“No,” Mellie said. “Not exactly.”
“No or not exactly?” the attorney asked.
“Can we just wait?” she asked.
“Our contract is with you,” the attorney said. “So, no, we can’t wait.”
Mellie swallowed hard, feeling completely on the spot.
At that moment, the door opened, and Charming stepped in.
He looked perfect in his gray suit. It brought out the highlights in his hair, accented his broad shoulders, and made him seem even more handsome than he was.
His gaze met hers for a brief moment, warming her, then he smiled at everyone else in the room.
“Hi,” he said, “I’m Dave Encanto. I hope I’m not too late…?”
Then he walked to the table, letting the door close behind him.
Chapter 43
Charming hurried as fast as he could to get to the meeting. The train arrived at Penn Station a few minutes early, but he had trouble getting a cab. Then he made the mistake of telling the driver to step on it, a mistake he would never make again.
He had faced knights in battle, he had jousted with real lances, he’d fenced with real swords, but he had never been so scared in his entire life as that cab—with his daughters inside it—bounced its way across Manhattan, hurtling through spaces between cars he thought too small for a vehicle to get through.
The cab nearly creamed one bike messenger, and another kicked the side, screaming a profanity that Charming hoped the girls hadn’t heard. Imperia loved the ride, and Grace clung to him, looking as terrified as he felt.
Still, they managed to arrive safely, even if Charming thought his heart rate would never return to normal, and he managed to find his way to the correct floor of the multistory building.
The girls seemed cowed by New York and the large building in general. He kept forgetting how little they had seen of the Greater World. But he didn’t have time to explain things to them. He had to get to that meeting.
He felt bad that he had to leave the girls in the reception area, but he knew he couldn’t bring them with him. Still, he probably freaked out the receptionist by stressing that no one, and he meant no one, could take the girls from the building without him being there.
She said she understood and then smiled at him—he did have his charm on full blast—and offered to take him to the back. He said he could find the room on his own, which turned out to be a lot harder than he thought, since the place was filled with cubicles and offices that looked exactly the same.
Finally, he stumbled on the conference room, and only because he saw Mellie’s worried face. She was leaning back in one of the plush chairs around a large desk, looking like she expected to get slapped.
He pushed the door open.
“Hi,” he said, “I’m Dave Encanto. I hope I’m not too late…?”
He had the charm on as high as he could crank it, his voice warm, his eyes warmer. He only looked at Mellie as he came in the door, and she seemed even more upset than he imagined she would be.
The man at the head of the table—too thin by half—and the man sitting next to him both frowned.
“Mr. Encanto,” the man at the head of the table. “And here I was hoping you were a figment of Cindy Jordan’s imagination.”
“No such luck,” Charming said with a smile. “Would you all mind if I sat down?”
He didn’t want for an answer as he walked to Mellie’s side. He pulled out the chair next to her, touched her knee under the table, and gave her a soft reassuring smile.
She didn’t smile back.
“That’s, um, Mr. Phillips,” she said to Charming as she indicated the thin man, “and Anne Groton, the head of publicity. And that’s the company’s lawyer—”
“I’m Mary Linda McIntosh,” said the woman across from Mellie. “I edited the project.”
As if he didn’t know who the editor was. They probably assumed he didn’t know. They had no idea exactly who he was or what his role was. Mary Linda McIntosh introduced everyone else—a publisher, the head of publicity, and the head of sales, as well as the agent he and Mellie had hired at the suggestion of Sheldon McArthur. The only person who didn’t get introduced was the woman at the end of the table who was trying to disappear.
“I saw the interview,” Charming said, deciding he would take over this meeting. He knew that his charm would go a long way to defusing the tension he felt in the room. “It was a hatchet job.”
“Are you saying that it’s not true?” The lawyer was the one who spoke for everyone.
“Parts of it are true,” Charming said. “That’s what makes it so devastating.”
He turned to Mellie.
“Did you bring the paper?” he asked.
She fumbled with her purse. She had a copy of their agreement on her laptop and her one assignment, besides coming to this meeting, was to print it out.
She pulled out a copy of the agreement, folded into a small square. She handed it to Charming, who held it for just a moment.
“Let me tell you what’s true, and let me tell you what’s not,” Charming said. “The short version, anyway.”
He paused just long enough to create a little drama, but not long enough for anyone to interrupt him. Everyone stared at him, including Mellie.
“This is Mellie’s book,” he said. “It’s her idea, her life fictionalized in fairy tale format, her cause. She tried to write it on her own, but writing isn’t her strong suit—that part is true. She asked me to help. We met at a coffee shop, where we also met Dave Bourke, who overheard us talk about this. Mellie had the idea to turn it into a screenplay, but after talking with Bourke, decided that wasn’t feasible.”
Charming tapped the paper on the desk. Everyone continued to watch him. Good. They couldn’t take their eyes off him, often a sign that the charm was working.
“So we thought that I could teach her to write, but the problem was that she felt the timing on this book was now, and I thought she was right. So I offered to ghost the book, using her ideas, her words, and her story. We were on the phone constantly, always updating, and a lot of the dialogue as well as the opinions are all hers, word for word. We drew up an agreement—”
He stood and handed the paper to Phillips, the president, bypassing the lawyer on purpose.
“—in which she paid me to write the book. She would own the content and the manuscript. I would be in charge of the words, she was in charge of everything else including promotion. Initially we thought she would have to pay for the promotion part herself, but she was willing. She wanted this book out there. We didn’t expect the big sale, but we’re happy about it.”
“You have no claim to the book?” Mary Linda asked Charming.
“None,” Charming said. “I wrote it for a fee, like any other ghost writer.”
Phillips read the agreement. He said nothing as he handed it to the lawyer.
“It would’ve been nice to know the book was ghosted,” Phillips said to Mellie.
“I didn’t—I’m sor—I’m new to this,” she said. Her entire body was tense. Charming wanted to put his arm around her and calm her, but he didn’t dare.
“We weren’t sure about procedure,” Charming said. “I’m a bookseller and I asked some other bookseller friends. We all knew that publishers hired ghost writers for people, but we also heard of people by themselves hiring ghost writers on spec. That’s what we set up.”
“You didn’t get paid very much,” the lawyer said to Charming.
“I don’t need money,” Charming said. “I have family money. This was a favor for a friend.”
“We needed to know this up front,” the lawyer said.
“I’m sorry,” Mellie said before Charming could say anything. She sounded horrified.
He wished she’d stop apologizing. But he couldn’t tell her that either.
“Did you know this, Marcus?” Phillips asked the agent.
“No,” he said.
“Because that reporter made it
sound like fraud,” Phillips said.
“It’s not,” the lawyer said before Charming could say anything. “They had an agreement. This is legally binding. The manuscript is hers. She had the right to sign the contract and to warrant that she owned it. She does.”
“But what about all the charges Cindy Jordan made?” Anne Groton, the head of publicity, asked. Her voice was soft but had an edge.
“The charges?” Charming said just as softly. “You mean the accusations that woman made?”
“Yes,” Groton leaned forward. “She made it sound like you people were out to hurt everyone you know.”
Charming sighed deliberately. “That reporter was good. Everything she said had a slice of truth.”
He softened his expression and looked at her as if she were the only person in the room. That kind of look, combined with his charm, used to make women swoon.
He didn’t make her swoon, but he got her shoulders to stop hunching forward.
“These slices of truth,” he said, “are exactly what you’d expect, given the book. Mellie does not have a good relationship with her stepdaughter. Their relationship was the spark for the novel.”
“Her name is S. White,” said the woman at the far end of the table.
“Essy White-Levanger, LaTisha, I told you,” Mellie said. She was getting irritated, which wouldn’t help anything.
“And that name is the inspiration for using Snow White,” Charming said smoothly. “It works, since Mellie is her stepmother, and they do have a bumpy relationship, although, of course, Mellie’s never been accused of murder.”
In the Greater World, anyway, but he didn’t add that.
“It’s all fodder, and Mellie used it for the book. She even tried to tell her stepdaughter she was doing this, but her stepdaughter wouldn’t take the messages, so she was blindsided.”
“This is a mess,” Phillips said.
“Yes, it is,” Charming said. “But people’s lives are messy. I’ve been following the publicity around this book, and up until yesterday, it’s Mellie’s understanding of that mess that readers love.”
Mellie glanced at him. She gave him a small, grateful smile. He smiled back, a real smile, just for her.
“Mr. Encanto is right,” Groton said. “It is the mess that readers love. The fact that sometimes the people who love us the most aren’t people we’re related to, but people who join our family later. The book acknowledges how difficult family relationships are, and this fuss just proves it.”
Mellie started to say something, but Charming brushed her leg, silencing her. The publishing people were already headed in the right direction. Better to let them come to their own conclusions.
Groton turned to the lawyer. “I need to know if we’re in legal trouble.”
The lawyer looked at Charming and Mellie, a small frown on his face. Then he turned to Groton.
“If everything they’ve just told us is true, no, we’re not.”
“It’s true,” Mellie said, a tad more desperately than Charming would have liked.
No one looked at her.
Groton nodded. “Good. Because we can use this entire mess to our advantage.”
She smiled at Charming. “You, sir, are very charming. Do you know that?”
There was a sparkle in her eye that he didn’t like.
“So I’ve been told,” he said dryly.
Mellie tensed beside him.
“We’ll send you out to explain this whole thing,” she said. “You have charisma and—”
“No,” Charming said.
Everyone in the room looked at him. They seemed surprised.
“No?” Phillips said.
“No,” Charming said. “This book is Mellie’s. It’s got a lot of traction, because of her. I’ll just screw that up. Besides, I have no agreement with you people. Mine’s with her, and it explicitly states that I’m the ghost on this. I stay hidden.”
Phillips said, “But—”
“No,” Charming said.
“He’s right,” the lawyer said. “He has no legal obligation to us.”
“It’ll save the book,” Groton said.
“The book doesn’t need saving,” Charming said. “I checked. I own a bookstore and I have a lot of bookseller friends. We all sold out of Evil in the last twenty-four hours. Ingram has copies on back order. So do all the other distributors. This book is selling like crazy because of the publicity. So you guys need to manage it. You have the agreement. That’s all you need.”
“He’s right about the numbers,” the head of sales said.
Phillips nodded. Charming had a sense the man already knew how well the book was selling.
“I’d like you for one interview,” Phillips said to Charming. “Just one.”
“No,” Charming said. “I’m not sitting next to Mellie on some talk show, fielding questions about her book. It gives the wrong message.”
“What message do you think it would give?” the head of sales asked.
“I want this to be seen as Mellie’s book one hundred percent,” Charming said. “Because it is. If I sit next to her on some show, then it’s our book, and that’s just wrong.”
Phillips sighed. “How about a print interview then? Just about process. I’m sure we can get a reporter from the New York Times to come over here and talk to you—briefly—with one of us in the room. It would save the book.”
“The book doesn’t need saving,” Charming said.
“But its reputation does,” Phillips said. “We need people to know it’s legit.”
Charming looked at Mellie. The word “reputation” got him. That was what had concerned her from the beginning.
“I don’t want to take anything away from you,” he said softly, hoping she would understand. He didn’t want to be on a television show for another reason, one he couldn’t express here.
His charm would make him the only person the camera saw. It had happened before, on Book TV. No matter how good Mellie was at publicity—and she was damn fine at it—she’d pale in comparison. No one would see her.
He didn’t want that.
“You won’t take anything away from me,” she said, and his breath caught. He willed her to take that phrase back. She was missing the problem. He was going to have to fight this thing by himself.
But she continued. “I think everyone is right. One interview in print only would help.”
She stressed “in print.” So she saw the charm problem as well. And she thought print was the solution.
Charming didn’t want to do any interviews, but talking to one print reporter (and charming that reporter) was a risk he could take. There wouldn’t be film of this, and even if the reporter became besotted, Charming could use that to his advantage.
He could manipulate the reporter into telling the story Charming wanted to tell, not the story that everyone believed after Cindy Jordan’s hatchet job.
He sighed again, and this time, the sigh was heartfelt.
“All right,” he said. “When do you want me to do it?”
“As soon as we can get someone down here,” Groton said. “The sooner we quash this story, the better.”
Mellie nodded. Charming’s stomach knotted.
“And LaTisha,” Groton said to the woman at the far end of the table, “call the interviews we already have set up. Tell them we’ll be there, and we’ll be sending over a statement beforehand, just so that they know this controversy is bogus.”
“Okay,” she said and left the room.
Groton looked at Mellie. “Is there any other reason this screenwriter would badmouth you?”
Groton was smarter than Charming would have liked. But Mellie didn’t flinch.
“He wanted to date me,” she said. “And I said no.”
“The truth is,” Charming said, “that when she said no, he made a scene in the coffee shop and got kicked out for good. He was a jerk. I’m sure everyone, from the barista to the regulars, will corroborate that.”
&nbs
p; “And you two,” Groton said, looking at Mellie and Charming. “What exactly is your relationship?”
Charming put his hand over Mellie’s.
“That,” he said quietly, “is entirely between us.”
Chapter 44
Charming’s answer to the head of publicity had been absolutely perfect—and completely infuriating. Mellie wanted him to tell them that he cared for her, that they were more than friends. But it wasn’t any of their business, and besides, he hadn’t told his own daughters yet.
She understood, and wished she hadn’t.
But she loved the feel of his hand over hers. And she loved the way he had ridden to her rescue, even though she had never been a woman who needed rescuing before.
Charming kept his hand on hers for the rest of the meeting, just resting lightly on her skin, making her feel warm and safe. Anne Groton looked at their joined hands from time to time, and said nothing.
Then when the meeting was over, Groton told Mellie to come to her office to check the revised schedule, while Phillips asked Charming to stay in the conference room. They would have a reporter join him shortly.
“Mellie should stay too,” Charming said.
Phillips shook his head. “On this one, they do separate interviews. The important interview is with you.”
Charming sighed.
“I’ll meet you out front,” Mellie said, and he nodded, looking trapped and uncomfortable.
She went to Groton’s office. The schedule was slightly different—more interviews crammed into tomorrow than initially planned. Mellie had to do two print interviews here at the publishing house, and she got to see those journalists after Phillips and Groton finished with them.
Mellie had no idea which journalist was interviewing Charming, and she really didn’t want to know.
Groton promised Mellie a quiet night, since the rest of the tour would be crazy.
“I’d offer to take you to a spectacular dinner,” Groton said, “but I have a hunch you want to spend time with your charming ghost writer.”
The way she said it meant she understood exactly how Mellie felt about Charming.
Mellie didn’t exactly know how to answer. Groton smiled. “I’d want to have dinner with him too. He seems like a very nice man.”
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