Hope Entangles: A New Adult Romantic Comedy (Book 2 of 3) (7 page)

I bowed my head and closed my eyes. I
wanted to just dig a hole, jump in it and pull it in after me. I’d
handed that swaggering jerk the perfect ammunition to hassle me
with for the next eternity. I could just hear him calling me
affectionately by some nickname like “little mouse” or “Bead Head
Girl.”

I was never going to hear the end of
it.

Chapter 7

After I took a long, hot shower, pulled
my hair back into an meticulously tight bun—not a hair sticking out
anywhere—and got dressed, I grabbed my laptop and headed down
stairs to start my coffee and check my emails.

I needed to work on the Big Bad Wolf
cover. I only had the shots of Billy by himself, but those pics had
turned out to have a burning intensity that made them practically
pop with sex appeal.

Clicking those images into my Gimp
program, I found that all the images I’d taken of Billy, the AAA
tow truck driver, would make wonderful romance novel
covers.

But there was one, where he had his
arms crossed over his rather well muscled chest, his eyes glowing
with mischief, and a wry, sexy as hell half-smile quirking his
pretty lips, that just screamed Big Bad Wolf.

I could almost hear women around the
world gasping when they got an eyeful of this cover.

Oh Wolfy…

I smiled as I tried out colorizing the
image a nice, erotic blood red.

My phone rang and I absently reached
for it.

“
Hello…”

“
Why haven’t you emailed me
back?” Janine demanded in a harassed voice.

I stiffened.
What now?

I went to click on my Gmail account. “I
was just about to—”

“
You’ve got to come,” Janine
interrupted me. “Everyone’s going to be there, and we’ve got five
Amazon and New York Times bestselling authors coming, all
interested in signing on with us!”

My account loaded up, and I clicked on
my last email from Janine, sent late last night.

Oh… my… god…

She had Sheryl Helms, Casey Wagoner,
Leta Storm, Carla Vaughn and… dear mother of god—Terra Banks…
coming to an open house.

Crap on toast…

I had to force myself to breathe.
“W-why do you need me?”

Janine chuckled. “Because of your
Olivia Lovelace cover, sweetie.”

Oh, I didn’t like it when she called me
sweetie. It always heralded bad news.

“
It doesn’t even come out
until next week,” I protested.

“
Yeah, yeah, yeah… but
between the advance reviews popping up all over the internet and
review blogs, and the amazing pre-order sales on all the major
distributors, it’s already in the top ten.”

“
That’s fantastic… but what
has that to do with me?”

Janine snorted. “Sweetie, every single
reviewer has commented on the cover. Said it’s the most erotic
piece of cover art they’ve ever seen. Said they’d buy the book just
to be able to stare at him!”

Oh…

I felt myself sag in my chair. They
wanted the cover artist who made that photo…

And there truthfully wasn’t
one.

I felt tears start to burn in my eyes,
and pure, undiluted shame rose up in me.

I was a fraud, wasn’t I?

Sure I could shoot a good,
sexy hot cover… but could I ever—
ever
—shoot an image like that
one?

I closed my eyes and felt my
self-confidence puddle on the floor.

“
Do you think you could get
that gorgeous hunk of man to come with you?”

I was about to ask “What man?” when it
hit me she was talking about Jake.

“
No, Janine. He is no longer
available for sittings.” And wasn’t that the understatement of the
century. Even if I could face him, he’d probably spit in my
face.

Do people still do that?

Gross.

“
Well, I’m sure you’ll be
able to pull off more covers like that one. Plus, look at all those
fantastic covers you’ve done for us. I mean, Olivia didn’t like
those bed shots… with the two cute as molten sin blonds, but ever
since I put them on that New Adult cover for Lorna Carr’s new
novel, it’s been selling three times her usual sales
figures.”

I drew in a clean breath on that one.
At least Janine and company still liked my actual, real work. I
looked at my laptop screen. The pic of Billy practically smoldered
there on the screen. I picked a suitably gothic font, in tarnished
silver, and typed in the title and author name.

Looked pretty damn good. So I loaded it
up and emailed it to Janine.

“
I’m sending you the Big Bad
Wolf cover now. It’s only a preliminary. I can always change
it—”

Janine gasped on the other end of the
connection, and from the clattering sound—and the breathless string
of curse words she employed—I think she dropped the
phone.

That had to be a good sign… well,
unless she was agape with shock because maybe Billy was her nephew,
or best friend from high school’s son…

I cringed. All of those potential
reasons would be just horrible to live through.

I heard her trying to grab the phone,
and then she started talking before she even had the thing up to
her ear.

“
I can’t freaking believe
it!”

Still, I couldn’t tell if she was
thrilled or angry.

“
So, do you like it?” I
ventured.

“
Like it? I fucking love it!
My god, that gorgeous young man is going to sell the shit out of
that book.” I could hear her fanning herself with something,
knowing her, it was someone’s writer’s contract.

I smiled. She liked it… hell, she’d
practically had an orgasm over it.

“
Now, sweetie,” and there’s
that sweetie again! I wasn’t out of the woods yet. “This one isn’t
a one shot guy too, is he?”

I blinked. “Um, no. He’s local and
would probably pose for me again.” I didn’t tell her I already had
a few great shots left.

“
Oh, good. Because we’ve
decided to make a series out of that one. The writer already sent
me the manuscript for book two, and I’m having hot flashes just
reading it.”

“
Okay, I’m sure
Billy—”

“
Oh, his name’s Billy!
That’s just so sweet.”

I was about to say that he really was a
sweet guy, when Janine cut right across me.

“
I’m going to have all the
covers you’ve done for us blown up and hung on all the walls of the
ballroom.

Ballroom? I hastily looked at the email
again. Yep, there it was. The ballroom at the freaking Hilton in
Houston. And then I saw the date.

“
It’s next week?”

“
Of course it
is—”

It was my turn to interrupt. “But how
on earth did you get all those authors to agree to come on such
short notice?”

“
Sweetie.” Good god, I
wished she would stop that! “The Romance Writers of America
Association is in Houston next week for the Rita Awards. Haven’t
you heard?”

I felt a deep, paralyzing chill run
through me. That meant there would be hundreds of authors, and
cover artists, models, agents, editors, and publishing house
representatives in town…

And that meant there’d be more than
just five potential clients at the open house. Hell, in a ballroom
at the Hilton, the open house was really a huge business
party.

I felt light headed.

“
I c-c-can’t,” I
stammered.

“
What do you mean, you
can’t?” Janine demanded, all sweetness gone from her
voice.

I struggled to take in my next breath.
“All those people…”

“
Are all coming to meet
you,” Janine said so very not helpfully. “They’ve been clamoring
for you. Every one of them made meeting with you part of their RSVP
to be there.”

Oh god…

Images flashed before my eyes. A room
filled with publishing professionals… and every single one of them
looking at one of my covers and laughing.

Dear god, take me now.

I drew in a few more breathes. Breathe
in, breathe out. Breathe in, breathe out.

“
Hope? Are you still
there?”

I tried to speak, but it came out as a
choked gurgle. I coughed and finally got out, “I’m
here.”

Another breath… and another.

“
But I’m just an artist.
It’s not like I’m going to be doing a live photo shoot to prove I
can make a sexy cover from scratch right there!”

There was silence on the other end, and
then Janine purred.

She freaking purred like a cat licking
its whiskers after draining a bowl of milk.

“
Don’t even think about it!”
I practically screamed.

“
Now sweetie,”

“
Quit calling me that!” I
shrilled, wiping the sweat from my brow. “It’s creepy!”

“
Sure, whatever you say,
love muffin.”

Oh, that’s just so much
better!

“
Don’t get your panties in a
bunch. I was just thinking that I could have a filmmaker I know go
down to where you… where ever it is you live, and film you doing a
photo shoot sometime. That would be a great marketing asset when it
comes to luring more fantastic authors to our brand.”

I closed my eyes. A party from hell,
and then having someone filming while I’m trying to work: I wanted
to reach through the phone connection and strangle her.

“
Oh, and by the way, Terra
Banks is bringing her own personal cover artist with her. Wants me
to consider using him instead of you,” she chortled good-naturedly.
“I told her you were the only one for me and my publishing
house…”

More infuriating silence.

“
But?” I
prompted.

“
Oh, well… all her covers
have been done by Poe.”

Poe…

My stomach flipped over and my hand
shook as I typed his name into Google. Up popped a screen of some
of the most innovative, spectacular, sultry images I’d ever seen.
Every time I’d seen one of his shots on a magazine, or in an ad on
line, I’d just stare and marvel. He was amazing…

I licked my lips, suddenly ten times
more nervous. “I didn’t know he did cover art too.”

“
Well, so far just for
Terra… but if—”

And she cut off that
thought.

I felt as if she’d punched me in the
gut. Was she using me to lure an even bigger photographer in to
work with?

I took in a breath to… I don’t even
know what I would have said, but Janine spoke first.

“
I’ve gotta run, love
muffin. Buy a new dress, something to show off those great legs of
yours. And bring a date! Nothing screams needy and pathetic like
going stag to your own party.” She chuckled. “I’ll see you
there.”

And she hung up.

Chapter 8

I sat there, holding my cell phone to
my ear. I sat there for about two, three minutes without moving.
What had just happened?

I could remember it all,
but…

But I didn’t understand how things had
gone so terribly, horrifically wrong.

I should just not answer my phone or my
emails. That would cut down drastically on the bad things that just
seem to happen in my life.

I gently set my phone down. I
could…

What could I do?

I trudged on over to my coffee maker
and picked up the pot. The pot was empty. I hadn’t made any
yet.

I set the pot back on the little burner
and opened the kitchen cabinet where the coffee and filters lived.
I stared at an empty spot where the coffee usually was. I had a
vague memory of having used the last of it last night,
and…

I looked over to the fridge where I
hung my grocery list. Under a few odds and ends was the word
coffee, in huge block letters, underlined three times, with five
exclamation points.

My mind was like a tilt-a-whirl on
overdrive: spinning one way, canting drastically to the side, and
then spinning even faster the other way. I closed my eyes and tried
to catch the thread that had caused all this. Why was I so
confused?

Had I just woke up?

Was I still asleep and
dreaming?

And then I looked over at my laptop.
The email from Janine glowed from the screen.

Shit…

The world blazed back into crystal
clarity, garish and too loud… too fast.

My head did the tilt-a-whirl thing
again…

And I heard someone
hyperventilating.

I was hyperventilating. It kind of
hurt, and my head became even more off balanced and swirly. I was
so dizzy.

What do they do when someone
hyperventilates in a movie?