The Art of Love

by Kayla C. Oliver

  “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.
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br />   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.”

  Now we’re getting somewhere.

  “How about you retain one year of free publishing e-book rights, then they revert back to us for the next five years? You can still have your cover—we’ll even offer an additional e-book cover to use for your independent publishing with only a minimal copyright agreement—and I agree to no drastic edits unless there is a significant plot hole, or something nefarious that goes against our publishing code. However, you agree to allow for basic changes, sentence edits—for the sake of clarity—and trust that I know grammar better than you do.”

  He lifted an eyebrow at that last one, but I saw him grin slightly. “Do you?”

  I nodded once. “I assure you, I do.”

  He shrugged. “All right, I’ll take your word for that last one. I want exclusive movie and TV series rights,” he continued, jumping back into the negotiation.

  I thought it over. Although that was a big one with the potential to make a lot of money, most authors weren’t interested in giving up those particular rights. It was where they stood to make the most money. Although S&W would love to get their hands on the movie rights for one of Parker’s books—the money to be made on that was a guaranteed gold mine—I hadn’t expected to even have them on the table. The e-book rights were the biggest thing. The market was shifting more toward the digital medium than the paperback, and it was cheaper to produce for us as well.

  But I wasn’t going to just give Parker anything. I wanted him to work for it so he appreciated it more—and so he’d be more pliable when I threw another option at him.

  “How about we retain the rights for making a movie for the first two years and—”

  “No deal,” he said instantly, shaking his head. “I keep the movie rights or I walk right now.”

  I sighed internally but didn’t show my annoyance at being cut off. “All right. But only if you agree to not sell the rights to a producer for the first two years. After that, we’ll look at sales again and work with you to determine the best time for a movie production.”

  He considered that. “One year.”

  I shrugged. “I’ll see what I can do; talk it over with my boss.”

  He nodded, agreeing to the discussion and nothing more. I was about to bring the discussion back around to the e-book rights, but before I got the chance, his phone went off. He held up a single finger at me, indicating for me to wait, and then pulled out his phone. He checked the screen, then sighed.

  “Sorry, I’m going to have to cut our meeting short,” he apologized. “This is important.”

  I frowned just a little, the only indication that I wasn’t entirely happy with how things were going, but I recovered quickly. Standing, I reached across the table to shake his hand again. He grasped my hand firmly.

  “Thank you for meeting with me, Mr. Parker. Please, stop by my secretary’s desk so that you can schedule another meeting at your convenience.”

  He smiled at me and nodded. “Will do. Thank you for your time, Ms. McKenna.”

  As he turned and left, I stood there thinking, I really fucked this up, didn’t I?

  Trent

  I knew before I got the call from Callum that I wasn’t going to sign with S&W Publishing. Although the Marnie woman seemed like she had her shit together, I understood that S&W was the last place I wanted to be. Even if they met my every demand and paid me one hell of an advance, I wasn’t going to give in. It was a principle thing more than anything else.

  So when Marnie told me to stop by her secretary’s desk and make an appointment for later, I was thinking about how I was absolutely not going to do that.

  Then I walked past her desk and saw her sitting there.

  Courtney Hughes.

  I’d pictured a modelesque woman with fake tits and perfectly done makeup. What I got was a classy woman who probably didn’t come up to my damn elbows with deliberately 1940s curled hair and bright red, matte lipstick.

  She wasn’t what I’d imagined, but she was twice as fucking sexy.

  Beneath that pretty, perfectly modest dress she wore, I could see she had the curves of a goddess, and she had that soft tan that suggested she spent just a few minutes every day getting some sun.

  Fucking sexy.

  I smiled broadly as I approached her, propping my hip up on the edge of her desk. “Hey, there.”

  She didn’t look up from her computer. “Can I help you, sir?”

  “Please, call me Trent.” Or Malcom, I thought but definitely did not say.

  That got her attention. She raised an eyebrow at me, slowly turning so that she was facing me with a blank, unimpressed expression. “Can I help you, sir?” she repeated deliberately.

  I swallowed. Ooh, feisty. I like it. “I’m Trent Parker.”

  “I know who you are, sir. I directed you to Ms. McKenna’s office, remember?”

  I laughed lightly. “Yeah, good point. I just thought I could introduce myself officially.”

  “Of course, sir. Good to meet you.”

  She went back to typing on her computer.

  I hadn’t been intending to set up another meeting. Seriously. I was just going to flirt a little bit, get her number, then pop out the door without another fucking to-do with the damn publisher. But now she wasn’t flirting back, like she was fucking immune to my charms, and I was wondering what the hell I’d done to offend her so.

  “I…” I trailed off, no idea what to say to get this woman to open up to me. Damn, usually they just fall open—usually at the legs. “I was told to stop by and make a second appointment with you. Can you do that for me?”

  She pursed those ruby-red lips together but sighed after a moment. “Of course, sir. What’s a good time for you?”

  I smiled. “For you? Anytime is a good time.”

  She raised an eyebrow at me, unimpressed. “I have a slot available next week in the morning. Ten o’clock.”

  “Does that include coffee with you?”

  “No,” she said flatly.

  I almost laughed at how completely uninterested she was in me. I briefly considered telling her that I was the Malcom she spoke with over the phone and that she owed me a damn favor, but I quickly dismissed it. I wanted to save that little favor for later when it might do me more good.

  I just need a little more time with her, get her to warm up to me, I thought.

  “All right. Next week. Ten o’clock.”

  “That’s Thursday. Don’t be late,” she told me, then typed something into her computer. Next she grabbed a card from the drawer in her desk—I saw pink sticky notes, gel pens, and something that looked like a pineapple bobblehead.

  She quickly used one of her gel pens to scribble a quick note on the card, and then she handed
it to me. I accepted it from her and used the opportunity to grab hold of her hand. Before she had the chance to jerk it free of my grip, I pressed my lips to her soft knuckles, kissing her hand softly.

  She froze, caught off guard by that. “Uh…”

  I grinned, releasing her hand. “It’s been my pleasure, Ms. Hughes.”

  I walked away then, taking pleasure in the fact that I’d thrown her off like that. I decided that was how I would win her over. All I had to do was keep her on her toes.

  This is going to be fun.

  Chapter Six

  Callum

  I’d pulled out all the stops and used the limo to ambush Trent outside of S&W Publishing, their main Seattle office towering into the sky like some iron-and-glass monstrosity. They were new, they were modern, and they were greedy.

  It pissed me the fuck off.

  Impatiently, I waited in the back of the limo, tapping my shoes on the floor of the car, and peeked out the tinted windows every five goddamned seconds as I waited for that asshole.

  I checked my wristwatch for the second time in two minutes and glanced at my phone again to see if he’d called or sent another message. Of course he hadn’t. The last one still said he was leaving a meeting and would meet me downstairs in a minute.

  “Goddamnit, you asshole,” I muttered angrily to myself.

  Finally, when I glanced up again, I saw him strolling out of S&W like he didn’t have a care in the world.

  Well, I’m about to give him a fucking care, I thought angrily.

  I popped open the door and called to him, “Get in already.” Then I scooted over across the seat to make room. After a moment, Trent slid in next to me. He was dressed in one of his nicer suits, complete with the purple tie he used to impress, and the whole thing pissed me off even more.

  “Aren’t you all dolled up,” I grouched.

  He grinned at me. “You like it? I’ll start wearing it more often for you, sweetheart.”

  I narrowed my eyes at him, then cut through the bullshit. “What the fuck are you doing at S&W Publishing?”