It’s a great story, Hallie. A Hollywood story. All of it—not just the screenplay. And you’re stuck with it, whether you want to be or not. At least if we get it settled now, there will be some peace for you. You can finish all of this business and start to move on with your life. I know you do want that.”
She’s right, even though I don’t want to admit it. I’m exhausted and I need some measure of normalcy and that will never happen with the screenplay hanging over my head. I sit back down and open my mouth to respond, but she’s not finished.
“They also want a guarantee that you’ll do the press junket when they start filming and when it comes out in theaters.”
The thought of sitting on someone’s couch and revealing all of my dirty little secrets makes me want to throw up. But I nod. That one was always a given. I’ll deal with it later. Avoidance. It’s a good strategy.
“There’s up-front money for the production rights and there’s a nice little piece of the back-end profits on the films, increasing with each one. Here’s the number.”
She slides the piece of paper even further across the table and when I give it a cursory glance, I can’t do anything but laugh. It’s a ridiculous sum.
“This is the budget for the movie?”
“No, Hallie. That’s the amount of money that they’re going to give you for the rights to the trilogy and the first script. It doesn’t include what they’ll pay for the next scripts or the back-end, which will be significantly more than that. Lightgate’s willing to give us more up-front, but they’re not budging on the rest of your requirements, so I think we should just take this offer and be done with it.”
Hearing her tell me that this is about to be over is music to my ears, at least until I look back down again. There are so many zeroes that I can’t even begin to fathom what I could ever do with a tiny fraction of the sum.
Millions and millions of dollars. For some pieces of paper.
“Take it. I just want to get out of here.”
She jumps up and does a little victory dance, pulling me to my feet and practically lifting me from the ground with her final spin.
“Fabulous! You won’t regret this. I promise.”
I can’t quite match her enthusiasm, but the relief that all of this is about to be over has calmed my initial fears and the slight rumbling in my stomach reminds me that I haven’t eaten since the hormone-free room service fiasco. As she leaves the room to rally the troops, I glance around to see if someone had the foresight to leave some food out. I scramble hastily from my chair when I see elaborate baskets with pastries and fruit, complete with tiny jars of expensive jellies, sitting untouched along the back counter. There’s even a fancy silver urn that I’m praying contains coffee.
As Eva reaches the cluster of people standing just outside the door, I hear clapping and cheering all around. Great. My fleeting moment of solitude is about to be interrupted again.
I busy myself with the condiment packages as loud chatter about casting and location scouting fills the room as people begin to take their seats. I figure that I can spend at least five minutes figuring out which creamer I want to use. I’ve been in enough Starbucks lines to know that people are generally very indecisive with their coffee selections. At least the little packages of hazelnut and vanilla and mocha chocolate peppermint rosemary blueberry pineapple cinnamon are a good excuse to ignore the celebrations, because there’s no way in hell I’m putting that crap in my coffee. I’m pouring in a few drops of plain old cream and cursing the fact that there are no jelly-filled donut options when the air fills with an unmistakable presence that makes my spine tingle.
I grab the table for support as all of the celebrations stop precipitously.
I know what’s happened, deep in my bones.
I’m just praying that I’m wrong.
“So, where’s this Benjamin Ellison III? I need to meet the man who’s going to make me a fortune.”
Nope. Not wrong.
A drop of the creamer spills over the side of my cup. I’m frozen.
I know that voice, musical and low and laughing and teasing, better than I know my own. Hell, half of America probably knows that voice better than they know their own. Of course he