The Price of Inertia (The Seven Sins #4) - Lily Zante Page 0,86
us. I blink. This looks suspicious. Me and Jamie, here in the library. I hadn’t realized we were talking so loudly.
“We were catching up about the events from the party,” I say, hoping that he won’t get annoyed seeing us together. My gut instinct tells me that Ward’s not a huge fan of Jamie.
“Oh, right. The party. Sorry to disturb you.” He leaves.
“Why’s he so nice and cheerful?” Jamie asks.
I’m not going to tell him the reason why, though I have to laugh, and this time it’s not a false laugh. It seems that the pent up sexual tension has oozed out of Ward completely, such that even seeing me and Jamie talking like this in the library of all places isn’t enough to rile him up.
However, the same can’t be said of Jamie.
“You’ve changed. I don’t know what it is but you’re different,” he says.
I do another one of my false laughs, which probably helps push his theory that I am being weird. Because right now, being confronted by him, like this, I feel weird. “You’re so wrong.”
“What the hell is going on?” he mumbles to himself. “Ward’s acting weird too.”
I start making a list of groceries I need. “He’s almost at the end of the book.”
“He was telling me how quickly the words were coming now.”
Knowing that he’s being rewarded by sex, it’s not surprising.
Chapter 34
WARD
I’m having lunch in the kitchen by myself when Mari appears. “Jamie said you were different today.” She sits on the stool next to me.
“Different, how?”
“You weren’t angry or irritated about finding me and Jamie in the library?”
“Should I be?”
She raises an eyebrow.
I stop eating. “Was I really that bad before?”
She gives me a slight nod.
“Well, maybe I have something that he doesn’t.”
She tucks a stray lock of hair away from her face. I like it when her hair tumbles over her bare shoulders when she’s in bed with me. Now she’s got it pushed away from her face and in a bun, but every now and then a stray lock of hair escapes. I used to be tempted to want to move it out of the way for her, and now I can.
“He was annoyed that I left the bar and went to a party without him.”
“Is that what happened?” There I was thinking something completely different.
She tells me what happened that night, and I have to say, if I were in his place, I would have felt the same.
“It surprises me because that’s not like him,” Mari continues.
I’m not worried about Jamie, or Danny or anyone else. She’s with me, for now. “Maybe he hates his job?”
“Working for you?” She shakes her head. “He might not act like one of your biggest fans, but Jamie loves your writing. He was blown away when I told him I was working for you.”
I had noticed, because he asks me so many questions, and I don’t like to talk about my writing. “Aren’t you having lunch?” I ask, when she gets up again to leave.
“I’m in the middle of cleaning the bookcases in the library.”
Bookcases? “Mari, this isn’t my house. I don’t own it. You don’t need to clean every nook and cranny.”
“What else is there to do?” she wails, sitting back on the stool again.
“Apart from cleaning the rooms we use, I’m not too worried about the rest of the house. Go shopping. Read. Watch TV.”
She looks affronted. “I’ve been cleaning like a fiend for weeks.”
“It was in the contract,” I remind her.
“It’s not like I have anything else to do.”
I take her hand. “I’m telling you now, you can go easy on the cleaning.” She jumps off the stool, her face one huge smile. “I could read your manuscript and give you feedback, check for errors—”
I cut her off. “That won’t be necessary.” No way. I get up and take my plate over to the sink.
She rushes over to me. “Why not?”
“You don’t read horror. You told me.”
“But I could try. Now that I’m sleeping with the author, I wouldn’t be so scared of the story.”
“You think so?” This clearly makes no sense, and I have to laugh at her simplistic conclusion.
She nods enthusiastically. “Come on, give me a chance. Before you send it over to Rob, let me have a quick read through. I want to be of use.”
I can’t have anyone read my manuscript. No beta readers, or proofreaders. No one. Only Rob gets it in the first instance, before it goes to my editor.