good rate.”
“I don’t have your sob story. That’s why you’re living there, right? Because you have nowhere to stay?”
“I mentioned that I was going to find a place to stay, and he made me an offer.”
“I don’t want any perks. Sorry.” Jamie puts his hand over mine and gives it a squeeze. “I shouldn’t have hit so low.”
I move my hand away and lift my cocktail glass. “It’s okay. This job means I’ve been distracted and I don’t have to think of Dale.”
“You still think of Dale?” He sounds annoyed.
“He was my boyfriend.”
“He cheated on you. Not once, but twice. He got someone pregnant, Mari. Why are you wasting your energy and thinking about him?”
His tone startles me. I had no idea he hated Dale this much. I hate him too, but there are moments, lonely moments, when I lie in bed at night, and I can’t help but think of my ex and the good times we had. “You’re supposed to make me feel better.”
“I’m sorry. But I hate it when you lapse back into the past, Mari. It’s like you’ve forgotten what a dick he was to you. You deserve better.”
That brings a smile to my face. “I’m going to stay single for a while. I need to get my head on straight and focus on the important things.”
“That’s better. Focus on the important things.” He sets his bottle down. “Now tell me, what’s Ward Maddox really like?”
“You’ll find out soon enough. We won’t have to work for him for long, though it depends on how long it takes him to finish this book. From what Rob says, he’s been struggling with it.”
“His mom died recently,” Jamie announces.
“How do you know?”
“I read up about him. He’s a big deal, Mari. You’re working for the Ward Maddox.”
“He doesn’t seem like such a huge deal to me.”
“But you know about The Attic? The book and the film?”
“I’ve heard of it,” I say, breezily.
“Yeah, most people have.”
“You sound like a crazy fan.” This guy has never been on my radar and I’m not in awe of his fame.
“He’s writing the third book in the Morbid Trilogy.”
I wince. “There’s a lovely sounding name if ever I heard one.”
Jamie tut-tuts. “That Attic was the first book, then he wrote The Dark Woods, years later. The film to that is coming out this year.”
I feign a long drawn out yawn.
“Working for this guy is wasted on you.”
“I can’t help it if I don’t know much about him.”
“Did you know that he had a girlfriend who died in mysterious circumstances?”
“What?” My eyelids fly open. “When?”
“A long time ago.”
“Where they dating?”
“I think they’d just split up.”
“What?”
“It was around the time The Attic blew up. It catapaulted him into success.”
My insides cartwheel and jiggle at the news. My earlier power over Ward fizzles away and is replaced by a sense of foreboding.
“The new book,” says Jamie, in a suspenseful voice. “Have you managed to get a sneak peek at a few pages?”
I shake my head. “He’s made it clear to me that his desk is off limits.”
“Don’t you see his work area?”
“I do. I have to clean the study first thing, but he’s warned me to not touch anything, or snoop around. The place is littered with junk food wrappers and cans, but the main area on his desk is neatly organized. He has a pen.”
“A pen?”
“A MontBlanc pen he seems to cherish.”
“A MontBlanc?” Jamie echoes.
Now that I’ve had ample opportunity to clean his desk, I can see that while it’s a mess, the middle of it is pristine. I tell Jamie, “Towards the center, everything is lined up nice and neat. His notebook closed. His sheets of paper all tidily placed underneath. Then he puts his magic pen across the top of the notebook, and six sharpened pencils placed vertically along the righthand edge.”
“The freak!”
“You can’t call him that,” I say. “He’s not a freak. Just … lazy.” I recall the plethora of things I have to clear up after him daily.
Jamie makes a face as if he’s disgusted. “I’m shocked. I had no idea he was such a slob.”
“You don’t have to clean up after him. You just have to give him a workout.”
“I can do that, but I can’t start for a couple of weeks.”
“A couple of weeks?” I cry, horrified. I’m worried that Rob will get desperate and find someone else for the role. I’ll try and work on him. A couple of weeks isn’t that far away. “Talk to his agent and