Breaking Into the Business Page 2

  I stopped at the counter and looked down at the caller ID. Of course, it was “unknown” like all of the ones before it. I considered letting it go to voicemail, but I had tried that before, and the caller only hung up. At least if I answered, there was a slight chance the person on the other line might finally decide to talk to me.

  So I reached down and picked the phone up. I answered and waited for the person on the other end to say something, but like all of the ones before, all I got was heavy breathing. Occasionally, other background noises could be heard, but nothing to identify who the caller was or from where they were calling.

  “Hello,” I said again.

  Still nothing.

  “Please tell me why you keep calling here,” I said, just as I had all of the others times. I decided to step it up a little. “I’ve got the police monitoring my phone line now and they’re tracing your call as we speak.”

  Obviously, the caller wasn’t buying it, because he stayed on the line, just breathing deeply.

  Finally, I just hung up the phone and screamed. I screamed so loud, I thought the neighbors might call the cops. The frustrating helplessness about these calls always got under my skin.

  I wish I knew who this was that kept calling the house. When they had started, I assumed that it was Frank’s creepy way of checking on us to make sure we were still alive. I had no idea where he was or what he was up to, and in fact, I hadn’t seen him since the day he left. Our divorce had been handled through attorneys and we signed at separate meetings.

  That was the only explanation that I could come up with. All of my bills were current, so they couldn’t be creditors, unless Frank had taken out credit cards that I didn’t know about. Of course, a creditor would announce themselves if they called. I had heard horror stories of collection companies resorting to nasty efforts to get their money, but I didn’t think that heavy breathing was their latest method.

  I couldn’t dwell on it too much, because I needed to get to the office. My manuscripts were due and I had to pick up another stack from the pile.

  I found my makeup bag in my office and applied a little lipstick and eyeliner. I smacked my lips and stared in the mirror, quite pleased with myself about the way I looked. If only, some cute, single men were in the office that was in my desired age range.

  As I passed the high school, I thought of Jake and Mallory. So far, I had kept them from finding out about the phone calls. I had been careful not to talk about it in front of them because the last thing I needed was for them to stress over this.

  No, this was my burden to carry. I was their mother, and the parent that had stayed. Whatever I did in life, their needs came first. Somehow, I had to figure out what those calls were about and put a stop to it.

  Chapter Three

  One fortunate aspect of being late was that traffic had already dissipated by that time. I got onto the toll way and made my way to the office. Somehow, leaving my little subdivision was a breath of fresh air.

  When I walked into the office, dozens of people were milling about, and luckily, nobody noticed my entrance. That was one of the many reasons I considered myself average. I could blend into a crowd, even in my hussy get up.

  My assigned cubicle was off to the side of the office, away from the big wigs whose window offices lined the far wall. The offices in that area were reserved for their secretaries and the acquisition editors whose job it was to bring in new authors.

  Unfortunately, I was a lonely manuscript editor. I had an assortment of authors from the depths of our publishing house’s C-List and D-List ranks. The volume for each title was low, but the company felt that if we could crank enough out, there were some profits to be made.

  Exclusive editors were assigned to big name authors, and those coveted jobs were all placed near acquisitions in the office, well away from the lowly job of manuscript editors.

  When I set my purse down on my desk, I heard a chair squeak next to me. My cube-neighbor, Ben Turner, poked his head over the top.

  “Hey, Lana,” he said.

  “Hello, Ben,” I smiled.

  “Glad you could grace us with your presence,” he said.

  I rolled my eyes and smirked. He was a nice boy in his junior year of college. During the summer before his freshman year, he showed up at the front desk with folders full of his literary accomplishments and he had begged for a job. One of the big wigs just happened to be walking into the office and Ben had hounded him. The particular executive couldn’t be bothered, so he hired him on the spot.

  “So the meeting is already adjourned?” I asked. Of course, I already knew the answer to that question.

  “Yes,” Ben said.

  “Are they listening to you yet?” I asked.

  “I’m making some headway,” he said. “They still don’t like the fact that my proposal gives the authors a significant amount of their royalties for the e-book.”

  Even though Ben was just eleven years younger than I was, he was clearly from a different generation. The company should have championed that fact, but instead they chose to ignore his ideas. The publishing world was changing fast, and with the rise of the e-book and the ease of self-publishing, the traditional publishers were taking a hit. Authors, many of them big names, were leaving after contract expirations and setting out on their own, with the promise of a larger percentage of the royalties.

  Ben had a plan to counter that and possibly save their company. He had written out an enormous proposal and had numbers to back up his ideas. He presented it to those men in the windowed offices, but it had met with such resistance. Months later, they had begun to listen, but still they weren’t ready to take the full plunge and go with his ideas.

  I thought of him as a genius. I had read his proposal before he had presented it and found it flawless. He was an innovator and had a familiarity with technology and culture that most in the office couldn’t fathom. His fingers had a better hold on the pulse of society, whereas the rest of us were simply worried about keeping our jobs.

  “They’ll listen eventually,” I told him. “Let’s just hope it’s not too late when they do.”

  “It’s whatever,” he waved it off. He walked around our cube wall and stopped in the entrance to mine. He was a nice looking kid, but in that geeky way. His complexion was a little pale, but he had nice facial features, and his glasses framed light brown eyes were pretty. “It’s not like this is where I’m going to make my post-college career.”

  “There are big things out there for you, Ben,” I said.

  “I hope so,” he said. “Did you hear about the pay cuts?”

  “No, I didn’t.”

  “Well, the part time staff had their pay cut down,” Ben said. “I don’t know what I’m going to do. I tried to take on more hours, but they wouldn’t let me. Now my weekly check barely covers my rent and car insurance. That leaves me no money for food or anything else.”

  “Oh dear,” I said. “I’m so sorry.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “I know, but if I were in a better position, I could help you.”

  “I wouldn’t dream of asking you for help,” Ben said. “You’re a single mom and have two kids to worry about. You definitely don’t need a third.”

  “But I still wish that I could,” I said. “It’s just silly that this company cuts your pay when you are the only one who knows how to keep this place afloat.”

  “Tell me about it,” he sighed.

  “So you want to do lunch?” I asked.

  “Sounds good to me,” he said.

  “I’ll buy.”

  “I can’t let you do that,” he said.

  “Nonsense, I got it. But it’s got to be cheap.” I smiled.

  Ben leaned in closer. “So I heard that Jeremy Towers is coming into the office today.”

  “What?” I gasped. He was one of the biggest name authors that the company represented. I had never had the wonderful chance to work with him, but I would sell my soul for a chance to
talk to him for thirty seconds.

  “Yeah, he should be here soon.”

  I was suddenly glad that I had chosen to fix myself up. The odds that I would have the chance to see, much less speak to him, would be next to impossible.

  As if our conversation about him were some sort of telepathic invitation for him to enter, Jeremy Towers came walking through the front door. His entrance was announced first by all of the other staff standing up and gawking. Of course, I had to take a peek myself, but I could barely manage to hoist myself up enough to look over the top of the cube.

  “Can you see him?” Ben asked.

  “Just a little,” I said.

  Finally, I gave up and plopped back down. “I don’t think I’ll get the chance to see him. I don’t want to be one of those that line up along the main aisle like he’s a parade float.”

  Ben smiled. “Before we go to lunch, maybe we can walk through the office and try to catch a peek.”

  Before I could answer, someone behind Ben called my name.

  “Ms. Ford.”

  Ben turned around and stumbled backwards. I scrunched my forehead in confusion and tried to peer around him.

  That’s when I saw Mr. Leighton, one of the company executives. I nearly fainted when I saw that famed author and drop dead gorgeous Jeremy Towers appear beside him.

  Clutching my hand to my clavicle, I tried to force a response. “Yes,” was all I could manage.

  “This is Mr. Towers,” he said, beckoning to the man next to him. “We’re about to go into a meeting, and when we get out, I would like for you to visit with him about your plans for the next few weeks.”

  I shook my head to make sure that I wasn’t dreaming. What plans was he referring to?

  “I can see by the look on your face that you’re confused,” Mr. Leighton smiled. “I sent you an e-mail this morning, but I see that you haven’t even turned on your computer this morning. Our meeting should only last a half hour, so please see to it that you log on to your system and read my e-mail. That should explain everything.”

  “I apologize, Mr. Leighton,” I stammered, never taking my eyes off of Jeremy. “And to you too, Mr. Towers.”

  “Please, call me Jeremy,” he said. His voice was a deep baritone, and it was as sexy as the rest of him.

  “I will read the e-mail immediately,” I said. “And I’ll be prepared for whatever it is you need of me.”

  “Good,” he said with a half-smile.

  Mr. Leighton led the client away to the nicer side of the office. As soon as they rounded the corner, Ben whirled around, his eyes so big I thought they might pop out of his head.

  “Did you hear that?” he asked rhetorically.

  “Of course,” I said. I turned and sat in my chair. Flicking on my computer, I started tapping the desk in front of me in futile hope that it would make the start-up process go faster.

  “What do you think he wants?” Ben asked.

  “I don’t know, but I’m freaking out,” I said. “This can’t be good.”

  “Of course it’s good,” Ben said.

  “No, I mean that I’m not prepared, so how can that be good? Jeremy Towers is one of the biggest clients in this office, so whatever they’re asking me to do has to be huge, and I’m supposed to prepare in less than half an hour.”

  “I’ll help you.”

  “I just might take you up on the offer,” I replied.

  A few minutes later, my computer had finally booted up and I accessed my company e-mail account. There it was at the top of a list of unread e-mails. My hand shook so much that it made it difficult to hover over the e-mail and double click.

  I scanned the e-mail first and then went back and read it in detail. There wasn’t much there, so there couldn’t be a way to misinterpret. Famous author and journalist Jeremy Towers had personally requested that I be assigned to his manuscripts. He had heard about my work from another lesser-known author friend of his, and had been so inspired by the other’s words that he insisted I do all of his editing. Today, following his brief meeting with Mr. Leighton, I was to have lunch with Mr. Towers and a calendar reminder accompanied the e-mail.

  “I can’t go to lunch today,” I told Ben.

  “Is it that bad?” he asked.

  I filled him in on the e-mail.

  “That’s wonderful!”

  “Shh,” I said. “I don’t want anyone else to hear.”

  “Why? This is great news.”

  “People will get jealous. I’m a nobody around here and then suddenly one of our biggest clients asks for me. You know the others on our side aren’t going to take this well. I’m going to be ostracized.”

  “Who cares? You don’t even come into the office that often anyway.”

  “It’s the principle,” I said.

  “You aren’t looking at this the right way,” Ben said. “You get to go to lunch with one of your crushes.”

  “That’s true,” I said, trying to hide my smile. I was sitting there trying to search out the negative aspects of this new endeavor, when there were so many positives.

  I was going to get to eat lunch with the hottest man I had met in a long time. And I had chosen that day to fix myself up. Maybe everything would turn out okay.

  The little restaurant on the corner was crowded, which lessened the nervousness that the situation had presented. Jeremy and I had taken my SUV and arrived within a few minutes. On the way there, he had talked about his latest book signing when a crazy fan had tried to get him to sign her breast.

  We had to wait a few minutes for a table, and halfway through the wait, I was tempted to drop Jeremy’s name to see if it would get us a table any faster, but thought better of it. My position in the company was increasing in prestige with this new assignment and I had to act the part.

  When we sat down, Jeremy actually pulled the chair out for me, which only made me like him even more. As I sat back in the chair, I crossed my legs and waited for him to speak first.

  “It is lovely to meet you,” Jeremy said. “A colleague of mine told me how prompt and diligent you were on his manuscript, so I knew that you were the one that I had to work with.”

  “That’s good to hear,” I smiled. “So, tell me what you’re working on right now.”

  “You’ll be editing my latest book,” Jeremy said. “I’ve just finished the first draft and need for you to take a look at it. In it, I detail nearly a dozen accounts of obese women trying to have children. It’s a very intriguing story and will be filled with many photographs to chronicle their journey.”

  “Did any of them get pregnant?”

  “Five of them did get pregnant,” he said. “But two of them could not carry the baby to full term. They endured a plethora of health risks. The women that I talk about are many hundreds of pounds, so the stakes and potential problems are severe.”

  “That’s awful,” I said, holding my hand up to my mouth.

  Jeremy Towers was known for these types of books though. It shouldn’t have surprised me. His critics in the literary circles asserted that he was no more than the reality TV of the publishing world. There was truth to many of their claims. If you read his book titles off, you wouldn’t know whether you were talking about books or the fall line-up of basic cable programs.

  His primary profession was as a journalist for one of the largest online magazines in the world. He wrote very typical exposes, such as stories about puppy mills, teenage pregnancy, and even one piece on the treatment of women in some backwoods church in Mississippi.

  Of course, much of what his critics said was absolutely correct, but the most important thing to consider was that it made him a lot of money. Not the type of “lot of money” that pays the bills and you can live off of. No, he had enough money to put him in league with the highest earning percentage of the population.

  “This one was a tough assignment,” Jeremy agreed. “Some of the cases broke my heart, but most of them did end happily.”

  “How could those stories
end happily?”

  “Some of the women were able to use the money that I paid them for their story to have surgeries, lose enough weight and become healthier. One of my subjects was able to get below two hundred pounds and is currently trying again to have a child. Two of the others who have lost a significant amount of weight are now proceeding with plans for adoption.”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said.

  The waitress interrupted our conversation so that we could both place our orders. I tried to make eye contact with the waitress, but that was hard, because out of the corner of my eye, I could see Jeremy staring at me. I actually stuttered when placing my order.

  When she had written both of our orders down and disappeared, I turned back to him. Apparently, he had never taken his eyes off of me.

  “I’m really glad to have you on board for this project,” he said.

  “I’m glad, too.”

  “I can promise you a mention in my acknowledgments,” he said.

  “That would be great.”

  He was about to say something and then stopped. He cocked his head to the side and his eyes narrowed, as if he were studying me like one of his subjects.

  “Is something wrong?” I asked him.

  “Yes,” he said pointedly. He studied me for a second longer before finally speaking. “My friend failed to mention one key fact about you and your work.”

  “I hope it won’t be anything that will affect the project,” I said quickly. My mind reeled, trying to figure out just what it was he was referring to. I had never made an enemy and had a proven record of accomplishment in my profession. Granted, I didn’t have any notable work under my belt, but I still had plenty of years’ experience.

  “I must speak frankly and I hope that this does not make you uncomfortable,” he said. “But you are incredibly attractive.”

  “Oh, wow,” I said. Luckily, he brought that one out before the food arrived, because if I had been eating, I would have spit the contents of my mouth out all over the table.