CHAPTER TWENTY
It was showdown time. Evenly matched (kinda). The participants of the literary gunfight were all intelligent—well, two of them were. The other was dim, but catching on.
“You’re willing to sign another contract,” Don said, fiddling with his pen. “For three books.”
“See?” Marie said to Tony, delighted. “I told you we didn’t need the hand puppets. He understood you just fine.”
“What’s the catch?”
“Why so suspicious?” Tony asked.
“I know the psycho.”
This with an uneasy grin, which faded when Tony didn’t smile back. Just stared at him before saying, quite calmly, “That’s. Not. Okay.”
Don shrugged, his version of ‘I’m terribly sorry, that was inappropriate, won’t happen again’. “She’s got something up her sleeve, is what I’m saying. Probably a .357 Magnum. What’s the catch?”
“Well. There’s one minor stipulation.”
Don Peter, Senior Editor, groped for the aspirin bottle on his desk. Marie saw without surprise that it was roughly the size of a milk jug. “I knew it. You’ve come bearing gifts to the pig in the poke, and now you’re thinking you’ll get two birds with one stone.”
“You’ve really got a way with words, Don.”
Tony leaned forward. “Two of the books will be romance novels. Historicals, three hundred pages or more...the moneymakers.”
“And the third?”
“Marie gets to pick the genre.”
“Nope.”
“Told you,” Marie pointed out.
“You did, but I never thought he’d throw away the profit potential because he was too gutless to gamble on a third book. His choice, though.” Tony shifted in his chair. “Okay, well, I hear St. Martins has been interested in signing you for a while. We’ll—”
“Siddown!”
They sat. Don glared, his gaze unblinking. Like a lizard’s.
“The romances come first,” he said after a long beat.
She yawned, concealing her joy.
“Sure,” Tony replied easily.
“And the third isn’t literary-like. Something else. True crime or something. And under your own name. We own Jessica C. LeFleur.”
Oooh, Marie thought. That’s telling me.
“Oh, all right,” Tony sighed. “You drive a hard bargain, Don. You’ve got yourself a contract.”
“I’ve got it,” she said, jumping up. “How about a gripping mystery? Beautiful, intelligent authoress is accused of murdering her simian editor. While no jury in the world would convict her, still, she struggles with the eternal question of—”
Don was crunching more aspirin. “And no funny names in the romance novels. And knock off the quotes.”
“‘It is a good thing for an uneducated man to read books of quotations.’ Winston Churchill.”
“‘I hate quotations,’” Tony replied, “‘tell me what you know.’ Ralph Waldo Emerson.”
She stared at Tony, feeling a quite goofy smile come over her. He grinned back. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her editor shudder and put the top back on the aspirin. All was right with the world.