Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
As quickly as his fingers could type, he messaged his assistant.
Pull every romantic comedy script that’s come in and send them to me asap.
Even though it was Sunday, Gina was far too much like him. She responded within seconds. It was one of the reasons he employed her and paid her an extremely healthy salary.
Is this some kind of joke? Or are you delirious with fever?
Great. Even his assistant thought he was a one-trick action-movie pony. He assured her he was serious, and within an hour, she’d emailed him half a dozen scripts and told him he’d have paper copies by courier first thing in the morning. He felt better than he had all day and, his plan in motion, settled back in his chair with his tablet.
Soon, though, he began to frown. In his opinion, they were all terrible.
“I could do a better job than this.”
Nelson opened one eye skeptically, then sighed and went back to sleep.
* * *
On Monday morning, Erin was still seething over Jay Malone’s embarrassing juvenile tactics to get her into bed. How could he not have seen that she was already there and didn’t need some cheesy, tried-and-tested line? She had been showered, shaved, primped, wearing her best underwear and her prettiest dress, her body already tingling, imagining how the evening would end. And in her wildest dreams she’d never imagined he’d make such a spectacular mess of it all. If he’d just kissed her, gently and softly, if he’d just showed her that he cared, he’d have had her. Instead, he’d treated her like a woman he’d just picked up in a bar and figured she’d fall for his stupid lines.
On some level, she still felt that he’d deliberately sabotaged himself, that he didn’t know how to be himself instead of the deal-sealing Hollywood agent character he’d so carefully crafted over the years. But knowing that was one thing, forgiving it another entirely. She was still too angry to really consider the psychology of what had gone down on Saturday night. All she knew was that she felt insulted, furious—and if she never saw Jay Malone again it would be too soon.
Even more irritating, all day Sunday she’d expected some feeble apology from him, but nothing. Not a phone call she could have ignored, not an email she could have deleted, not even a text message she could have refused to open. He hadn’t even given her that satisfaction.
And she felt like the world’s greatest fool for checking her phone every five minutes just so she could ignore him.
To take her mind off it, she and Buzzy had gone for a long walk on Sunday that turned into a six-hour hike, exhausting the pair of them. She’d thought about calling Mila and suggesting they go out for dinner, but she would have blabbed the whole story to her sister and, as mad as she was at Jay, she didn’t want to do that. Maybe it was to protect herself from embarrassment. Maybe it was also to protect Jay. Because she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was right about him—that he was a good guy, deep and caring and thoughtful. And sometimes he was an idiot. A great big idiot.
And then she got angry all over again.
After her long hike, she’d cleaned her apartment from top to bottom, cooked herself dinner, and sat and watched Four Weddings and a Funeral for the umpteenth time. At least romantic comedies never let her down. Even if they were fantasy. She went to bed exhausted, but found she slept badly.
Now she was at the office, tired and irritable, trying to get her Dog of the Week feature finished according to her own high standards. But as she finally made it to the last line, the newspaper’s receptionist, Stacey, called, “Erin?”
She sighed in annoyance, her concentration broken.
“Something’s just been delivered for you. It’s from Jay Malone.”
Even the sound of his name filled her with fury. Whatever it was, it was too little, too late. She didn’t even turn around. “If it’s flowers, please take them to the library so everybody else in town can enjoy them.”
“It’s not flowers.” Stacey sounded puzzled. “Um. . . I think these are movie scripts.”
That got her attention. She spun around in her chair. “What?”
Since Stacey obviously had no intention of bringing them to her, Erin got up and stomped to the front desk.
Stacey held up a sheaf of papers with a big, fat binder clip holding them together. Bemused, she took the packet and glanced down. A handwritten note lay on top.
From the desk of Julius (Jay) Malone
CEO, Exceptional Talent Ltd.
Dear Erin,
I really screwed up on Saturday night. I knew that if I sent you flowers you’d just give them to somebody else who’d appreciate them more, so I thought about a way I could show you how sorry I am. I’m sending you half a dozen romantic comedy movie scripts from some of the top writers in Hollywood. You said I never put my actors in romantic comedies. Well, thanks to you, I’m willing to do that. Pick the one you like best. Whichever you choose, I will get it made. You have my word. This is my way of saying sorry.