Book Lovers(3)

Also, he’s scowling. Or pouting. His mouth is pouting. His forehead is scowling. Powling.

He glances at his watch.

Not a good sign. Right before I left the office, my boss, Amy, warned me Charlie is famously testy, but I wasn’t worried. I’m always punctual.

Except when I’m getting dumped over the phone. Then I’m six and a half minutes late, apparently.

“Hi!” I stick out my palm to shake his as I approach. “Nora Stephens. So nice to meet you in person, finally.”

He stands, his chair scraping over the floor. His black clothes, dark features, and general demeanor have the approximate effect on the room of a black hole, sucking all the light out of it and swallowing it entirely.

Most people wear black as a form of lazy professionalism, but he makes it look like a capital-c Choice, the combination of his relaxed merino sweater, trousers, and brogues giving him the air of a celebrity caught on the street by a paparazzo. I catch myself calculating how many American dollars he’s wearing. Libby calls it my “disturbing middle-class party trick,” but really it’s just that I love pretty things and often online window-shop to self-soothe after a stressful day.

I’d put Charlie’s outfit at somewhere between eight hundred and a thousand. Right in the range of mine, frankly, though everything I’m wearing except my shoes was purchased secondhand.

He examines my outstretched palm for two long seconds before shaking it. “You’re late.” He sits without bothering to meet my gaze.

Is there anything worse than a man who thinks he’s above the laws of the social contract just because he was born with a decent face and a fat wallet? Grant has burned through my daily tolerance for self-important asshats. Still, I have to play this game, for my authors’ sakes.

“I know,” I say, beaming apologetically but not actually apologizing. “Thank you for waiting for me. My train got stopped on the tracks. You know how it is.”

His eyes lift to mine. They look darker now, so dark I’m not sure there are irises around those pupils. His expression says he does not know how it is, re: trains stopping on the tracks for reasons both grisly and mundane.

Probably, he doesn’t take the subway.

Probably, he goes everywhere in a shiny black limo, or a Gothic carriage pulled by a team of Clydesdales.

I shuck off my blazer (herringbone, Isabel Marant) and take the seat across from him. “Have you ordered?”

“No,” he says. Nothing else.

My hopes sink lower.

We’d scheduled this get-to-know-you lunch weeks ago. But last Friday, I’d sent him a new manuscript from one of my oldest clients, Dusty Fielding. Now I’m second-guessing whether I could subject one of my authors to this man.

I pick up my menu. “They have a goat cheese salad that’s phenomenal.”

Charlie closes his menu and regards me. “Before we go any further,” he says, thick black brows furrowing, his voice low and innately hoarse, “I should just tell you, I found Fielding’s new book unreadable.”

My jaw drops. I’m not sure what to say. For one thing, I hadn’t planned on bringing the book up. If Charlie wanted to reject it, he could’ve just done so in an email. And without using the word unreadable.

But even aside from that, any decent person would at least wait until there was some bread on the table before throwing out insults.

I close my own menu and fold my hands on the table. “I think it’s her best yet.”

Dusty’s already published three others, each of them fantastic, though none sold well. Her last publisher wasn’t willing to take another chance on her, so she’s back in the water, looking for a new home for her next novel.

And okay, maybe it’s not my favorite of hers, but it has immense commercial appeal. With the right editor, I know what this book can be.

Charlie sits back, the heavy, discerning quality of his gaze sending a prickling down my backbone. It feels like he’s looking right through me, past the shiny politeness to the jagged edges underneath. His look says, Wipe that frozen smile off your face. You’re not that nice.

He turns his water glass in place. “Her best is The Glory of Small Things,” he says, like three seconds of eye contact was enough to read my innermost thoughts and he knows he’s speaking for both of us.

Frankly, Glory was one of my favorite books in the last decade, but that doesn’t make this one chopped liver.

I say, “This book is every bit as good. It’s just different—less subdued, maybe, but that gives it a cinematic edge.”

“Less subdued?” Charlie squints. At least the golden brown has seeped back into his eyes so I feel less like they’re going to burn holes in me. “That’s like saying Charles Manson was a lifestyle guru. It might be true, but it’s hardly the point. This book feels like someone watched that Sarah McLachlan commercial for animal cruelty prevention and thought, But what if all the puppies died on camera?”

An irritable laugh lurches out of me. “Fine. It’s not your cup of tea. But maybe it would be helpful,” I fume, “if you told me what you liked about the book. Then I know what to send you in the future.”

Liar, my brain says. You’re not sending him more books.

Liar, Charlie’s unsettling, owlish eyes say. You’re not sending me more books.

This lunch—this potential working relationship—is dead in the water.