Page 8 of Not a Strong Enough Word

I hum, not sure if I even want to voice what I’ve been thinking. When he raises his eyebrows at me in question, I go for it anyway. “This book…it felt like her. It wasn’t.” I hold a hand up to stop any of his protests. “I’m not saying that. The voice was entirely different. I’m just saying…the heart she had in her books. This one felt similar. Maybe Trina thinks she’s got another star on her hands and wants to be sure we’re going to handle this differently.”

Casey scratches his jaw, his blunt nails scraping audibly against the well-manicured stubble. “That would make sense,” he says slowly. “JMP really fucked that up, and we all paid the price for it.” He regards me for a moment before adding, “Sorry, man.”

I shake my head. “No need. That did get fucked up, and we lost her. The world lost her.” I lost her, I don’t say, but from the pinched sympathy on Casey’s face, he knows how I’d finish that thought. What he doesn’t know is the part I played in her departure. I’m not sure I fully understand it, but I know the blame is there. The guilt is, anyway. And the hole she left in my heart when she disappeared.

Coming out of his thoughts, Casey knocks definitively on the wood of his desk. “That must be it. I’ll alert Meri so she can be prepared to handle this one with kid gloves.”

“I’ll do it.” I stand quickly. “I don’t have anything else to do, and I’m ultimately the one Meri and the author will be working with. Best I get involved now so the transition is smoother.”

“Good thinking.” He doesn’t even wait for me to leave his office before turning back to his computer screen. “See you tomorrow.”

“Yeah, see you.” I try to keep my voice level, but my excitement seeps out anyway. I can’t help it. There’s no way I’m letting this book go without a fight. Anastasios Press is going to sign S.J. Falmouth, and I’m going to work on something important again. I can feel it.

Chapter 5

Scarlett

The Anastasios Press offices are located just outside of Chicago, about forty-five minutes away from JMP, which is right in the heart of downtown. The way Trina explained it, the suburbs have a bit of a slower-paced, family vibe that fits what Anastasios was going for when it was initially founded, and they negotiated with JMP to keep the building. Plus, more space with a cheaper overhead, which is probably the real reason.

Despite Trina’s begging, I drive myself. She probably doesn’t trust me not to bail. To her credit, I consider not going at least six times in the span of the hour it takes me to get ready. Thankfully, that trip to the salon actually did wonders for my self-confidence, so I’m able to wrangle myself into something I feel pretty good about. Before I can talk myself out of it again, I send Trina my location to keep me accountable, fold myself into my tiny car, and hit the road.

I arrive over an hour early, which is super great for the anxiety building in the pit of my stomach. But there’s no way I’m going in there without Trina, so I try to read on my phone—try being the operative word. Once I’ve read the same page three times without processing any of the information, I switch to Solitaire.

Trina knocks on my passenger-side window about twenty minutes before the meeting is set to start, a small smile playing at her red lips. I vaguely wonder—not for the first time—how she keeps them so perfectly red all the time as she pulls open the door and sits next to me.

She wastes no time getting right to the point, which is one of the things I truly love about her. “Okay, game plan,” she says breathlessly as she folds the edges of her green floral skirt into the car and slams the passenger door. Then, she deflates. “Actually, I don’t have a game plan. I got the sense on the phone that Casey thinks this whole thing is super weird, even though I tried to play it cool. He’s already suspicious. So we’re just going to go in there, shake a few hands, and I’m going to launch into my pitch before they have a chance to say anything about you.”

“That…does not make me feel better.” I frown.

As she shrugs, her shoulders hit her giant earrings, making them jingle like little fairies. “It’s the best I’ve got.”

“You could have lied to me. Pretended like you have some kind of control over this.”

She shakes her head, and her earrings twinkle again. “Honesty is the best policy. Plus, I didn’t want to spook you in there. Now, get out of the car. Throw your shoulders back. Fake it till you make it. You’re Scarlett Frye, goddammit. You’ve already published two best-selling novels, and you’re about to publish a third. Act like it.” She nods curtly, punctuating her sentence.

I blink at her a few times, my brows furrowed. “That was quite the pep talk.”

“Thank you.” She smiles widely. “I was rehearsing it on the way over. Let’s go. Before you can second-guess yourself.”

“More like tenth-guess myself at this point,” I mumble as I get out of my car. Trina laughs, and I have to fight the urge to tell her I wasn’t trying to be funny.

Anastasios Press is a two-story building with windows everywhere, encasing almost every nook and cranny in bright, afternoon light. As Trina gives our names to the receptionist, I look out at the scenery. It’s idyllic. Peaceful. Two people are walking on a path amongst prairie grasses out back behind the building, and three more sit in light jackets at a table enjoying the spring sunshine. It’s a nice escape from the cold steel of the Loop, where I’m used to having meetings like this. I choose to take this as a good omen and use it to force my heart rate into something the receptionist can’t hear. Trina was right; this is a different vibe. Different book. Different team. Different outcome, as my therapist would remind me.

Different Scarlett, I like to remind myself. I’ve come a long way since then.

Fortified against the nerves still threatening to take over my legs and make them run right out of here, Trina and I follow the receptionist up to the second floor and into a conference room. I don’t see a soul in the office. Maybe they’re all at lunch, which would be another one-eighty from the way JMP ran their editors into the ground. No one took breaks there. Even Ryan—

“They should be right with you,” the receptionist says, thankfully stopping that train of thought in its tracks. “Have a seat. Help yourself to the waters on the table. Can I get you a coffee or something?”

Trina glances at me. I stiffly shake my head. The last thing my nerves need is caffeine.

“No, thank you. Water is great,” she tells the receptionist, who closes the door softly behind us.

The sterile conference room, the paintings on the wall meant to be calming, the receptionist leading us in and telling us to wait. It feels so much like a doctor’s office that I’m thrown for a second. Waiting for someone to come in and deliver bad news…

“Sit,” Trina commands. When my gaze snaps to hers, her expression is neutral, but there’s a concern flickering behind her hazel eyes.

I clear my throat, trying to keep myself from spiraling even further. “I’m not a dog,” I say, but I drop into the nearest chair anyway.