“Thanks, Court. You’re the best.”
She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, yeah. Just remember that the next time you go all Bitchinator on me—and when bonuses roll around.”
I laughed at her. “Honey, please. When have you ever not gotten a bonus from me?”
“True. Just make sure that it keeps coming.”
She winked at me then, letting me know that if I got fired that day and she was suddenly stuck with a new boss, she wouldn’t hold it against me. Hell, she’d probably follow me into the unknown. Courtney was loyal like that.
Reaching for her phone, she quickly dialed a number. It rang for a while, and I waited quietly as someone eventually picked up.
“Hello, Mr. Resner, this is Courtney Hughes from S&W Publishing.” She paused, then I thought I saw her blush slightly. “Malcom, sorry.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. First-name basis? I mouthed, but she ignored me.
“I was actually calling because Mr. Parker had an appointment set up in my office here for today—an hour ago.”
She waited for his response, and I wished desperately that I could hear what he was saying on the other end. I felt like I had ants in my pants, that was how impatient I was, and the short conversation Courtney was having was eating me alive.
When Courtney winced, I instantly sat up straighter. “What?” I whispered. “What happened?”
She waved me off, frowning as she tried to concentrate on what this Malcom guy was saying to her. After a moment, she said, “I see. No, I don’t think that’ll be necessary. I’ll get ahold of you if there’s further information we need to discuss.” She paused, and then I swore I saw her blush again. “Yes, you, too.”
She hung up then and looked up at me. She offered me a sympathetic smile, which was definitely not a good thing. “I’m sorry, Marnie. But Malcom said he was in a meeting—with another publisher.”
“God damn him!”
I shot up off the desk angrier than I’d been in years. This was my one shot at partner, and that jackass Parker was screwing it all up! “Who the fuck with?”
“You’re not going to like it,” she told me briefly.
I threw up my arms dramatically at her. “I already don’t like it!”
She sighed. “Tarvish Press.”
And just like that, everything came to a crashing, tumbling, and burning halt. “Tarvish Press.”
There were a lot of publishing houses out there these days. In addition to the big seven, there were hundreds of subsidiaries, and God knew how many indie publishing houses that were trying to break into the market and make a name for themselves. But there was only one place that I hated more than anything else on this planet, and that was Tarvish Press. He could have gone to Shit-And-Swine Publishing for all I cared, but to lose this contract to Tarvish?
No. I couldn’t allow it. I’d rather eat glass.
“I want to know who he was meeting with. I want to know what they talked about. I want dirty laundry in the hamper, and I want it now.”
Courtney didn’t even argue with me about how much of a bitch I was being nor did she try to get me to calm down. Instead, she just nodded and turned to her computer. She started typing away to get what dirt she could find.
We’ll find something. Some kind of leverage. I’m not going down without a fight, not to some bastard, old-money company like Tarvish.
This meant war.
Chapter Eight
Marnie
Courtney was working on getting the lowdown on who exactly Parker had been meeting with at Tarvish Press while I tried to do a little work of my own. Besides my regular clients—whom I had to deal with in a moderate capacity today—I had one manuscript to finish proofing and a report to send up to Dorian. Thank God it wasn’t a report on the Parker project, because I didn’t want to flat out lie to Dorian, but I wasn’t about to tell him how poorly things were going. I at least wanted the chance to fuck things up grandly on my own.
But once I got the report done and the manuscript sent back to the author, I started in on my real work. Digging into the closet of Tarvish Press.
I started with a simple internet search. Who was Tarvish Press? What were their policies? How many people did they deal with regularly? All of it was basic, almost trivial information, but I wanted to be armed with ammunition against Tarvish when I tried to win Parker over to the dark side.
Once I had their foundation down, I started to dig further.
Who had they screwed? How many books had they published that were lemons? How many covers looked like the drawings of four-year-olds and fanboys? How many customers ragged on them?
I brought up articles about Tarvish, their wins and their failures. How many times they’d gone bankrupt—which, admittedly, wasn’t many—and how many times they’d had to push back paying their clients.
I even did basic searches on their intern programs, their hiring policies, and how much women made versus men. Because you never know. I highly doubted someone like Parker would be swayed by the plights of women, but I’d take any point to argue just then. I didn’t even care if Parker signed with me so long as I didn’t lose him to fucking Tarvish Press!
Okay, not true, I thought, closing out of a bogus article about the Tarvish owner requiring all female employees to get breast implants. Definitely something fashioned from the rumor mill. I definitely want Parker to sign with us, but if I have to lose him, I won’t lose him to the one publishing house out there that will get my ass fired.
Because Dorian would fire me over that. It wouldn’t matter how much he thought I was a great editor or how good I was with difficult customers. He would 110 percent fire me. He hated the owner of Tarvish that much.
Gathering up my notes, I headed out of my office to sit on the corner of Courtney’s desk again. “Did you know that the Tarvish owner—something Reid—was sleeping with a married model while vacationing in Paris with his dying mother? I mean, who does that?”
Courtney snorted. “Guys do that. And at the risk of defending one, you know that’s probably a bogus story, right?”
I shrugged. “Yeah, probably. It’s still pretty juicy, though.”
Shaking her head a little, she eyed my butt planted on her papers. “Why don’t you just get a damn chair so you can stop sitting on my desk?”
Without looking up from my papers, I deadpanned, “Because that would encourage people to stay and sit.”
“You’re such a sociable person.”
“That’s me, social butterfly.”
“Well, Ms. Social Butterfly, I have some information for you—and you’re definitely not going to like it.”
That got my attention. I looked up from the papers I was going over to stare at Courtney. “Tear it off like a Band-Aid.”
“You want me to take as much leg hair with it as humanly possible?” she quipped.
I shot her a glare. “Just give it to me, will you?”
Clearing her throat, she said, “We all know Tarvish Press is run by billionaire son Mr. Callum Reid.”
“Callum,” I muttered. “I couldn’t think of that damn name.”
Ignoring me, she continued. “There are all sorts of rumors about him—he likes to fool around with models, for instance—most about his personal life, but there’s a ton on his business practices, too. He’s a real shark.”
I nodded. None of this was news to me thanks to Dorian’s rants about him and my own research just now.
“All of that isn’t really our concern,” she continued. “Except for one tiny detail that is going to majorly screw us.”
“Which is?” I prompted.
She hesitated, then winced and just told me. “The guy who’s trying to sign Trent Parker from Tarvish Press? It’s the owner of Tarvish Press.”
I felt my jaw drop a little and the blood rush from my face. Seriously? How did this even happen? It wasn’t unheard of for owners of publishing houses to sign people. That was common practice, as much as editors like me signing them. In
fact, in indie houses, that was almost exclusively the case. Mostly that was due to a complete lack of staff, but that wasn’t the point.
What was the point? That it was just my fucking luck that I’d get railroaded by the one place that my boss would kill me over by the one guy who wouldn’t be bought off.
“Please tell me you’re joking.”
She shook her head. “And that’s not all.”
“But wait! There’s more!” I quoted, using my best game show host voice.
She ignored my sarcasm, mostly, I think, because she knew that whatever she was about to say to me was going to devastate my entire fucking life. And I didn’t want to think about it. But I nodded once to tell her to go ahead.
“The reason that Callum Reid is trying to sign Trent Parker is because they’ve known each other for years. They were best friends in high school.”
And just like that, the last hope I had of signing Trent Parker went down the drain. I was toast. I was shit on toast. I was bird shit on burnt toast. There was no salvaging this project… was there?
Putting my big-girl panties on, I turned to Marnie. “Get me his number. I mean, his number. I want to get as close to Callum Reid as humanly possible.”
“You want to call him?” Courtney asked with a raised brow. “Are you sure that’s wise?”
“Hell if I know, but I figure I’m screwed anyway. Might as well go for broke, right?”
She considered this for half a second, then shrugged. “You got it boss.”
I nodded my head in gratitude. This wasn’t over. It took Courtney only a few minutes to get Mr. Reid’s number. Although his personal number wasn’t listed publicly, there was an office number where he could be reached, and while I was sure I’d have to go through a secretary—probably some bimbo he hired for her fake tits rather than her skill—I was willing to use that as a starting place at the very least.
Snatching the number from Courtney, I quickly dialed him. It rang several times, then a strong, masculine voice came over the other end. “Tarvish Press, this is Callum Reid speaking.”
I was surprised to find that it was Mr. Reid himself answering, but also that I couldn’t help but think his voice was strangely familiar. I tried to think when I might have heard it—on a TV spot or a podcast, maybe—but couldn’t come up with anything.
I didn’t linger on it. “This is Marnie McKenna of S&W Publishing. I was wondering if you wouldn’t mind meeting me for a quick chat.”
There was a beat, then, “Ms. McKenna, unless you are thinking of abandoning your contract with the devil to come over and work for me, I’m afraid I’m going to have to pass on a meeting. I’m a busy man.”
My eyes narrowed as I pictured a sniveling little weasel of a man sitting in an oversized desk chair while he had his big-busted secretary prance around in a negligée.
Bastard.
“I really must insist—” I began, but he quickly interrupted me.
“I do apologize, Ms. McKenna. I hate to be rude”—I highly doubted that—“ but I’ve got some pressing matters to attend to. You have a nice day.”
And before I could get another word out, he’d hung up the phone.
I pulled the phone away from my face and stared at it long and hard. “That bastard hung up on me.”
Courtney, who had been watching me the whole time, raised both her eyebrows at me. “Wow, what a dick.”
“I know! What an asshole.”
I was so pissed off right then that I had half a mind to march down to Tarvish Press and give him a piece of my mind in person—then I realized that I probably wouldn’t make it into the damn elevator, much less to his office, so I quickly reconsidered.
And that was when I got a better idea.
Turning to Courtney again, I smiled silkily at her. “Court, my dear, I need another favor.”
She sighed. “Man, I’m earning my keep today.”
I nodded. “Yep. I want you to find out one more thing about Callum Reid.”
“What’s that? And please don’t say preferred bust size, because I do not want to deal with the kind of crazy articles we’ll get as a result.”
I waved off her comment. “Nope. I want to know where he likes to have a drink after work. I think I’m going to pay him a visit.”
Chapter Nine
Callum
I loosened my tie and ruffled my hair a little, trying to unwind after the day. It had been a doozy, thanks to my asshole friend Trent.
That bastard’s really going to make me work for it, I thought grudgingly.
It wasn’t like that was a surprise, but you would think that he’d understand my position on S&W. They were the bane of my existence—didn’t that warrant a little discretion on his part, then? But no. The asshole was still going to meet with them while I was trying to woo him like some medieval matching ritual.
The whole thing irked me.
Let it go,I tried to tell myself. He’s doing this deliberately to piss you off.
That was probably the truth about the whole thing. Trent didn’t like to just hand things to people on silver platters, because he’d never had such opportunities himself. It had been a fluke that the two of us had ever crossed paths, and we were so different that it was a bigger fluke that we were friends.
And I was at least partially willing to admit that that made him a hell of a good guy. Not that I was ever going to tell him that, especially while he was jerking me around like this.
I took the limo that night so that I could go to the bar and get wasted at my discretion. It wasn’t something I did often, but I figured I’d earned it today.
Trent was playing hardball.
Alexander, my driver, dropped me off outside the White Wave Lounge, a classier joint than its name indicated. It was a little place tucked into a boring brick building façade with a door slapped on the front that looked about as inviting as a sword-wielding Cambodian lady—in other words, not at all.
But once you got past that rickety old door and went down the steps, it was a whole different world down there. Soft lighting, plush burgundy couches, hand-carved wooden tables, and a bar. And a liquor selection that would make even the most expert of drinkers gasp in awe.
It was a ritzy place without catering to the ignorant, the uninitiated, or the unadventurous. It was my kind of place.
I thanked Alexander and reminded him to be on standby for whenever I called. “It’ll probably be a late night,” I told him.
He nodded. “Yes, sir. I’ll be here.”
I headed down the concrete stairs and met the bouncer at the entrance. I showed him my ID for formality’s sake only. He recognized me and even greeted me by name. “There’s space at the bar, Mr. Reid, but a table is tucked in the back left corner if you’d like it. Just ask the bartender.”
“Thanks, Kellen.”
“Of course, Mr. Reid.”
I headed inside and saw that, while there were plenty of customers there, things were calm. The tables along the walls were mostly occupied, several chairs even pulled up to accommodate additional guests, but Kellen was right. There were several available seats at the bar. The bar went nearly the entire length of the back wall, with a mirror reflecting the tables and chairs in front of it so that it looked like the entire place was twice its actual size. Bottles were lined right in front of the mirror, making the whole place look almost surreal.
I was going to head to that back table, the one tucked away in the corner that I liked so much, but then I spotted her at the bar.
She was dressed in a sleek white dress that was equal parts elegant and immodest. It covered her rear and those long, long legs, but her back was exposed in a deep v that was low enough that I knew she wasn’t wearing panties—or a bra. Her back was to me, so all I could see was the way her hair spilled over her shoulder on one side, with long auburn locks that were deliberately curled for that evening. But I noticed the freckles that dotted her back and the curve of her hips.
A slow smile spread ac
ross my face. Shoving my hands into my pockets, I approached the woman. When I slid into a stool beside her, I leaned across the bar and said, “What are the odds that we’d meet again?”
When she turned to look at me and I caught sight of her heart-shaped face, I knew I was right. I did recognize her. She was the same woman from the convention—the one who never called me.
She smiled sweetly at me, her lips painted with a matte red that made her look like she stepped out of a 1950s pinup ad. Fucking sexy.
“I’d say they were pretty good,” she told me in a low, sultry tone that did wonderful things to my cock.
“Oh? I figured when I didn’t hear from you that you’d decided you weren’t interested in working for Tarvish Press.”
She laughed, a sweet sound that was a mix of wind chimes and something thicker. “Oh, honey, I’m not.”
My eyebrows rose high on my head. “I feel like I’m dancing with a partner who knows different steps.”
“It happens when you don’t know what dance you’re supposed to be doing,” she told me simply.
“Maybe we should start over,” I said, feeling confused. She was sexy as hell, but she wasn’t making much sense. “I’m Callum—”
“Reid. Owner of Tarvish Press,” she finished for me with a raised brow and a sneaky little smile. “I know who you are.”
I frowned a little. Although I wasn’t unknown to the world, it was rare that I had people just call me out, saying they knew who I was. That was Trent’s territory, and I was happy to leave him to it. But on occasion I ended up in the media, usually for some ridiculous scandal that wasn’t my fault. Or only half my fault, anyway.
“I see,” I said cautiously. “Then I guess the question is, who are you?”
She turned to fully face me, showing that the front of her dress did an excellent job of covering everything and hiding nothing. The collar of the dress was at her neck, but there was a deep dip of a v that cut between her breasts. The material there was flesh colored and mesh, giving me a really nice glimpse of the inner sides of her tits, which I happened to think were marvelous. Her dress had sleeves down to her wrists, with some kind of embroidered design at the edges that I couldn’t bother myself with. I was too focused on the way that damn dress clung to her body.
Desire Me Page 18
