by Lila Monroe
“I know that!” Eliza argues. “But she’s still not done! So, at this point, what’s another couple of months?”
“We don’t have another couple of months!” I explode. “How am I the only one who can get that through his head? Sterling is going to fold by the end of summer if I don’t turn this around. We need a smash hit by yesterday or there won’t be a company to publish anything come fall.”
Now it’s Eliza’s turn for her mouth to gape in disbelief. “I…I didn’t realize,” she says, her eyes wide. “It’s really that bad?”
“It’s worse,” I admit, sinking down onto a lounge chair. “I’ve run the numbers a dozen different ways, and we’re sinking faster than I can bail the boat out. Getting this book published—and getting it published soon—is our only hope of keeping things on track.”
Eliza takes a deep breath. “Okay,” she says, and I can see her brain working overtime. “I get it. But try not to panic, okay? I meant it when I said Verity was a tricky customer, but we really are making progress. I’ve been putting together a solid plan for a rewrite. If I can stay out here and manage to keep her on task, we’ll get something down on the page in time.”
I raise my eyebrows, surprised. I have to admit that her words are unexpectedly reassuring. I’m not used to losing my cool in front of anyone, and it’s doubly unfamiliar to have someone here to talk me down.
Still: “Something good?” I can’t help but ask.
“Something great,” she insists, then holds a hand up. “And before you say anything else: I don’t want to hear about how this just goes to show that all romance is trash that caters to the basest instincts of sex-starved housewives, okay?”
I shake my head. “That’s not what I was going to say at all, actually.”
Eliza looks at me suspiciously. “It’s not?”
“No. I know you believe in what you do, and you’re obviously very good at it. So, if you say this book is going to be a masterpiece—that it will hold its own against any so-called literary novel—then I believe you.”
“Okay then.” Eliza nods, relaxing. “She has one more incredible novel in her. I know she does. I just haven’t figured out how to access it yet.” She takes a deep breath. “Look, Liam,” she continues. “While we’re on the subject… I don’t know if anyone has said this to you, or if you’ll even care, but I think it’s really admirable, what you’re trying to do here.”
I turn to look at her more closely, surprised. “Really?”
She nods. “This company means a lot to a lot of people. And it meant a lot to your dad. And I know he wasn’t always the kind of parent you wanted, or that you deserved. So for you to come in and try to save it, even when people like me are giving you a hard time about it…” she trails off. “Anyway, we’re in this together, okay? We’re a team. And whatever else has or hasn’t happened between us… I’ll help you save the company however I can.”
I smile at her. I can’t help it. Nobody has ever said anything like that to me before, and for a split second I allow myself to sink into another fantasy. This time, though, it isn’t about lying Eliza back in her lounge chair and sliding her bikini bottoms down her long, tan legs—although, make no mistake, I want to do that too. But right now, I’m imagining what it would be like to have an actual partner. Someone on my team. Because I’ve been playing solo for as long as I can remember, and although I told myself it’s better this way, I have to admit, it feels nice hearing that she’s got my back.
“Eliza,” I say, my voice coming out slightly strangled. Forget decorum, I think. Forget keeping a safe professional distance. “I just want to say—”
“Peaches!” calls a voice behind me. “I was wondering when your tight little ass was going to make an appearance out here.” I turn and there’s Verity strolling across the patio, one of her many assistants wheeling a fully stocked bar cart behind her. “How about cocktail hour?”
I gaze at her for a moment, and then back at Eliza. “In this together, right?” I mutter.
Eliza grins. “Just try and keep up.”
13
Eliza
Verity insists Liam stay at her place through the weekend. “It’ll be a party!” she proclaims, then smiles innocently. “A productivity party, peaches. All work, all the time.”
Eventually he agrees. “To supervise,” he insists, though I can’t help but notice the quick, hungry gaze he cuts in my direction. I swallow hard, and look away.
I can admit, Liam sticking around is a mixed blessing. On one hand, having him here makes it hard for me to focus on Verity. On the other, there are worse things than watching him run—tan and sweaty and gloriously shirtless—along the beach early every morning while I sip my iced coffee.
And it is early. I’ve been getting up at sunrise to try and squeeze as much work in as possible, even if Verity herself prefers to sleep in until noon. Today I’ve already put in six hours by the time I join her for her poolside breakfast. She’s dressed in a pastel caftan under a gauzy robe, sipping her morning Bellini. The linen-covered table is laid with a feast like something out of Game of Thrones, with piles of fresh fruit and pastries alongside a pile of bacon and a veggie-studded frittata.
“So, I’ve been thinking,” I tell her as she delicately nibbles a piece of toast. “What if we move the scene where Thad and Leona meet to a little earlier in the book? It feels like waiting until page 100 is asking a bit much of the reader, don’t you think?”
Verity considers that for a moment. “Maybe,” she says, noncommittal.
“And the three chapters that explain the structural intricacies of Thad’s father’s jewelry empire?” I press. “We could probably lose at least some of that, right? I’m thinking particularly of the twenty pages of organizational charts, and that extended explanation of all the different types of semi-precious rocks?”
Verity sighs. “I’ll take a look at it, but it seems like a shame to waste all that research.” Then she frowns, fanning herself dramatically. “Are you hot?” she asks. “I’m awfully hot out here.”
I shake my head. “I thought there was a nice breeze today, actually. So, okay, if we cut some of those early chapters that gives us a great opportunity to—”
But Verity holds up a hand. “No,” she announces, “it’s too humid to think out here. I’m going to have the staff move breakfast inside to my office.”
I hold back a grimace, but barely. All week it’s been like this. I begin every day with a long list of ideas and strategies for getting this book written, only for Verity to counter with any excuse possible not to get it done. She’s hungry. She’s tired. She has a hangnail. The moon is full. I understand writer’s block, truly. But this is getting ridiculous. “I don’t really think we need to—”
But Verity is already calling for an assistant to bring everything inside. I dutifully follow her into the house and the two of us get settled in her office, a lavishly decorated suite with rose wallpaper and an antique fainting couch upholstered in a dusty pink. The walls are lined with framed renderings of her book covers along with snapshots of her hobnobbing with celebrities ranging from Barack Obama to Ricky Martin. “Ricky couldn’t get enough of me,” she says, when she sees me looking. “And I kept telling him, ‘Ricky, for God’s sake, you have a husband!’ but that man just would not give up.”
“I’ll bet,” I say, smiling in spite of myself. She’s charming, that’s for sure, and there’s a part of me that would love to just sit here all day drinking mimosas and listening to her tell war stories from all her years in the biz. But charm isn’t going to get words on the page. Charm isn’t going to get this book finished. And charm isn’t going to save Sterling—not to mention me and all my friends.
“So, okay,” I say, pulling out my notes one more time. “If Thad and Leona have their meet cute in Chapter One—”
All of a sudden Verity leaping out of her chair. “I’ve got a great idea!” she proclaims.
“What?” I ask eagerly.
“You know what I used to love to do when I was really cracking?” she asks. “Watch the soaps for inspiration.”
I feel myself deflate like a cheap balloon. “You would stop writing when it was going well to watch daytime TV?” I can’t keep the disbelief out my voice. “Really?”
“Yes!” she says cheerfully, brushing past me with a regal swish of her robe. “And that’s exactly what we should do now. To the media room!”
I stay where I am for a moment, swallowing down my fresh juice and a sigh. I glance at Ricky Martin for guidance, but he has none to offer. “I’ll meet you there, okay? I’m just going to put some of these pastries in the fridge for later.”
I head into the massive kitchen to regroup, trying not to lose it. But holy crap, this is a disaster, and in spite of what I told Liam, I’m not sure at all that I’m going to be able to pull it off. Is this how my career ends? Not with a bang, but with an incredibly boring unfinished novel? I might as well hire a skywriter to send Liam a message as he runs by on the beach: Congratulations, you were right. I have no idea what I’m doing!
I’m staring out the window at the pool, trying uselessly to come up with a plan, when Dot pads into the kitchen. She’s barefoot in jeans and a souvenir T-shirt from Acadia National Park, her short hair damp from the shower. “Hey there,” she says, heading for the coffeemaker. “How’s it going down there in Thad’s father’s diamond vault?”
“Oh!” I smile—convincingly, I hope. “Um. Great. We’re making tons of progress. Really exciting stuff.”
Dot barks with laughter. “That bad, huh?”
I sigh, dropping onto a stool at the massive island and burying my face in my hands. “Is it that obvious?”
Dot tilts her head to the side in a way that almost definitely means yes. “Look,” she says, sitting down beside me. “I’ll be honest with you, Eliza: I’ve known V for forty years. And when she’s in it, she’s a marvel. Nothing can stop her. But when she’s not… Well. I think you know.”
I hear the faint, cloying tinkle of soap opera theme music drifting through the house, and cringe. “What can I do?” I beg. “I’ll try anything.”
“Well, you can stop letting her walk all over you, to start,” Dot advises, looking at me pointedly.
I bristle a little bit, I can’t help it—after all, I’ve been in this business a long time. I know how to handle authors. Verity is just… particularly challenging, that’s all. “I wouldn’t say she’s walking all over me.”
“Oh no?” Dot snorts. “So it was your idea to quit working for the day after fifteen minutes to go watch The Naked and the Damned?”
I wrinkle my nose. “Okay,” I admit, “fair.”
Dot smiles, utterly unruffled. “She needs a little tough love sometimes, that’s all. And you have to figure out how to make it feel fun for her, and not like the same sexless snooze-fest she’s been bashing her head against for the last five years.”
I nod thoughtfully, an inkling of an idea just beginning to present itself. “Well, in that case,” I say slowly, “let’s mix it up a little.”
I detour back to the office to grab my laptop, and find Verity sitting in the darkened media room, munching truffle popcorn while an impeccably airbrushed couple shares a passionate clinch onscreen. “Okay,” I announce, flicking the overhead lights on. “New plan.”
She tears her eyes away from the screen, looking me with annoyance and trepidation and something that—maybe, just maybe—might be respect. “Oh really?” she says, plucking one last kernel from the bowl and popping it into her lipsticked mouth. “What did you have in mind?”
I get us set up on the large, airy balcony off the master suite, which boasts a perfect view of the ocean and the faint sound of waves crashing in the background. The sun is warm but not oppressive. I make sure we’ve got plenty of snacks and sparkling water, and I make her take a pee break before we start.
Then I drop the truth bomb.
“The draft sucks,” I tell her flatly, not bothering to sugarcoat it. “And the reason it sucks—other than all the geology talk—is because it’s passionless.”
Very scowls. “I know that,” she says, sounding wounded. “Don’t you think I know that? I’ve been doing this for longer than you’ve been alive, Eliza. Of course I know that.”
“Of course you know that!” I echo, reaching out and squeezing her smooth brown arm. “You’re too amazingly talented not to. You’re a legend, Verity. You’re the best there is.”
Verity sighs. “I was, maybe, once upon a time. But now…”
“You’ve misplaced your mojo, that’s all. You’ve forgotten that this is supposed to be fun.”
“Fun!” Verity says with a mirthless laugh. “God, I remember fun. I wrote His Wandering Lady in six days on a yacht of the coast of Monaco,” she says wistfully. “The only time I stopped writing was to eat, and frolic with Francisco. He was the heir to an Italian leather fortune,” she adds, and I fight to keep a straight face.
“I know you do,” I press on. “And we want your readers to remember it, too. So let’s forget the passionless parts for a minute—the plot, the act breaks, whatever. And let’s spice this baby up.”
Verity sits up a little bit straighter. I’ve got her attention now, I can tell. “What did you have in mind?”
I turn the laptop around so she can see the screen, where I’ve already typed a heading: Top Ten Sex Scenes I’ve Always Wanted to Write.
Verity smiles then—a real smile, wide and white and brilliant. “Oh,” she says, “you’re very good.”
“I am,” I acknowledge with a quick grin of my own. “Now: Let’s get started.”
“Well!” she says, sitting back in her chair and immediately starting to tick the list off on her fingers. “The midnight woman-on-top tryst in the sculpture garden, to start with. The threesome with the pool boy. Oh, and the foursome with the pool boy and the gardener!”
Two hours later we’ve covered every sex act I’ve ever heard of in all my years on this planet—and, frankly, some that I hadn’t. And, more importantly, we’ve been able to reverse engineer a new version of the book that Verity actually seems to be excited about writing. “I really feel like the Ferris wheel fellatio scene is going to be the key to unlocking this whole thing,” she muses quietly, her fingers flying over the keys of her laptop.
I sit back in my chair as she works, glancing out across the property. I catch sight of Liam pacing back and forth on the pool deck, taking a call. I’ve been hyperaware of him since he got here, but I’ve tried to keep my eyes to myself as much as possible. Now, though, I let myself stare. He’s dressed casually, in broken-in navy chinos and a soft-looking gray T-shirt, his dark hair tousled from the ocean breeze.
“All right, I’ve got Thad and Leona alone at the abandoned vault,” Verity muses. “Do you think it’s sexier if he takes her from behind? Or picks her up and holds her against a wall?”
I startle, tearing my eyes away from Liam. “Um. Against the wall, I think.” I say, remembering Liam pinning me against the wall at my apartment. I clear my throat, blushing. “Of the mining company office.”
“Oh, I like that,” Verity says, the keyboard clicking as she types furiously away. I glance back out at Liam, imagining the oak paneled walls of Harry’s old office. Imagining Liam boosting me up onto the massive antique desk, spreading my legs, and—
“Eliza?” Verity asks, in a voice that suggests it’s not the first time she’s tried to get my attention. I whip around to look at her, and find her watching me with a knowing smile on her face. “Quite a view down there,” is all she says.
I swallow hard. My whole body is suddenly hot, and it’s not just from the late August sunshine or the embarrassment of being caught ogling. “He’s my employer,” I remind her.
“Mm,” she says knowingly. “Forbidden fruit. Very sexy.”
“It’s not like that,” I say, shaking my head. “Liam has been clear about wanting to keep things professional.” I sigh, rememberin
g the thrust of his fingers inside me, the orgasm nearly taking me out at the knees. “Well. Clear-ish, anyway.”
“Which makes him all the more appealing, no?” she fires back. “Haven’t you read Seduced by the Boss?”
“Three times,” I admit with a smile. “It’s one of my favorites of yours.” In fact, I’ve been thinking it’s time for a reread, but I don’t say that out loud.
Verity seems to get the idea anyway. “Well,” she says with a wicked smile. “As you know, I’m something of an expert on the subject, and if you ask me anyone can see he can barely keep his hands off you. The ball is entirely in your court, peaches. What you choose to do about that is up to you.” She waves a hand then, dismissing me. “Now, get. I’ve got writing to do.”
* * *
I spend the rest of the afternoon working under an umbrella on the beach—or trying to, anyway. In reality I can’t help but let my mind wander back to Liam.
Could Verity be right?
I feel like I need to sit down with a Sharpie and a stack of index cards to make sense of all the mixed signals he’s been putting out. One minute he’s lecturing me on the importance of professionalism, and the next I catch him staring at me like he wants to rip my clothes off and devour me whole. Not to mention the fact that every time anything has happened between us, he’s been incredibly into it in the moment—and then immediately fled like it was the end of the world. None of it exactly bodes well for the promise of lasting relationship bliss.
Then again: do I even need lasting relationship bliss if the sex is good enough to blast me off into the stratosphere?
Huh. Sex in the stratosphere, I type, making a mental note to run the idea by Verity later today.
Just then a tall, broad shadow falls over my computer screen. “There you are,” says Liam’s familiar voice.
Right away, I motion to my laptop. “I’m working,” I assure him, hoping my sunglasses are big and dark enough to successfully hide the fact that he was the one providing the inspiration.
