Total pages in book: 130
Estimated words: 121054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 121054 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 605(@200wpm)___ 484(@250wpm)___ 404(@300wpm)
I found them in the sitting room. Valerie was dressed smart, but casual, in skinny jeans and a long black sweater. The loose sleeves were pushed up her arms, and her elbows were braced on her knees. She sat back in her chair when I entered and said a quiet, “Hello, Sophie.”
“Hi?” I said as I looked to Neil. He was on the sofa across the coffee table from her. His jaw was tight, his eyes utterly humorless. I glanced between them. “Did I miss something important?”
Valerie’s gaze snapped to Neil, her expression wavering somewhere between uncertainty and shame. What the fuck has she done?
“It’s all right. Sophie knows everything,” Neil told her. The coldness in his voice could have frozen water off the coast of Miami in August.
I sat beside him, my entire body suddenly tense, like I was watching someone trail a thumbtack over the surface of a balloon. Whatever was about to blow up, I wanted to brace myself for it, but covering my ears was also an attractive option.
I couldn’t read Valerie’s reaction. If I had to put a name to it, it would have been a combo of wariness and surprise and unpleasant shock. Warpriseock?
Even my gift for portmanteaus had deserted me.
“Then, you know…” She cleared her throat. “Sophie, your book was very popular, wasn’t it?”
You know it was popular, bitch. It was on The New York Times list. “Yes… Is this something to do with me?”
“In a way.” Valerie glanced at Neil again, like she was asking permission to do something horrible. “You know that my brother, Stephen, was…involved with Neil.”
“Yeah, he told me.” This conversation sure was jumping around. “He said he was with Stephen before he was with you.”
“We were never ‘with’ each other. We had sex on occasion. There was no romantic relationship.” I’d only heard Neil use his current tone on a few occasions, and they’d all been serious as fuck. Like when I’d casually dismissed his worry over his cancer. And when he’d found out that I’d been kind of double-crossing his company.
So, this was really bad.
“Neil. You know that’s not true. You—” She stopped short at the murderous expression he cut her. To me, she said, “Stephen is a television presenter now, and he’s somewhat well-known here. And, as such, he’s an object of some interest to people.”
“I’m following,” I assured her.
With one more glance to Neil, she told me, “He’s planning to write a memoir. It will include some chapters about his involvement in the BDSM lifestyle. A large portion of that section will cover the time he spent with Neil. There are details—”
Neil exhaled an impatient breath. “He’s going to reveal intimate details of our brief sex life,” he finished for her.
“Neil, if I had any control over this—” Valerie began, and it seemed like they’d already covered this part.
Neil interrupted her again. “You had better find some way to control this. He’s your brother.”
“And it’s not being published through an Elwood and Stern company. My hands are as tied as yours.”
I snorted, but my unintentional mirth was quickly silenced by two nasty glares. “Sorry,” I tried to explain. “Tied hands, BDSM…”
“Yes, Sophie, I understood your joke.” He turned his ire on Valerie. “He is your brother. This is your mess to clean up.”
“How does he even have enough to write about Neil?” I had struggled to flesh out my book, and I lived with the man. “All these years later, what could he possibly have to say? So, people will know that you’re into the whole domination and submission thing. So, what? Aren’t people okay with that now, what with that spank-me book that was everywhere?”
“With the concept of it, yes,” Neil said. “But it is still humiliating to have your personal proclivities described for an audience. Especially when those descriptions won’t be entirely accurate.”
“Wait, what?” I asked, but he gave me a slight shake of his head, as if to say we’d discuss it later.
“I’ve tried to reason with him on this point, but he won’t budge,” Valerie explained apologetically.
I still wasn’t grasping why it was such a big deal. I mean, I wouldn’t shout to the rooftops that I liked to be spanked and slapped during sex, but if someone found out, it wouldn’t be the end of the world. “Neil, there are like four unauthorized biographies about you already. None of them seem to have hurt you. Why would this one?”
“This one will have a wider readership,” he explained tersely. “The only people reading those four books you’ve cited are likely biography enthusiasts or young professionals who think they’ll learn the secrets to my success.”
“This one has celebrity buying power behind it,” Valerie continued. “Stephen is in the public eye, more so than Neil. The salacious memoir of a television personality will sell much better than a cancer narrative about a rich man who’s only slightly on the radar.”