Total pages in book: 153
Estimated words: 145123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 145123 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 726(@200wpm)___ 580(@250wpm)___ 484(@300wpm)
If I’m this much of a mess now, I don’t see how I’ll ever survive when it publishes.
I won’t.
My skin tingles, and a hair-raising chill at the back of my neck makes me lean into the toilet fully again. I don’t get sick, though. Instead, my mind takes off at a run. Searching, looking, begging for some way to get out of this.
A plan. A con. A turn of the tables. If I want to keep food down in this lifetime, I’ve got to eighty-six the hell out of my dream man’s drive to publish this book.
Maybe I can worm my way on to the catering staff for next Friday’s meeting…give them a mild case of food poisoning or something?
Not, like, sick with a need for the hospital kind of thing, but a small mindfuck about the taste of my book in their mouths. I’ve heard Jonah Perish, Longstrand’s president, is the superstitious type. Maybe putting him off a little would work.
Of course, I’d have to know who they normally use for their catering, somehow convince them that Friday’s meeting needed something special, and then also come off as a convincing chef—all without being recognized by Chase or anyone else associated with the publisher. It’s risky. Deranged, really. So, I have a strong feeling I’m going to have to move in a different direction.
Perhaps, I could send anonymous messages to the rest of the editors undercutting Chase’s pitch? Warn them off the book kind of thing.
I shake my head. Not only is forming a coup against the man of my dreams a touch distasteful, it’s also far too exposing. Since no one other than my publisher and I are supposed to have access to the manuscript, it might be a little messy to create a fictitious third party that’s both believable and practical for the continuation of my career.
I mean, I’m doing well, but not well enough to toss my shit in the fire and quit it all.
Surely there’s something else. Something simple in nature without being generally harmful…
An excuse. That’s it. I need an excuse to convince him that what he read is not, in fact, worthy of publishing, let alone taking it to the other editors and risking his own career. I need to give him a reason to throw that thing in a dumpster and never look at it again before he makes a fool of himself in front of his peers.
Picking up my phone off the kitchen island while Benji sits at my side, an undeniably worried look on his handsome canine face, I type frantically in a draft with no number attached yet, you know, because apparently I tend to send the wrong things to the wrong people. Once I get the message I want, I’ll add his contact, but I’ll be goddamned if I’m going to send another clusterfuck right into the middle of my first one—Hank Baker didn’t raise no fool. At least, not a full-fledged one.
So, that book you’re thinking of pitching next Friday…the thing is, I plagiarized it.
HA-HA. Oh look, it’s the sight of me flushing my career down the toilet. No. Delete.
I know you saw potential in that manuscript, but the thing is, I’m not really done with it. I’ve got another part to write, and it changes the whole story and basically nullifies all the good parts of this one.
Ugh. No. Delete.
Hahaha I’ve got a funny story for you. As it turns out, I sent you the wrong book. I have a whole other manuscript to send you that’s much more in line with what you were expecting. Other than the fact that it’s a heaping pile of garbage, of course.
Doing great here, Brooke. Really making progress on sending him a message that will help the situation.
Are you sure the book is good enough?
Finally, a message that might work. It’s vulnerable and damn near soul-crushing, but it doesn’t make me sound like a fracking idiot or a con. Adding his contact in at the top, I send the message and drop my phone on the counter like a hot potato before I can reconsider.
It dings so fast with a response that a wrecking ball of lead with a caricature of Miley Cyrus riding on top swings itself into the lining of my stomach.
Chase: Better than. Brooke, it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.
Oh God, what have I done?
His words should make me feel better. Bring me peace of mind and a settled stomach. Instead, they inflict more fear than I’m equipped to handle, and Benji goes into service-dog mode, gently knocking me right to the floor to push my head between my knees.
The explicit book I wrote about myself and my editor while he has no freaking idea he’s the protagonist is the best book he’s ever read?