Page 1 of Long Story Short

ONE

JOSIE

My heart plummets to my stomach as I stare at the group of people across the table from me.

“What did you say?” I ask, hating the slight tremble to my voice. I can’t help it. I don’t think I’ve had a solid night’s sleep in at least two weeks, and today was supposed to feel like a relief. Instead, I’m getting some of the worst news imaginable.

The man directly across from me clears his throat as he leans back in his chair. “We think you need to scrap this manuscript and start over.”

I close my eyes for a moment, desperately trying to keep my emotions at bay despite the words he’s saying. I take a deep breath before opening my eyes and directing my gaze at the man once again.

“Scrap it? Completely?” My words come out barely above a whisper.

The man—Eli—nods. The gesture is like a punch to the gut. The news is even worse coming from him.

I swallow, resisting the urge to ask if the reason he’s telling me to rework a manuscript I’ve poured myself into the last six months is because I broke up with him a month ago.

I rip my gaze from the head of marketing at my publishing house—who also happens to be my ex-boyfriend—and look at my editor instead. Stevie has been with me from the very beginning. I owe my entire career to her. She discovered me and believed in me when no one else did. I can’t wrap my head around her wanting to start over on the book I just spent six months writing.

“Stevie,” I manage to get out. “Do you agree? I need to start over?”

Her eyes soften, and her hesitance to answer right away tells me everything I need to know.

I have to completely rewrite a book.

“I think scrapping it is harsh,” Stevie finally says. She pauses for a moment as if carefully choosing her next words. I can tell just by her cautious tone that she’s trying to handle this situation delicately.

Eventually, she swipes a hand over her mouth and lets out a small sigh before she speaks again. “We just need a little more.”

Eli scoffs, and the sound makes me wonder what I ever saw in him. In my defense, I was a young debut author just brought on by a publisher. He was the head of marketing who took a liking to me immediately. I should’ve seen the red flags from a mile away, but I was naive, and as a romance author, I wanted to believe in a fairy tale. It’s my job to look at love through rose-colored glasses, and that’s exactly what I did when it came to the man sitting across from me.

But two years later, his inability to even admit to anyone that we were dating and had been for a while was enough for me to finally rip the glasses off and leave him.

When I ended things between us, I thought he could continue to be professional. Despite us living together, he always remained by the book at work. He made sure no one knew we were involved. But now that I’ve broken up with him, his professionalism has gone out the window. At least, that’s what it feels like right now. If anyone else in the meeting finds his sudden sour attitude toward me strange, they don’t give any indication about it.

“What do you mean by more?” I ask, my gaze locked on Stevie. I refuse to look at Eli. It feels like he’s trying to find ways to upset me, and I don’t want to give him what he wants. I can’t handle thinking too deeply about his demeanor right now because I’m too caught up in worrying about the fact that I’m supposed to rewrite a whole book in a short amount of time.

Stevie’s shoulders slump a little as she watches me closely. “It just needs more. Don’t get me wrong, the bones are there. But your readers are used to yearning, intensity, passion. Where you can feel the love between the characters. The sexual tension in your other books pretty much drips off the page. This book doesn’t quite have that…yet.”

Eli lets out another scoff. This one is louder and even more dramatic than the first.

I can’t help it. My gaze rips from Stevie and lands on Eli. He stares back at me with a cocky smirk, as if he knows he’s getting under my skin, even though I’m desperately trying to hide it.

He throws his hands in the air for a moment, trying to seem casual but dismissive with his next words. “Everyone in marketing agrees we can’t put money into this book. It’d flop. Readers would be disappointed, and we’d be throwing money at nothing.”

I bite my tongue. My jaw tenses so hard that it hurts, but I manage to keep my mouth shut as I try to gather my composure.

Before I broke up with Eli, he loved the concept of this book, helping me brainstorm some of the ideas. He even read most of the book—well, everything up until I called it off between us. Never once did he tell me it felt like there wasn’t any connection between the characters. But now, apparently, it’s so bad that his team won’t even market it unless there are changes.

“I don’t even know what to say,” I finally get out. I try to keep my voice composed, but despite my effort, my words come out shakier than I’d like. Maybe if I’d had more sleep recently, I’d be able to handle the criticism better, but right now, it’s taking everything in me to keep myself together.

“I agree with Stevie,” Mandi, Stevie’s assistant, chimes in. “I think the foundation for the love story is beautiful. I just want to see the connection between the two of them. I need more passion. The stakes need to be higher. The intensity needs to ramp up.”

I let out a long breath of air. With each second that passes, and with each small amount of breath I let out, I feel my ego deflate. I knew there were some things I needed to work on during edits to strengthen the book, but I didn’t expect everyone to tell me that I needed to basically rewrite a manuscript I just spent months of my life on.

It’s defeating. I’d gone into this meeting thinking I’d be in developmental edits for the next month and that I’d have some time to myself. Time to relax. Instead, the book can’t even go into developmental because I have to go back to rewriting the whole thing completely.

“We don’t want to get behind on our schedule. The team will need the book in six weeks’ time so we can market it for the current scheduled release,” Eli states. It’s as if he’s trying to pile on and add to my stress. There’s a coldness to his tone that’s new. He always spoke professionally while we were at work, but now there’s ice laced in every single one of his words. It takes me off guard. Since I’ve been in the depths of deadline hell, everyone at my publisher has left me alone, knowing I was trying to finish a book, Eli included.