Work In Progress (Red Lipstick Coalition #3) - Staci Hart Page 0,12

gaped at her phone. “How many new followers do you have?”

I swallowed hard and pulled up my account. My eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. “Two thousand. That can’t be right.” I checked my analytics. “Or it can.” With a nervous laugh, I set my phone facedown on the counter, not ready to deal with whatever the hell that meant. “He asked me to help him with his next book.”

Three faces swiveled in my direction.

“But you hate his books.” Val’s brows drew together.

“Why does everyone keep saying that?” My forehead furrowed. “Just because I don’t leave him five-star reviews doesn’t mean I hate his books. I love his books. I hate his heroes.”

“Ugh, like that one you made me read. You know the one. With the guy who slept with that other girl just because his ego was bruised? God, he was the worst. Fuck that guy,” Val said.

“That’s close to what I told him.”

Val laughed. “You didn’t!”

I shrugged. “He asked.”

Her smile fell. “I mean…you actually talked to him?”

“I did,” I said, half in wonder. “He accused me of hating him too, so I explained myself. And then he asked me to be on his team. To tell him no.”

Katherine frowned. “As in to refuse his request?”

“No, as in to help him by telling him to stop writing assholes.”

“And you said no,” Katherine added.

“I said yes.”

They blinked.

“Don’t look at me like that. If you were standing in front of him and he asked you for anything, you’d give it to him. I mean it. Anything.”

“A blow job?” Katherine countered. “With your exceptionally small palate?”

“Your ass?” Val asked with a smirk.

“I was just gonna say a kiss,” Rin said, “but I feel like I should up the ante.”

I laughed. “Anything. I couldn’t have been more surprised if he’d asked me to fly to Vegas to get married.”

“You wouldn’t have said yes to that,” Val said on a laugh.

“I dunno. I don’t think I could have said no to anything. Even the invasion of my tiny mouth or ass.”

We looked at each other for a silent moment before bursting into laughter.

“But really, I’d love to help him. Plus, it’s an opportunity to add another book to my résumé when I’m ready to start applying for internships—and a book by Thomas Bane to boot.”

“I can’t believe Thomas Bane asked you to help him with his book,” Rin said, shaking her head. She still wore a pencil skirt and tailored shirt from her day at The Met, though she’d kicked off her heels, which took her back to a solid six feet from an almost astronomic height. Her hair was dark and shiny, her bee-sting lips full and crimson. Her skin was even fairer than mine, thanks to her Korean-Dutch roots.

Seriously, she should have been a model. But she was almost as shy as I was. Well, before she’d started working at the museum at least.

“Wasn’t he just one of People’s Sexiest Men Alive?” Val asked.

“Yes,” Katherine answered, slipping off her stool. “It’s right here in my knitting basket.” She shuffled around in the living room.

Val snorted a laugh. “Care to explain why you’re trolling sexy men in People?”

“I read it for the ads,” Katherine said flatly.

I was mostly sure she was kidding. A second later, the magazine hit the countertop with a smack, opened to his page.

We leaned over it in unison. The spread was a series of shots of him in Washington Square with a golden retriever, looking happy and carefree while also somehow managing to smolder. I attributed it to that ridiculously luscious mouth of his. The title of his segment was, “Bad Boy Bane: Love to Hate Him.” Although I didn’t know how anyone could hate him when he was scruffing his dog’s face or whipping a tennis ball with that arm of his that looked Photoshopped. If I hadn’t had that python wrapped around me earlier, I wouldn’t have believed it myself.

“He came out of nowhere,” Val said. “No one had ever heard of him, and then he started dating Olivia Nash and broke the internet with his hair.”

I laughed. “Have you seen that video of him putting his hair into a bun in slow motion?”

“Pretty sure I got a hysterical pregnancy from that video,” Val said. “Man, when he and Olivia Nash broke up, GIFs of their breakup was in my news feed for a week.”

“When she took off her Manolos one by one and threw them at him? Oh my God, in that moment, she was