers nervously once out of habit, then set them down and folded my hands neatly over the top of them.

  “Thank you for coming,” I told him sincerely. I didn’t want him to know how desperate I was for this meeting to go well, but I wanted him to know that this meeting was important on some level. That was how it went with clients. You had to find that happy medium where you told them they were special little snowflakes but didn’t tell them that they were the only special little snowflake.

  “Thank you for having me.” He paused a beat, then threw a thumb over his shoulder, pointing toward the door. “Was that Courtney Hughes at the desk there?”

  I blinked. He’s asking about my secretary? “Uh, yes, it is. She’s been with us a long time, and if you’re thinking of stealing her for yourself, I’m afraid I’ll have to fight you for her.”

  He laughed, loud and hearty. “Well, I’ll keep that in mind. She seems very capable.”

  I gave a single nod. “She is. And I’m serious about not letting her go.”

  He held up his hands defensively, smiling. “I’ll have to assume she’s not part of the negotiations, then.”

  “No, sir, not today.” I was a little surprised that he was talking about Courtney, but I didn’t push it. I wouldn’t let him derail me. “But I do have an offer ready for you, if you’d like to look it over.”

  I slid the stack of papers across the table toward him.

  “Eager, aren’t you?” he commented as he accepted the contract I’d spent the whole night working on.

  I smiled blandly at him. “We like to make sure that we have some options on the table when we meet with first-time clients.”

  “Potential client,” he corrected, skimming through the contract.

  I clenched my teeth beneath my smile, my jaw twitching. I needed to sign him, but I couldn’t let him see how badly. He was the kind of man who knew when he had the leverage, and I wasn’t going to be the idiot to tell him he could ask for just about anything and I’d
give it to him. “Of course,” I said simply.

  It took him a moment to look over the contract, but finally he put it down and looked across the desk at me. “This is a decent offer,” he told me.

  My smile turned a little more genuine. “Of course. You’re not a first-time author, and there’s a high probability that your novel will sell very well here.”

  “It will sell very well. No matter where I go.”

  I kept my smile in place, though it felt brittle, and tried not to let him faze me. “However, our resources can get your work out to a lot more readers than the average Joe—even if your book will sell regardless.”

  I leaned back in my chair, crossing my legs at the knees in an effort to appear cool and confident.

  He silently considered me for a moment, then said, “I want full e-book rights. And I want input on the cover. The last place walked all over that cover, and all of a sudden there’s a dude with a gun like that’s all that matters.” He rolled his eyes in irritation. “And I retain the right to say no to any and all edits I disagree with.”

  Is he out of his fucking mind? I can’t give him that!

  But my expression didn’t change. I remained cool and calm, unflappable. This was about negotiating. It was only a preliminary meeting, and I wasn’t going to let his demands ruffle my feathers—no matter how much I needed this contract.

  “S&W retains e-book publishing rights for five years, you can choose whatever cover you want, and we can negotiate on hard and soft edits,” I countered, keeping my voice firm but light. It was important not to go too hard with people, especially men, because they got offended when a woman was a shark. But if you were too soft, too sweet with them, they thought you couldn’t play hardball. It was a delicate balance, but I’d mastered it over the years.

  Parker considered me from across the desk. He didn’t seem offended by my counteroffer, but he didn’t seem sold on it either. “One year e-book publishing rights, complete cover autonomy, and no drastic edits to the main premise or plot.”