Rock Star's Girl (A Hollywood Dating Story #1) - Jennifer Farwell Page 0,67

a few changes I was let in on this morning.”

“Changes? Not layoffs, I hope.” Emily thought of an article she’d seen about Sweltry recently, which had mentioned turmoil and financial difficulty in the company and predicted downsizing.

“Not yet,” Marjorie said. “I was told there have been some changes with our advertisers.”

“Does that affect something on my column?”

“This is definitely not my favorite call of the day.” Marjorie sounded flustered, which was unusual for her. “You know I adore you.”

This doesn’t sound good. Emily leaned back against the sofa cushions.

“There are…” Marjorie stopped. There was the sound of a door shutting and a rustling noise before Marjorie spoke again. “A few people pretty high up here have some concerns.”

“Concerns?” Emily echoed. “Do you mean what the media has been reporting on?”

“Yes and no. Obviously it’s not a great time for Sweltry right now.”

“I thought you were getting flooded with advertising requests lately, though?”

“We were, when your articles suddenly became the hottest writing known to fan-kind.”

“That didn’t help with revenue?” Emily tried to keep her voice cheerful. “You were getting a ton more ad impressions from those pages, weren’t you?”

“We were,” Marjorie answered. “We aren’t now.”

“Any reason?”

“I’m sure you’ve been keeping up on what’s been in the media lately. Specifically, the rumors about you cheating on Cory Sampson and leaving him brokenhearted.”

“Yeah, those were kind of hard to miss,” Emily mumbled, looking up at her ceiling. “For what it’s worth, none of it is true.”

“I believe you,” Marjorie said. “And to be honest, a conversation about your personal life is the last thing I should be having with you. I wouldn’t be, except for a trend our advertising department has noticed.”

“What kind of trend?” Emily asked.

“Your column page views are down, so ad impressions are down. Any time something that casts you in a bad light makes its way across the Internet or gets mentioned on TV, your page views drop like crazy. Because of that, and because of all the negative press, a few of our big advertisers have decided to pull their campaigns.”

Emily swallowed hard, then opened her mouth to speak, hoping her voice wouldn’t shake. “How much did the page views drop?”

She heard Marjorie draw in a long breath before speaking. “A lot. You know where this is going, don’t you?”

She didn’t answer, but the sick feeling in her stomach told her that she did.

Marjorie continued. “There’s concern from pretty much everyone I report into, and who they report into, that having your name associated with Sweltry isn’t great for us right now. And we’re in tough times, as you know.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Emily said.

“I was asked to tell you that we’ve decided to in-house your column and the rest of your assignments.” The words tumbled out of Marjorie’s mouth so quickly, Emily wasn’t sure she’d heard her correctly.

“Are you firing me? I mean, as much as you can hire or fire a freelancer?”

Marjorie sighed. “You know I don’t want to do this. You’re an amazing writer, and I love you to death.”

“Is there any chance that I can keep writing, but under a pen name?”

“I wish there was.” Marjorie’s gentle tone told Emily she meant what she said. “I suggested it, but it didn’t fly. I think everyone is having a knee-jerk reaction. They’re scared of having you associated with Sweltry right now, having seen the drop in views and the ad pulls. They’re dealing with our major advertisers and trying to keep them happy. Obviously this is confidential, but before your relationship with Cory hit the media, our ad sales were already sluggish. We can’t take the hit for this. You run your own site, so you know how it goes.”

“Yeah, I can see that.” Emily felt a lump rising in her throat.

“I’m sorry, Em,” Marjorie said. “And I’m really sorry that I’m doing this over the phone. They wanted me to call you now.”

“It’s not your fault.” She barely heard her own words.

“I’ll fix this if I can. It kills me to lose your column.”

“Thanks.” Emily didn’t know what else to say. She stared at the laptop screen in front of her, listening to the silence from the other end of the line.

“I’ll check in with you later to see how you’re doing, okay?” Marjorie’s voice was tinged with what Emily suspected to be relief. She was probably glad to get off this call.

“Bye, Marjorie.” She put the phone down and lowered her head down on the desk, mentally calculating how much income she’d just lost in the