Billionaire Novelist 4 : Every Romance is a Revenge Fantasy(17)

The woman on the other line said, "It's about time."

Part 7: Proof

Tori

Summer turned to fall, and by October, I was working an administrative job at a notary office, which was slightly less glamorous than working for a billionaire. Day after day, I'd answer phone calls, send emails, file away papers, and nobody would slam me against a desk and slip their hands into my panties. Not once did anyone corner me in the supply room and ask for a blow job. There were no charter planes, no fancy penthouse suites, and no shopping trips to upscale department stores.

And I was just fine.

Some of my girlfriends stared at me with sad faces, as though I was a charity case-the girl who'd glimpsed luxury, but then had it cruelly snatched away.

I'd reconnected with some of my pre-college friends, and we slipped into a regular routine of partying on the weekend and texting each other all week about how broke and horny we were.

The necklace was hidden at the back of the freezer, under some frozen Lean Cuisine, because I had nowhere to wear it, and no idea how to trade it in for cash. The guy at our one pawn shop in town would probably have had a heart attack if I'd plopped that thing down on the counter.

Smith had promised something like a co-author credit to me, but I assumed that offer had evaporated when I'd run out like a coward while he went for a walk.

The second week of December, a package showed up at my home. I was living with my mother, having given up my little bit of independence back in August, when I'd done a little math and decided the shame of admitting I still lived with my mother was absolutely nothing compared to the money I'd be saving on rent. I was lucky the two of us got along so well, or so all my friends told me.

My mother opened the package before I got home from work.

I gave her heck.

"It had my name on the address label!" she cried, and indeed it did.

I had to pry the contents out of her hands, because she'd already read a third of something that looked like a novel, but had all sorts of "Proof" and "Galley" stickers all over it.

I said, "This is the novel I typed the first draft of." Holding a physical version of what Smith had created, with my help, gave me a chill.

While my mother squawked about wanting to finish the chapter before I took the galley copy hostage, I scanned through the opening pages. Smith had changed around a few of the sentences, but the book started off the way I remembered. As I got into the story, I fell into a sort of trance, the way one usually does when reading a book, but this time I could feel Smith's physical presence. 

Had he handled the book? I sniffed it, searching for some trace of his scent, but I smelled only fresh paper and ink.

"No fair, you already read it," my mother said.

"Yeah? How bad do you want it?" I giggled and ran up the stairs.

"Tori!" she wailed as she came running after me. "Let me at least read it over your shoulder!"

I stopped running and she slammed into me, both of us toppling to the hallway floor, giggling.

"Okay, you can read it!" I handed the book over. "You don't need to tackle me."

"It was addressed to me," she said.

"I know! See, that's just such a Smith thing to do. And of course he only sent one copy. What a buttplug."

"You say he's a buttplug, and yet you're smiling. I haven't seen you light up this way in months."

We helped each other up off the floor and stood in the hallway, near by bedroom. "It is winter," I said, glancing through my room to the dark window. "Short days and all."

"You miss him," she said. "I know you've been waiting for him to call you, or to make some grand gesture, but men aren't like that. Maybe this is his way of reaching out to you."

I snorted. "A single galley proof of a novel?"

"You didn't see the dedication page, did you?"

"Shit." I grabbed the book from her and leafed back to the opening. I never read that crap at the beginning of books, because who cares about some author thanking a bunch of people I don't know.

The dedication read:

Thank you Tori, for breaking me.

I handed the book back to my mother. "What the f**k is that?"

"Tori! Watch your mouth."

"Mom, that's the worst dedication in the entire history of books. Period. End of story. What a buttplug." I wagged my finger at her. "Don't you dare tell anyone that's me."

"I'm sure the ladies at book club will figure it out, but I won't tell anyone else, as long as you agree to something for me."

"I'll stop leaving my clothes on the bathroom floor."

She put one hand on her hip and sighed. "I'm not expecting any miracles. No, the thing I want is for you to go to Switzerland with me for Christmas break."