“We have a problem.” Adam ran his hands over his dark blond hair and gave me a look I’d only seen once before—when they’d found a typo on one of my covers that had already gone to print.
“I’m listening.” I folded my arms across my chest. Adam was one of my closest friends and as level-headed as they came in New York publishing, so if he thought we had a problem, we did.
“The mother led us to believe that she was the daughter,” he blurted.
“In what way?” Sure, both women were beautiful, but Ava was easily a decade or two older.
“In the who-has-the-rights-to-this-book way.”
My stomach threatened to heave up my lunch. Now it made sense—the mother wanted me on the book…not Georgia. Holy shit.
“Are you telling me that the contract we’ve spent weeks negotiating is about to fall apart?” My jaw clenched. I hadn’t just made time for this project, I’d canceled my entire life for it, come home from Peru for it. I wanted this damn book, and the thought of it slipping through my fingers was inconceivable.
“If you can’t convince Georgia Stanton that you’re the perfect author to finish the book, then that’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Fuck.” I lived for challenges, spent my free time pushing my mind and body to the limit through rock climbing and writing, and this book was my mental Everest—something to push me outside my comfort zone. Mastering another author’s voice, especially one as beloved as Scarlett Stanton, wouldn’t just be a professional feat, either. There were personal stakes for me here, too.
“Pretty much,” Adam agreed.
“I met her earlier today. She hates my books.” Which didn’t bode well for me.
“I gathered that. Please tell me you weren’t your usual asshole self?” His eyes narrowed slightly.
“Eh, ‘asshole’ is a relative term.”
“Awesome.” His tone dripped sarcasm.
I rubbed the skin between my eyebrows as my mind raced, thinking of some way to change the mind of a woman who’d obviously sealed her opinion of my writing long before we’d met. I couldn’t remember the last time hard work or a little charm hadn’t gotten me something I wanted this badly, and it wasn’t in my nature to back down or concede defeat.
“How about I give you a minute or two to gather your thoughts, and then you come back in with a miracle?” He slapped my shoulder and left me standing in the entry while Ava puttered in the kitchen.
I slid my phone from my back pocket and dialed the only person I knew would give me unbiased advice.
“What do you want, Noah?” Adrienne’s voice came in over the cacophony of her kids in the background.
“How do I convince someone who hates my books that I’m not a shit writer?” I asked quietly, turning toward the office doors.
“Did you really just call so I could stoke your ego?”
“I’m not kidding.”
“You’ve never cared what people thought before. What’s going on?” Her voice softened.
“It’s ridiculously complicated and I have about two minutes to figure out the answer.”
“Okay. Well, first, you’re not a shit writer, and you have the adoration of millions to prove it.” The background noise quieted, as if she’d closed a door.
“You have to say that—you’re my sister.”
“And I’ve hated at least eleven of your books,” she responded cheerfully.
I huffed a laugh. “That’s an oddly specific number.”
“Nothing odd about it. I can tell you exactly which ones—”
“Not helping, Adrienne.” I studied the small collection of photographs on the table, mixed in with a variety of glass vases. The one shaped like an ocean wave looked to be hand-blown, and it sat beside the picture of a young boy probably taken in the late forties. There was another shot that looked to be a debutante ball…Ava’s, maybe? And another of a child who had to be Georgia in a garden. Even as a kid, she’d looked serious and a little sad, like the world had already let her down. “I somehow don’t think telling Georgia Stanton that my own sister doesn’t like my books is going to get me far.”
“What I’m saying is that I hated your plots, not your writ—” Adrienne paused. “Wait, did you say Georgia Stanton?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit,” she muttered.
“I’m probably down to thirty seconds over here.” I felt every heartbeat like it was a countdown. How had this gone so wrong so quickly?
“What the hell are you doing with Scarlett Stanton’s great-granddaughter?”
“Remember the whole complicated part of this conversation? And how do you know who Georgia Stanton is?”
“How do you not know?”
Ava waltzed through the entry, carrying a small tray with what looked to be glasses of lemonade on it. She shot me a smile, then slipped through the slightly open doors.
Time was running out. “Look. Scarlett Stanton left an unfinished manuscript, and Georgia—who hates my books—is the one to decide if I get to finish it.”
My sister gasped.
“Say something.”
“Okay, okay.” She went quiet, and I could almost see the gears turning in her quick mind. “You tell Georgia that under no circumstances will Damian Ellsworth be allowed to direct, produce, or sniff around the story.”
My brow furrowed. “This has nothing to do with movie rights.” The guy was a shitty director anyway. I’d already shot him down on more than one of my options.
“Oh, come on, if this is a Scarlett Stanton finished by you, it’s going to be huge.”
I didn’t argue with that. Scarlett hadn’t missed hitting the New York Times with a release in forty years. “What does Damian Ellsworth have to do with the Stantons?”
“Huh. I really do know something you don’t. How odd…” she mused.
“Adrienne,” I growled.
“Let me savor it for just a moment,” she sang.
“I’m going to lose this contract.”
“When you put it that way.” I envisioned her rolling her eyes. “Ellsworth is—as of this week—Georgia’s ex-husband. He was directing The Winter Bride—”
“The Stanton book? The one about the guy trapped in the loveless marriage?”
“That’s the one. Anyway, he got caught having an affair with
