Total pages in book: 127
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 129951 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 650(@200wpm)___ 520(@250wpm)___ 433(@300wpm)
“I don’t know,” I returned. “Can you promise you’ll have a light hand?”
His natural purr was a scoff when he replied, “I don’t want to write the book for you, Ms. Dupree.”
“And I’m afraid you’re asking me to give you permission to do a version of that by giving you the power to decide if it’ll be published or not. By giving you the power to stamp it approved or denied after I’ve finished it. I don’t know you. Maybe you have a creative outlet. If you don’t, then allow me to educate you, just writing it knowing what might happen at the end will impede my creativity. Every writer has a different process. For me, my characters exist, not just the historical ones, the fictional ones too. The story is already there, real, even if the fictional part exists in my imagination. My part is to breathe life into the characters and their story. If I’m not free to breathe, how am I going to tell the story?”
“Perhaps we could come to a compromise?” he suggested.
“And that would be?” I asked warily.
“You share each chapter after it’s written. I’ll read it, and if something is concerning me, we’ll discuss it immediately in order that you don’t move forward worrying about what might befall the final manuscript. I would assume, after a few chapters, we would be on the same page and this process would become routine. Obviously, I’d want a final read through, but that should be no issue if you don’t change anything or add anything in between.”
I’d never done anything like this.
So could I do this?
To buy time to make a decision, I asked, “Would you want some kind of acknowledgement or something?”
“Hell no,” he answered so forcefully, I was now pissed that he clearly didn’t want anyone to know he’d had any part of one of my babies.
“Well, I wouldn’t wish to insult you by giving the reading world an indication you had anything to do with one of my books,” I said snottily.
“Again, I’m not writing your book for you, Ms. Dupree. I don’t need an acknowledgement.”
“You could just say, ‘thank you for mentioning that, but it won’t be necessary,’” I retorted.
“I see I’ve offended you,” he murmured, and I’d always thought brown eyes were warm and gentle, but this guy managed to make his condescending and haughty.
“This is what I do for a living, Your Grace. I’m proud of doing it. So, you saying,” I mimicked his forceful, “‘hell no’ at being offered an acknowledgement, uh, yeah, that’s offensive. Most people think an acknowledgement is an honor.”
“I only meant to say that’s not necessary. And my name is Battle.”
I ignored the invite to call him by his Christian name and retorted, “Well, as I just said, you could have said that.”
He sighed before he requested, “Allow me to understand what’s happening here. We were at an impasse, one that was rather calamitous for you. I offered a compromise as a solution to our differences, which would allow you to write the book you’ve been contracted to write. And now you haven’t addressed my suggested compromise because you’re angry I don’t want an acknowledgement I don’t deserve because I won’t be contributing to your writing, simply approving if the direction you’re going works for the Talyn legacy.”
Ulk.
It stunk that he was right in pointing out I was being unreasonable.
He was still kind of a dick.
I shifted to the matter at hand.
“I’ve never written that way,” I told him. “But it would be vastly preferrable to completing the project and having you nix it.”
“Then we’re agreed,” he said with strained patience.
“I guess,” I replied.
“Excellent. Shall I have my solicitors draw it up?”
“Can we agree that this verbal agreement holds while that’s happening so I can get to work tomorrow?”
He shook his head and crossed his arms on his chest. “Unnecessary. They’ll have the agreement ready before dinner. Simply meet me here, you can sign, and I’ll escort you to cocktails.”
If they could pull that off, one could say his attorneys worked fast.
“I’ll have to read it,” I warned.
“As it’ll probably be a single page, I doubt that will take long.”
“If there’s something fishy, I’ll want my agent to look over it.”
He let out a beleaguered breath. “There won’t be anything fishy about it, Vivienne.”
Oh Lord.
That purr gliding over my name?
It was the single most beautiful thing to ever hit my ears.
Shit.
“Okay, fine. We have an agreement,” I conceded.
He uncrossed his arms and offered me his hand to shake, stating, “Brilliant.”
Considering I passed out when I first laid eyes on him, I was more than a little scared to touch him.
I did it anyway, putting my hand in his, watching and feeling his long, strong fingers curl around, annnnnnnnnnd…
Yep.
An electric pulse shot up my arm from our connection, exploding at my shoulder and scattering deliciously across my back, neck and chest.