“I’ll be a bit late.” She said something that was muffled at first, and then, “Sorry, work. I’ve got awesome Chinese coming in for your birthday dinner. It’s still your favorite, right? Anyway, the house is yours. The guest suite is ready for you—”
“Can I ask you a question?” I interrupted.
“Shoot.”
“Were you serious about job possibilities?” I asked.
There was a pause. When she spoke, Shannon sounded stressed. “Actually…and you are going to be so pissed at me…you kind of already have a job offer.”
“What are you talking about?”
She cleared her throat before continuing. “You’re so going to kill me. I think your book is amazing. I tried to tell you at the party, but I kind of chickened out. Anyway, I sent it to a publisher friend months ago, and there’s an offer, Claire, a really good offer. Look it over, please. It’s on the kitchen table.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“We’ll talk about this tonight, okay?” She sounded nervous.
Good. She should sound nervous. Maybe even a little scared.
I was speechless.
“Is Josh staying?” I could hear the underlying question.
I took a deep breath. “No.”
“Not going to help celebrate?” She was trying to smooth things over.
“No. Josh isn’t staying. I’ll see you when you get there, then.” I could hear the tension in my voice as I snapped the phone shut. I chewed my lip.
I turned a bit to stare out the window, to collect myself. She was right. I was pissed.
This was my life, in print. It never occurred to me she’d let anyone else see it. I continued to chew on my lip, wrinkling my nose to keep the angry tears at bay. I couldn’t believe she’d do this to me.
Josh’s phone beeped. “Bloody cell phones.” He patted his chest pocket, pulled the phone out and handed it to me. “Do you mind?”
“Okay.” I sounded somewhat uncertain, but flipped his phone open.
I read aloud. “Meghan says scripts are being sent to your apartment this evening. Let her know ASAP.” I looked at him. “Your meeting this morning? You never finished.” I waited, eager to be distracted from my mental musings.
“Yeah, Meg’s my agent. She’d cleared a few scripts for me, but I told her there were only three I’d read through.”
“And?” I prompted.
He looked very young, his enthusiasm mounting as he spoke. “My favorite is a biopic of Van Gogh, psycho-bugger that he was. Talk about a character piece. But there’s some concern about my maintaining a persona.”
“The young, hot, sex icon thing? That sucks.” I sighed, but immediately started laughing at his scowl.
He looked at me, shaking his head with a dramatic sigh. “You’re no help.” He smiled his beautiful smile.
“You’re going to have plenty of opportunities to prove you’re a real talent.” I believed that, without a doubt.
He pulled my hand to his lips, kissing it softly. “I’ll hold you to that.”
I smiled slightly, squeezing his hand gently. “And the other two stories?”
“A spy story during WWII. It has quite a bit of action and a rather sad romantic sideline. It’s good, according to the word from the studios. So it’s my second choice. The third is pure testosterone. Cars, car chases, sex in cars, stealing cars, blowing up cars… Not very original, but they’ve got some big director involved.” He shrugged.
“And what advice have you been given?” I asked. I didn’t know if it was his agent’s job, his publicist’s, manager’s, or whoever’s it was, but surely there was someone who had their finger firmly on the pulse of the industry