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She stopped, a refusal halfway to her lips. He could pull this off by himself. He wasn’t actually Chris Ainsworth, wannabe actor who’d never read the book. She trusted him to handle this.
But he wasn’t saying he needed her there.
He was asking her to be there.
I’d rather do it with you.
A tour with Chris. Just the two of them, and if he had any interest in a fling, that was when it would happen.
He smiled at her. “It’ll be fun. You know it will.”
She bit her lip.
“And you kinda want to.” He leaned in and lowered his voice conspiratorially. “You don’t want the limelight, but you’d like to meet your readers. See them. Listen to what they have to say about your book.”
“I…”
“You’ve given up something, D, by having me play the author of your book. You deserve to get the best parts of it back. Hearing—firsthand—how actual readers react to your story. Not interviewers. Not reporters. Not a thirty-year-old accountant. Actual teenagers who love your book.” He met her gaze. “Will you come with me?”
She nodded mutely, not daring to speak. Deep inside, there was still a girl who wasn’t sure he was serious, a girl who’d learned that when a popular boy asked her to go someplace—join him for lunch or a ball game—he probably wanted help with his homework.
Was that what Chris was doing? Pretending he wanted her company when he really just wanted her help?
But when she nodded, he smiled, and it was such a genuinely delighted smile that her doubts melted.
“Excellent,” he said. “Now let’s call Lawrence.”
“I can email—”
He lifted a hand. “Please allow the accountant to handle this.”
“Accountant?”
“Fifty percent accountant, fifty percent number one NYT bestselling author who definitely knows his own worth. First, can we stick with Daphne?”
“What?”
“Calling you Daphne instead of Dana. That got confusing, and I think you’ll be more comfortable with Daphne. You definitely can’t fly as Dana. As for hiding my own name, they know Zane is a pseudonym, so I’ll insist on buying my tickets for anything requiring identification. The hotel rooms can be in the publisher’s name.”
“They can do that?”
“I have clients give me receipts booked that way. If we need to show ID, I’ll ask you to do it.” His lips quirked. “As my assistant.” He looked more serious. “That’s what we’ll need to do. The assistant thing. The publisher could write off your expenses if you’re my assistant but not if you’re my partner.”
Did he mean otherwise they’d pretend to be a couple?
“We’ll go with that,” she said. “But they don’t need to pay my expenses. I can—”
“Let me handle it.”
He called Lawrence.
“I have read the email,” he said when Lawrence answered. “I am prepared to discuss details.”
“So you can do the tour?” Lawrence asked.
“Of course,” Chris said loftily. “People have gone to a great deal of trouble to arrange this. In the future, though, I must ask that I be on the ground floor of any such discussions. Clearing next week will not be easy. Yet I will do it in recognition of the efforts others have made.”
Which was exactly Daphne’s reasoning, but somehow Chris made it sound as if he were making a huge sacrifice for others, and Lawrence rewarded him accordingly, thanking him for being so accommodating and promising to speak to the publisher, who never should have gone this far without confirming Zane’s availability.
