You Had Me at Chateau, page 3
‘I mean, I think of myself as more of a comedy writer than a romance writer,’ I tell him. ‘It just so happens that my books have a strong romance arc, so marketing them as romcoms is the best way to go – well, that’s what my publishers tell me.’
‘Well, what do publishers know, hey?’ he replies. ‘Sex sells. You want to think about it. It’s what women want these days.’
My jaw drops ever so slightly.
‘I’m sorry – are you mansplaining women to me?’ I ask. ‘And my job? And… and…’
I notice Ray’s eyebrows shoot up and, if I didn’t know better, I would say he looked almost scared.
‘I… I… I wasn’t, I would never,’ he insists. ‘Is everything okay? You seem a little…’
Ray’s voice trails off. Ah, shit, is this me? Am I just determined to have a bad date tonight? Perhaps I should be honest, show him that I’m a genuine person, I’m just having a bad day.
‘I’m sorry,’ I say with a sigh. ‘I pretty much came here from my parents’ house, where they sat me and my brother down and told us that they were getting a divorce, so my mind is all over the place. So, that might be why I seem a little… off.’
‘I was going to say “intense”,’ he replies. ‘But, wow, that’s rough. Did they say why they were divorcing?’
‘I guess they’re just not happy together any more,’ I reply with a sigh. ‘I don’t know, it all sounded so confusing.’
I take a big gulp of my drink. This is the last thing I wanted to get into but perhaps it will be good to talk about it?
‘No wonder you don’t think of yourself as a romance writer,’ he points out. ‘Between your parents, and your own love life, there’s not much to feel inspired by, is there?’
I don’t know if Ray is trying to insult me, or whether his speciality really is just saying the wrong thing at every opportunity, but I don’t need this. To borrow Ray’s analogy from him, it’s not Christmas Eve yet, so I don’t need to settle for ‘whatever is left’ tonight.
‘I’m guessing the sex isn’t there either then?’ he continues.
Yep, that’s my limit.
‘Listen, sorry, but I need to go,’ I tell him – apologising yet again.
‘Oh?’ he says, and he sounds surprised, which is hilarious. Does he think this is going well? ‘But you’ve hardly touched the food – it was expensive.’
‘I’m sure it was,’ I reply. ‘Let me give you some money for it.’
I’m on my feet now, hurriedly fussing with my clutch, so that I can give him some cash and then get out of here as fast as I can.
As I pull out my purse, my still kind of wet knickers fall out of my bag, landing on the table in front of him. For a second or two, Ray just stares at them.
‘What, er…?’
I think he might finally be speechless.
I snatch them up, quickly stuffing them in my bag.
‘Sorry, sorry, that’s from… before you got here,’ I blurt, not making any sense.
Ray’s eyebrows shoot up.
‘Oh,’ he says, his voice so much higher than it has been so far.
Oh. Oh God. He thinks I mean something far, far different to what I actually mean. Ah well, he was implying I was sex-starved a moment ago, and I am, but I don’t want to spend another second on this date so I may as well own it.
‘Anyway, bye,’ I tell him.
He doesn’t even say goodbye.
Wow. I really, really didn’t expect to show my date my knickers tonight, and yet here we are.
Bloody table 13. I couldn’t have got more unlucky if I’d tried.
4
I thought I’d been on disastrous first dates before but it turns out I didn’t know the meaning of the word. Well, a boring date here, an incompatible man there – none of it seems like a big deal now, not when you compare it to finding a dead body!
Jen looks up from her iPad. For a moment she just stares at me, almost like she’s studying me.
I smile hopefully.
‘What do you think?’ I ask her.
I’ve been nervous about this meeting ever since Jen called me in for it. Well, when your editor says she wants you to come into the office to talk about your new book, panic sets in, and after talking to her on the phone it only made today going well seem all the more vital. That said, I had a very interesting conversation with myself on my way here (in my head, obviously) while I was on the Underground, where I eventually decided that, you know what, I believe in my other idea. I just need to let Jen read it and I’m sure she’ll feel the same.
‘A body?’ she blurts, leaving no room for interpretation. ‘That’s a bit dark, isn’t it?’
‘Well, yes, but it’s still a comedy,’ I reply. ‘And there’s still a romance arc in there. I just thought it might be fun, to go down the crime route, and have some fun with that.’
‘You had a very, very successful four-book series,’ she reminds me. ‘A romance series – why would you turn to a life of crime now?’
I purse my lips for a second, to resist cracking a joke.
‘I just love fun murder mysteries,’ I reply. ‘And I think I have a great idea for a series. TV shows like Monk, movies like Knives Out – there’s always been a market for it. So I’m thinking why not bring a little of that to the romcom market.’
‘Look, Amber, I hear what you’re saying, I do, but that’s not what readers want,’ Jen explains. ‘They want exciting.’
‘It does get more exciting,’ I chip in, trying to find my confidence again. ‘There are more bodies.’
‘No, Amber, what I’m saying is that the kind of body counts you’re talking about are not the kind people care about.’
Jen raises her eyebrows to let me know it’s a sex thing. Oh, boy.
‘Right,’ I say simply.
‘If you’re wanting to be more, I don’t know, adult, then I stand by what I said on the phone,’ Jen says. ‘Readers love the spice.’
‘Oh, I don’t know, I…’
‘I’ll tell you what,’ Jen talks over me, her eyes darting back and forth between me and the glass wall behind me. ‘I’m going to give you a book, one with lots of spice, and you’re going to read it and then give it a go. Just, I’m sure this is great, but forget murder, add in some spice to your almost completed draft, and see where we are. Okay?’
I can’t help but pull a face.
‘But you’ve only glanced at it for a couple of minutes,’ I point out.
‘Sorry, we’re just so busy today, it’s not really a good time,’ she tells me and now she’s making no effort to hide the fact that she’s looking beyond me.
‘But you called me in,’ I remind her.
Jen’s eyes snap back to me and I see her realise that I’m right.
‘Okay, yes, that makes sense,’ she says. ‘Why don’t you come back after lunch? I’ll have more time then.’
Suddenly it occurs to me that Jen is glammed up today. She’s one of those thirty-somethings who exclusively wears trousers and a top, trousers and a top, trousers and a top. Sometimes it’s nice jeans, sometimes it’s a fancy blouse, but it’s always trousers and a top. Not today though, today she’s wearing a yellow dress, strappy red heels, and a face-full of make-up – the kind that says she’s out to impress. Now that I think about it, everyone here today looks like they’re dressed in their best. Well, everyone but me, in my black skinny jeans and my oversized black and red stripy jumper. I did take the time to curl my long blonde locks, and I always wear a face-full of make-up because I feel naked without it, but my chunky black boots can’t compete with a strappy heel. I wonder if it’s their staff Christmas party later or something.
‘Erm, sure, okay, I can do that,’ I reply as I pull myself to my feet. ‘What, just come back in a couple of hours then?’
‘Yeah, that would be perfect,’ she replies. ‘I’ll have something for you by then.’
I’m not exactly sure what she means by that but I guess I’ll go with the flow.
‘Okay then, I’ll be back,’ I tell her as we leave the small glass-walled meeting room, but Jen is off. I notice her run over to one of the other editors.
‘Is he here yet?’ I can just about make out her ask giddily.
Ah, so it’s like that, is it? Someone more exciting than me is coming in. Someone famous, I’ll bet, because, honestly, it feels like they’re publishing more celebrity-penned novels than ‘regular’ writer ones these days, and it’s not that I mind it, and I get that for the publisher it’s a no-brainer because these people come with a built-in audience, but so many of them are ghostwritten. And, again, I don’t mind it, but the people writing these books are often author friends of mine who just didn’t get the backing for books published under their own name. Sometimes I wonder if that’s what the future holds for me. I don’t exactly have the freedom to write what I want as it is. I would hate to write books to order for other people.
‘Hey, Amber, just a second,’ Jen calls after me as I reach the lift. ‘Here, take these. Examples of spice done well. Give them a go, see if you think it’s something you can do.’
‘Okay, thanks,’ I say, taking the three books she’s holding out in front of me.
Alone in the lift I examine them. Obviously they’re all authors who are with my publisher so one of them I know, one I’ve met and another I know of. I can give them a go, sure, but writing sex scenes isn’t something that comes all that naturally to me, so I’ve always just sort of danced around it.
Well, if I’ve got some time to kill, I may as well grab some lunch. I need to figure out what I’m going to say to Jen, when I go back, so that I don’t leave completely unhappy.
And I know just the person to ask.
5
‘“His pounding member swells in my hand as I spit on…”’
‘Words I never thought I would hear my brother say,’ I talk over him, cutting him off.
Tom laughs.
‘This is putting me off my panini,’ he says, his lunch in one hand, a book in the other.
Tom and I are tucked away in the corner of a café near his work. It’s the kind of place that seems to be used exclusively by businessmen and women, none of whom seem to stay longer than it takes them to grab a caffeine fix and a sandwich to take away. The service is frantic but efficient, like a well-oiled machine that goes at a million miles a minute. No one looks up from their phone, as they order their artisanal latte and quinoa salad, but no one expects them to. There’s a constant hum of activity – baristas shouting out orders, the hiss of the espresso machine, and snippets of business jargon being barked around. Oh, and then there’s me and Tom, sitting in the corner, reading the mucky bits in romance books while I dig into the avocado bagel that’s going to stop me getting on the property ladder until I’m in my forties.
He’s currently reading excerpts from The Harder the Heart by Kelsey Kane. I’m yet to meet Kelsey, she’s a debut, but there’s already talk about them making her horny professional golfer romance into a movie.
‘I would’ve made more use of the balls,’ he tells me.
I stare at him blankly.
‘Like, the golf balls, ball puns – I thought you were the writer,’ he jokes.
‘Sorry,’ I say with a laugh. ‘I’m just… frazzled. The last thing I thought she was going to do was send me away with a pile of horny homework and expect me to flick through it over lunch.’
As soon as the words leave my lips, I realise what I’ve said.
‘Don’t,’ I quickly insist.
‘Oh my God. “He fills me with his—”’
‘Fore!’ I call out, stopping him in his tracks. ‘I can probably guess.’
‘Seems more like an eight, from what I’m reading,’ Tom jokes. ‘Eat your bagel. I’ll do your homework for you.’
Tom is a corporate lawyer, and a good one at that, so I figured if there was anyone who could send me back into my meeting with Jen armed with a bunch of buzzwords to get me what I want, it would be him. He’s also someone I can always count on to cheer me up, when I’m feeling down in the dumps.
He picks up another book. Summer at Cove Bay by L. E. Price.
‘Well, for starters, before we even get to the mucky stuff, I’m pretty sure a cove is just a type of bay, so that’s a silly name,’ he points out. ‘Still, let’s give it a chance.’
Tom thumbs through the pages until he gets to the subject matter we’re after.
‘Wow, Chapter Three, we’re going for it,’ he tells me. ‘Let’s see. Oh… oh, oh, God.’
‘Don’t make it sound like you’re joining in,’ I joke.
‘It’s a solo scene,’ he informs me. ‘“I wasn’t expecting the new lifeguard to be so hot, but I need him, I need him to save me. My knees are weak, my heart is beating behind my big breasts. Just thinking about his rock-hard abs makes me flick my—”’
Tom pulls a face at the page.
I sigh and roll my eyes.
‘That’s not…’
‘A man wrote that,’ I tell him, reading his mind.
‘Well, that makes sense,’ he says. ‘I assumed L. E. Price was a woman.’
‘I think it’s on purpose,’ I reply. ‘There was thriller writer, Dickie Woodrup.’
‘That’s never his real name,’ Tom practically cackles.
‘Well, Dickie Woodrup by name, Dickie Woodrup by nature,’ I joke. ‘It was sort of an open secret in publishing that he was kind of a sleaze – he grabbed my arse at the summer party a couple of years ago. Anyway, I guess one day he grabbed the wrong arse, people started sharing their stories about him, no one wanted to read his thrillers any more – and suddenly, as people were rereading them, it was becoming apparent exactly how creepy he really was – so that was that for Dickie. But you can’t keep a bad man down, can you, so now the new open secret is that he’s quietly writing romance novels to pay his bills.’
‘Well, he’s not very good,’ Tom points out.
‘Well, that rarely stops men who want to succeed,’ I joke.
‘And there’s me thinking publishing was boring,’ he says as he sips his coffee.
‘No, no, we have our sex pests too,’ I tell him. ‘It keeps us on our toes.’
‘I wanted to become a lawyer to counter blokes like him,’ Tom says, his tone shifting from laughing at whatever was about to be flicked to something more serious.
‘And yet all you seem to do is argue to make millionaires billionaires,’ I tease him. ‘But that’s what I need from you, I need ruthless Tom, I need you to tell me what to say, to get what I want.’
‘Okay, well, let’s start by deciding what you do want,’ he tells me, snapping into professional mode. ‘I take it you don’t want to write flicking and sucking and whatever a duck buster is?’
‘I think you might have misread that last one but, no, that’s not what I want to do,’ I tell him. ‘I want to write funny, twisty murder mysteries with romance arcs running through them.’
‘Okay, so what you need to do is march back in there, keep your head high, and remind yourself that you’re hot shit, you’re the professional, you’ve been successful before and you’ll be successful again because you know what you’re doing. And then you sit your editor down and you tell her that you believe in your idea, that you’ll do a good job, and that you would really appreciate it if she would read what you had written so far so that the two of you can find a way to make it work for both of you.’
God, that sounds good.
‘But what if she still says no?’ I ask, because obviously I’m already thinking about what I’ll do when it all goes wrong, before it’s even happened.
‘Then you tell her, right, okay, then I think perhaps I need to take a step back, to take a break, and think about what I’m doing, and what I want to do moving forward,’ he replies.
‘Yeah?’ I say, unsure I can pull that off.
‘Yeah, make her sweat,’ he says. ‘You have more power than you realise. If she thinks you’re backing off then she’ll panic. She needs you to write this book too, you know?’
‘I’m in contract, obviously, so I can’t not do it,’ I remind him.
‘But what you’re forgetting is that it’s a contract that goes two ways,’ he says. ‘Do you think your editor can afford to humour you indefinitely? She has other authors to read the work of, meet, email with and so on. You don’t make the publisher a penny until you give them a book they can sell. It doesn’t make her look good, to be wasting time with an author who isn’t being productive.’
‘Okay, I see what you’re saying,’ I reply, draining the last of my latte. ‘So, basically, if I make it seem like I’m going to be a pain in her arse, who isn’t making the publisher any money, she’ll try harder to meet me in the middle, to create something we can both be happy with?’
‘That’s the plan,’ Tom replies. ‘But, Amber, listen to me, you have to believe in yourself. I don’t mean this in a corny way, it’s business. Anything that can be interpreted as any kind of weakness puts people off, and it doesn’t make them want to give you what you want. Go in there with confidence, and be clear about what you want, but at the same time try to say as few words as possible.’
‘Wait, you want me to be confident, but quiet?’ I check.
‘People who are nervous, anxious, scared – things that aren’t viewed as positive traits – tend to talk more,’ he explains. ‘They say too much, they show their hand, and that weakens their position. So say only what you have to, but mean it.’
I puff air from my cheeks.
‘Wow, okay, I get what you mean, and I definitely do all of that stuff, so that’s good to know,’ I reply.
‘I know you do,’ he chuckles. ‘That’s why you never got away with anything as a kid. It’s probably why you have a chronic apologising problem too.’
‘Something which I am tempted to apologise for, but I’ll start as I mean to go on,’ I say with a smile. ‘Okay, I’ll let you get back to work, and I’ll go kill a little more time before I head back in to see Jen, and I’m leaving with the kind of reply I want this time.’
