Total pages in book: 84
Estimated words: 79040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 79040 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 395(@200wpm)___ 316(@250wpm)___ 263(@300wpm)
“Legal already briefed me on her situation. It doesn’t look good. If she’s your ace, then you’re in bad shape.”
“Yeah, they are claiming Vaughn’s girlfriend wrote this book. But I’ve been thinking there’s a way we can spin this to our advantage. If we’re smart about the timing, we could really make Landmark look incompetent, too.”
Nolan leans back in the chair, rubbing his chin in thought. As usual, he doesn’t need more than a crumb or two to understand the whole plan. “So you’re saying we find a way to get her rights back, but we sit on it. We wait until Landmark has already gone as public as possible and tied themselves firmly to the Aubrie Dizzie story. Maybe we let them publish the book and then we play our hand. They’re forced to unpublish a book they tied their horse to and their reputation takes a massive hit. Stealing from young authors. Dishonesty. It’ll put everything they’re doing under a huge microscope and make other authors more hesitant to work with them.”
“Something like that,” I say, but my enthusiasm is draining rapidly. Hearing him say my half-formed plan aloud makes it really hit me. This would be massively screwing over Charli for our goals. It would mean lying to her and hiding the truth if I found out we could get the rights to her book back. It would mean forcing her to sit on her hands and watch Vaughn publish her book with someone else’s name on it. Even if we could get it back for her, how would that make her feel?
But, maybe this is what I need to do. It’s the kind of gesture that unequivocally shows me I’ve put my career before anything else again. Maybe Nolan’s right. We do this because it’s hard and we’re good at it. Maybe that’s enough. After all, life felt a hell of a lot simpler when I was my old self.
Nolan is up and pacing in circles. He’s stroking his chin and rubbing his thumb and forefinger together as he thinks. He’s already turning this sketch of a plan into reality in that big brain of his. I feel like I’ve opened a door I can’t close anymore. But that’s just an excuse. I could come clean to Charli as soon as we’re done here and I could go straight to her if legal hits me with good news.
But is that what I would do? Am I really going to betray my friend to help the girl I haven’t even known for two weeks?
“Shit,” he says, snapping his fingers. “This is good, Jameson. This is really good. It might be the only thing that could really slow down the train Landmark is running. Just like the old days, you’re saving our asses with this. He bumps his fist on my desk two times, smiling wide and full of happy energy. “Fuck, man. That’s perfect.” He points at me, biting back a smile. “This is why we’d be lost if you left. You’ve got that magic touch.”
He comes around the desk and gives my shoulder an appreciative squeeze. “We’re going to nail this, and you’ll realize you still love it too much to walk away. Just wait.”
I smile back at him and give his hand a pat.
He walks out of my office in a rush, probably preparing to go straight to legal himself and check in.
I run my hands through my hair. I think about texting Charli. Maybe I shouldn’t feel bad. This is the kind of shit I’ve always pulled, right? Work first. Have some fun and move on. Nobody ever got too attached, so nobody’s feelings were hurt that badly.
But I’m kidding myself. Charli has been different already. I promised her I’d help with her book. Sure, my plan with Nolan would really be some perfect revenge against Vaughn, but I doubt Charli would want to risk something going wrong with her novel for the sake of revenge. What if we let them publish and we can’t get it pulled? What if the double launch after a takedown kills any momentum and buzz her book has? What if Landmark fucks up the launch so badly that nobody wants to read the book when we repackage it and relaunch? There are plenty of perfectly valid, perfectly concerning questions.
I pull up her number and type out and delete at least ten messages before settling on one.
Jameson: Practice date again? They’ve got a Halloween event at the zoo, if you’re game.
Yeah, I was just talking about how I should treat her like the turtle and not scare her off. But I feel too guilty to just sit on my hands and wait three days for the mixer. My leg bounces while I wait, watching the screen. I almost send another message. Some version of “there’s something we need to talk about.”