AllFreeNovel
Share Us
What if they’d been protecting him all this time? What if hecouldn’t manage without them? What if he just hadn’t noticed the things they were protecting him from?
A disconnect hit his brain, leaving his body a leaden weight. Was this depression? Despair? How should he know? He’d never felt anything like it before. Unless … Funny, it was a little like the indescribable feeling he’d had when Aunt Cynthia first asked about the dog he’d been so sure he’d never had.
He didn’t want to think about this anymore.
He’d go to bed. If he could find it.
***
The phone rang, a relief even though it dragged him out of his fitful sleep. He’d settle for anything to distract him from the disaster he knew still lurked all around him.
“Hello,” he said into the receiver.
It was Mary. He smiled.
He leaned back on the bathrobe he had unearthed toserveasapillow.Hestretchedthearmthatwasn’t involved with the telephone. “When are you coming home?”
Soon. It was going to be soon.
“That’s the thing, honey … ”
Oh. It wasn’t going to be soon. His smile faded.
“My San Francisco biz whiz ran off to China an hour beforeourappointment.Heneedstostopproduction there, but his negotiations ran into a snag.”
Negotiations. Snag. Van knew what that meant. It meant a waiting game. You had to be prepared to turn around and walk, but you had to stay ready to walk right back in to pounce at the first sign of weakness, the first hint that you could get some or all of what you wanted at a price you were willing to pay.
“You have to stay a few more days,” he said tonelessly.
“I do. I’m sorry.”
Silence stretched until Van couldn’t stand it anymore. “Something else is wrong.”
“My agent called.”
“The publisher wants something you don’t want to do.”
“You might say that,” Mary answered reluctantly. She lapsed into more silence.
“That bad, huh?”
“Yes, it is that bad. Van, they want to lock you into promotional appearances.”
“No!” The shout escaped his mouth before it could form in his brain.
He couldn’t do that. He’d been waiting and longing for his splendid solitude from the first moment he’d walked into the offices of Van Deventer Ventures. He couldn’t turn back into a puppet on strings jerked aroundbysomeoneelse.Notbyanybody.Notbythis book publisher. Not even by Mary.
He got up and paced.
“I know, honey,” she said. “I didn’t even ask you about it before I told them no. I just said it, and I meant it. My agent told them to think it over, for a day or two, no more.”
“You’re not going to try to talk me into this?”
“No, I’m not. I wouldn’t even if I weren’t so angry I want to spit in their eyes. I’m just sorry I wasted so much of your time if this book is not to be.”
Waste? Hell, no. He’d answered too many of her questions while coming up behind her to open her blouse and caress her breasts and stroke her belly and put his mouth on the sweet curves of her neck until she squirmed on her chair. Sometimes he went straightforherearlobe.Thenshedroppedherpenor deserted her keyboard, scattered her notes, leaped up and tore his shirt off.
He hadn’t minded. She always took care of getting all those buttons sewed back on. Not that he ever noticed at the time that they were gone.
