How To Wife Your Nanny A Billionaire Single Dad Romantic Comedy- Melinda Minx Page 0,33

would be gone.

We could sleep with each other.

Was that a good idea though? What about Naomi? What about—

Her hand touched mine. She squeezed the back of my hand on her thigh, and I looked down at her. She was smiling at me. The skin under her freckles was a little bit more red than usual, probably from the vodka, or maybe from the way I was touching her. Her teeth weren’t perfectly straight, but I liked them like that. Her lips ran across her teeth, and her eyes said two words to me: Fuck me.

Could eyes really speak? They could, mostly people just didn’t realize it. They had a very limited vocabulary though. They could say things like “I’m scared shitless,” “I hate you,” and of course, “Fuck me.”

That’s what her eyes were telling me now, but we had to make sure that the next space wizard book was going to be published by Blackwinters Publishing first.

“I hate to even ask this,” Lacey said, looking up to Chance, “but do you know how many books the series is going to be?”

“I hope it’s twenty or more,” I said, putting on a big fucking fake smile. Just what I needed was to have to meet with this guy twenty more times. “Let’s follow Kari for his entire damn life, until he’s an old wizard with a long, grey beard. Let’s hear about how he casts spells to get his dick hard so he can keep fucking even after he’s 200 years old.”

“Hm,” Chance said, not even smirking at my joke, “I don’t like to stifle my creativity by deciding how the story will unfold ahead of time. Unlike many lesser authors, I go into what I would almost call a fugue state whilst I write. Believe it or not, whilst I write, the characters are actually alive inside my head. When Voltar killed Therius, I wept. Not because a character I loved had died, but because I’d truly lost a friend who had been with me for over five years. With that said, I’m aiming for about seven books in the series. With room for spin-offs, of course.”

“Seven,” Anya sayid. “Harry Potter also have seven book? Da?”

“I don’t know,” Chance said, his entire demeanour getting very prickly, “I’ve never read those.”

It took a lot of energy to not roll my eyes, so I focused on Lacey’s thigh.

“My idea for the ending of the book,” Chance said, “well, it’s my idea, but I think the characters may not let me do this. They do have minds of their own. Anyway, my idea is that in the next few books, the Archmagi will discover a powerful alien artifact called the Eldest Armor. Unfortunately, Voltar is going to find it first.”

“Oh, no!” Lacey said. “What chance will the Archmages have if Voltar is wielding an alien artifact?”

“Archmagi,” Chance said. “‘Magi’ is the plural form of ‘mage.’ Anyway, it will turn out that Kari is descended from the ancients, that he’s actually part alien. When he’s confronting Voltar for the final battle, Harry—I mean, Kari—will sense the Eldest Armor as sharing his DNA, and he will be able to…”

I didn’t even pay attention to what Chance was saying. In my years working with authors, I’d developed a strong ability to tune out plot details, especially for books that I had no intention of ever reading. I had read Chance’s first book, and I’d identified it as a complete ripoff of Harry Potter. It had been a good ripoff though, and the sales had proved it. At this point, Chance could write a story of a dog taking a shit on Mars, and it would sell like hotcakes.

When he finally finished explaining the final scene, Lacey reached across the table and grabbed Chance by the hand. “Grumpledorp is going to die? How could you do that?”

“It’s not my decision,” Chance said, shaking his head somberly. “Grumpledorp is going to make that sacrifice for Kari and the other Magi. I can’t control what he does at this point. If he wants to sacrifice himself for a noble cause, that’s his decision. As the author, I simply write down what my characters do. I cannot control them.”

And then Lacey did it. She did what it took to seal the deal. She bit her lip, and a single tear rolled down her face.

“I’ve finally met a true artist,” she said, her voice cracking. “Anya, you are such a lucky woman.”

Anya grabbed Chance’s hand and pulled it away from Lacey’s