I shrugged. “And it will be like that again. Sure, we might have to deal with photographers and fans when we’re in a big city. But we’ve made it work before, and we’ll make it work again. And we’ll always have Detroit to go back to when we want to get away from all the noise.”
“I don’t deserve you, you know?”
I nodded solemnly. “I do know.”
He leaned across the inches between us to cup my face in his hands and kiss me.
“You feel better now?” I asked.
He gave me a wicked little grin. “After kissing you? Yes, loads.”
“Glad to hear that. Because we’re almost there.”
He looked out the window, clearly surprised. “We are?”
“Yes. Apparently being angsty makes time go by much faster.”
“Damn it, Lizzie.” He gave me an apologetic look. “I spent all that time whining, and we didn’t even talk about your meeting. I’m sorry.”
“It’s fine,” I assured him. “It was better for me to get my mind off of it than obsess over it the entire time.”
“Are you very nervous?”
I shook my head. “Not really, believe it or not. She seemed really friendly on the phone. What’s the worst that could happen?” As I spoke, I tried very hard not to think about the last time I had met with a publishing professional. But then I realized that the worst had actually already happened. If this agent wanted to change my book to be a Cinderella-meets-movie-star story, too, at least I would be prepared.
“That’s a good attitude,” he told me. “The most important thing in an agent relationship is honesty. You need someone in your corner who will tell it like it is, not the way you want it. If you get the sense she’s kissing your ass or making promises that would be hard to keep, I’d think long and hard about whether you want to put your work in her hands.”
I nodded, grateful for his experience in these kinds of things. “Got it.”
The car pulled up in front of the gleaming glass building that housed the production office. “You’ll call me when it’s over?” he asked.
“You’ll be in your meeting,” I reminded him.
“Doesn’t matter. I’ll leave my phone on.” He grinned. “Mr. Fancy pants movie producer can deal with it.”
I laughed. “Okay.”
He kissed me again, longer this time. “Keep the security with you today, okay? Promise me.”
I nodded. “Promise.”
“Good luck, love.”
And then he was climbing out of the car, leaving me alone to try not to worry about a meeting that had the potential to make my entire career.
***
I met Ciara Banks at a small café near Thomas’s flat. I was pleased she had suggested I pick the place. Thomas and I, along with his friends, spent most of our London Sunday mornings eating brunch and reading the papers at this very spot. I reflected on how much it helped that I felt comfortable here as I waited for the agent to arrive.
“Miss Medina?” a voice asked from behind me, and I turned to see a short, roundish woman dressed in a muted beige suit. “I’m Ciara.”
“Hello.” I held out my hand, pleased to see my fingers didn’t tremble. “Please call me Lizzie.”
“Lizzie it is,” she said, her voice cheerful and heavy with a New York accent. She slipped into the chair across from me, pushing her honey-highlighted bob out of her face. “How was your flight over?”
“It was fine. A little tough to take the rain when we landed.”
She grinned openly. “I hear that. We were having a lovely spring in New York. And by the time I get home, it will probably have transformed overnight into a terribly oppressive muggy heat.”
I laughed, feeling comfortable with her immediately. There was no pretense in her words or expression, nothing that indicated judgment or superiority. While she looked pretty and put together, she wasn’t so fancily dressed or over-the-top gorgeous that she intimidated me. I had been envisioning a scarily thin, tall, fashion model-esque monster decked out in couture. Ciara looked like the kind of girl I would enjoy getting a drink with. Or, better yet, enjoy a nice cup of tea while we chatted about books.
And that’s pretty much exactly what we did. We each ordered sandwiches and iced teas before moving onto a discussion about favorite books and authors. She was obviously very well read. If nothing else, I thought to myself at one point, I’ll at least leave this meeting with a whole list of new authors to check out.
“That’s kind of where I see your book fitting,” she said, after finishing a lengthy analysis of Harriet Evans and Jojo Moyes, two authors I was rather fond of.
“Really?” I asked, pleased and slightly embarrassed—I considered that kind of comparison the highest of praise.
“Absolutely,” she said seriously. She paused, grinning. “I really liked it, by the way. I think I forgot to say that. I get so excited talking about books, I forget I’m supposed to be wooing you.”
I laughed, remembering what Thomas had said about agents and ass kissing. I didn’t think I had to worry about that with Ciara. “Thank you,” I told her. “I’m very glad you liked it.”
“As happy as I would be chatting about books for the rest of the afternoon, I suppose we should address some particulars. Now, I heard through the grapevine that you were offered publication with Bill Johnson and you turned him down. I have to say, I was surprised to hear you didn’t have representation, getting an offer like that.”
I felt the heat come to my face, but I clenched my fists in my lap, determined not to let her know how touchy of a subject she had brought up. If this woman was going to represent me, she needed to know about my experience.
“I sent my manuscript to Ellen Jacobs, Mr. Johnson’s junior editor,” I explained. “I had a friend that put me in touch with her. Initially, she was just going to do a critique for me to help me out in my querying.” I swallowed hard. “She gave the manuscript to Bill, and they approached me about working together.”
Ciara was watching me shrewdly from across the table. “But it didn’t work out?”
I sighed, feeling myself deflate slightly. “They were only interested because I’m dating a celebrity. They wanted to change the entire book to make it mirror my real life—you know, the whole normal girl is swept off her feet by the dashing movie star thing.” The old mortification of that meeting was washing over me. I had been so excited, telling everyone who would listen that I had a publishing house interested in my book. To realize that it all had nothing to do with me had been such a blow.
“I’m sorry,” Ciara said frankly. “I can imagine that would be pretty disappointing.”
I shrugged, not in the mood to elaborate exactly how disappointing it was. “I wasn’t willing to change the book to capitalize on my relationship. I’m not interested in using Thomas to get ahead.”
She was quiet for a moment, occasionally nodding thoughtfully. “Look, can I be blunt?” she finally asked.
“Please.” I wasn’t exactly sure I wanted to hear what she had to say if she needed to preface it that way, but I already trusted her enough to know that she wasn’t going to say anything I couldn’t handle.
“Your relationship with Thomas can certainly open doors for you that otherwise might be closed. For instance, as terrible as that experience with Bill Johnson must have been, I never would have heard about your book otherwise. But I did hear about it, and I’m glad I did, because I really think we can make something out of it.”
“Do you?”
She nodded, her eyes serious. “Look, I would never ask you to cash in on a personal relationship. I wouldn’t shop your book to anyone that wanted to take advantage of you like that. But we do live in the real world. And the simple fact of the matter is that your relationship means you have a name. Your picture has been in the paper; you’ve been to parties with the most powerful people in entertainment.” Her eyes flicked down to my bare ring finger. “In fact, I was just reading about you this morning.”
>
I blushed but neither confirmed nor denied her implied assumption on our engagement.
“Just the fact that you have some name recognition is going to make you a more viable commodity than if you were just an average girl from Michigan no one had ever heard of. I can’t change that for you—I can’t make your name recognition disappear. And I wouldn’t want to if I could.” She leaned across the table. “This is a tough business, Lizzie. Very tough. If you decide to accept my representation, there’s no guarantee I’ll be able to sell your book. Though,” she winked, “of course I’m going to try my best.”
I nodded, somehow comforted by her straight-talking strategy. I liked the fact that she wasn’t trying to over sell it, wasn’t assuring me we’d sell the book, and wasn’t promising me that my relationship with Thomas would have nothing to do with any of it. She was being honest and frank, and I liked that about her. Unlike my meeting with Ellen and Bill, I didn’t feel like she was trying to put one over on me.
“That sounds good,” I told her, relief rushing through me. I could work with her, I thought. I really could.
Ciara grinned at me. “I’m glad to hear it. Now. Let’s talk about what we’ll do with your book.”
I left the restaurant more than an hour later, my head swimming with the details of our conversation. Ciara had walked me through her process, how we would work together to clean up the manuscript to both of our satisfaction before she started the task of shopping it to publishers. She outlined her contacts in the business, assuring me that she was sufficiently placed to put my book in front of plenty of eyes. Then we discussed the kind of publishing house that I would want to work with—what level of attention and promotion I was comfortable with.
The best part of the conversation was the way that she explained things to me. She was incredibly straight-forward and detailed, clearly not assuming that I was in any way knowledgeable about the industry but also not talking down to me or making me feel stupid. In short, I felt very comfortable with her. I trusted her. Just like Thomas had reminded me would best suit me. When we left the restaurant, she told me she would send me a contract for her to represent me and I should take some time to make sure I was comfortable with it before agreeing. I promised her I would, but I knew, without a doubt, I was going to sign it.
The car I had arrived in was waiting for me at the curb, the shorter of the two bodyguards leaning against the hood, waiting for me. I stifled a groan, wanting nothing more than to walk the few blocks to Thomas’s flat. There was no paparazzi waiting outside for me, and the brisk air felt good on my over-excited, over-heated face. Besides, I was way too anxious and keyed up to sit still. But I had promised Thomas…when the man gestured me toward the car, I went without argument.
As soon as I was buckled in, I pulled out my phone, and speed-dialed Thomas. He answered on the second ring. “Lizzie?”
“It was awesome, Thomas!” I cried, not even bothering with a hello. “I loved her!”
“That’s wonderful!” I could hear voices in the background, and I flinched, realizing that I had pulled him from his meeting.
“Can you talk?” I asked, crossing my fingers that he could spare a few minutes.
“Of course!” He must have left the room because the background noise faded away. “I told them I was expecting an important call that couldn’t be missed. Tell me all about it!”
“She was great. Totally straight-forward, not at all patronizing. I felt really comfortable talking to her.”
“That’s fantastic! That’s the most important thing.”
“She’s going to send me a contract to review, but I’m ready to sign her right now.”
“Now, Lizzie, you need to be smart,” he said sternly, and I struggled not to giggle. He sounded exactly like his father when he put on his serious, business adviser voice. “We’re going to look it over carefully together, ask Heidi for her opinion, and get my lawyer to read through it. I absolutely insist.”
“Okay, Dad.”
“I’m serious, Lizzie. This is your career. We can never be too careful—”
“I know, Thomas. I agree. We should show it to all of those people. I’m just saying from my perspective, she’s perfect. Exactly the kind of agent I want to work with.”
His tone changed again, happy for me now. “That’s wonderful. I’m so excited for you, love! We’ll celebrate with dinner tonight, okay? Just the two of us.”
“Will you be able to get away?” I asked, not wanting to get my hopes up too much.
“Absolutely. We’ll go to Idoni’s, yeah? We haven’t been back since we left for L.A.”
My heart soared at his suggestion. Callie and I had lived in the flat over the Idoni’s Italian restaurant during our study abroad. We had become close with the owners, and it didn’t hurt that they made exceptionally good food. “Definitely,” I told him, unable to wipe the grin off my face.
“I should go,” he sounded regretful. “We’ll talk much more about this tonight, okay? I want all the particulars.”
“Okay. Thanks, Thomas.”
“For what?”
For taking my call during a meeting with some of the most powerful men in the entertainment industry, I thought. For encouraging me to take the meeting. For giving me the motivation I needed to finish the book in the first place. For believing I was worth this.
“For everything,” I told him instead. “Thank you for everything.”
Chapter Ten
Our two weeks in Detroit before Thomas had to be back for shooting seemed to fly by. I came home with a newfound determination to take charge of my wedding planning. Thomas came with me to speak to my parents about my desire to make more of the decisions myself. My mom seemed mortified that I didn’t feel involved. “Didn’t the girls text you pictures of the flowers?” she asked in dismay.
I looked to Thomas, and he nodded at me encouragingly. “They did, Mom. But the options they gave me aren’t what I would have chosen in the first place.”
“Why didn’t you say?”
“Come on, Mom. You know it’s hard enough to rein Maria in when you’re standing right next to her. How could I do it from across the ocean?”
“Oh dear,” she said worriedly.
“I have two weeks before I have to be back in London,” Thomas said easily, patting her shoulder. “Why don’t the three of us go do some shopping?”
So we did just that, visiting florists and bakers and wedding band leaders. It was much easier for me to make decisions now that I had the experience of shopping with Imogen. And now that Maria was no longer breathing down my neck. In the end, we decided to stick with the caterer they had chosen—they were relatively cheap for my dad’s budget, and they were one of the few places that our hall allowed—but we went a completely different way with the flowers, invitations, and cake. The cake we found wasn’t quite as beautiful as the one from London, but it was much more my style than the generic pink-flowered cake the girls had picked out.
“You were right, Lizzie,” Thomas told me the Saturday before he was due to leave.
“Right about what?”
He flopped onto the couch in the den. “Wedding planning is much more complicated than I gave it credit for.”
I sat down next to him, moving to massage his shoulders. “Poor Thomas. Are you wiped out from all the scary shopping?”
“Ha ha,” he muttered. Faster than I could believe him capable, he grabbed my hands and pulled me onto his lap. “Why do you tease me when I’m working so hard to make you happy?”
“Thomas, please. You spent the day driving my mother and me around to bakeries and eating samples of all the delicious cakes. How difficult of a day did you really have?”
“But I wanted to be making out with you,” he said petulantly as he deftly unbuttoned my cardigan. “And I couldn’t because your mom was there. That made the day very difficult.”
I laughed, but he silenced me with a kiss before gently pushing me down onto my back against the couch cush
ions.
“We should make dinner,” I said weakly.
“Hush,” he murmured against my skin. “I’m busy making out with you.”
I laughed again, the sound cutting off abruptly when he moved his lips to my collarbone. “I guess making out isn’t the worst way to spend an evening.”
Before he could succeed in more than pulling my cardigan off my shoulders, the doorbell rang. “Of course,” Thomas groaned against my neck.
“I should get that,” I said, smoothing his curly hair with my fingers.
“We could ignore it,” he suggested hopefully. Before I could respond, the doorbell rang again, followed by the loud trill of my cellphone.
I frowned. “Someone really wants to get ahold of us.” I gently pushed Thomas away, smiling regretfully as he groaned in protest. “Sorry, babe. I’ll be right back.”
I grabbed the phone from the coffee table as I pulled my cardigan back into place. “It’s Sofie,” I said, relief rushing through me as I checked the screen. I had barely heard from her since I’d been home and had been starting to get worried. “Sof?” I asked the moment the call connected.
“I’m at your front door.” Her voice was very strained, as if she was doing everything she could to keep from crying. “I’ve been knocking, didn’t you hear me?”
“She’s here,” I mouthed to Thomas, immediately turning to jog toward the door. “Hang on, Sof,” I told her. “I’ll be right there.”
I found her standing on my porch, her face very pale and blotchy. There was a duffle bag at her feet.
“Oh my God,” I gasped, slapping a hand over my mouth. “They kicked you out?”
She shook her head, but more tears sprung to her eyes. “No, I left.” She let out a little sob. “Can I come in?”
“Of course!” I opened the door wider, grabbing her bag from the ground and pulling on her elbow. “God, Sof, you look awful. Come sit down. What do you need?”
I led her out of the foyer while she continued to make gaspy little sobs. I saw Thomas stick his head out of the den from down the hall, his eyes immediately going wide at the sight of Sofie and her bag. I just shook my head at him as I steered her into the living room, pushing her down onto the couch. “What happened?”
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