Wickedly Charming (23 page)

“Gussie,” he said, “you're a lifesaver.”

“No,” she said. “You are.”

They'd had this bit of banter before, and it always made Charming uncomfortable. “Come see my daughters,” he said, deliberately changing the subject. “You'll be surprised at how much they've grown.”

“And I can do the protection spell without them even realizing it,” Gussie said.

“That too,” Charming said. “That too.”

Mellie tried to explain where Cindy Jordan had gotten those interview questions as LaTisha opened the door to the cab. LaTisha shook her head, and slid into the cab. Mellie followed.

She tried to explain again, but LaTisha held up a very imperious finger. She then bent over her BlackBerry and texted for the entire ride.

“Can't we talk about this?” Mellie asked.

“When we get to the hotel,” LaTisha said as she nodded toward the front of the cab. “When we're by ourselves.”

Mellie glanced at the cab driver. He was a big, hulking man whose shaved head was covered with tattoos. He had gold posts running down the outside of both ears.

Somehow she doubted he was part of the target demographic for her novel. She had a hunch he wouldn't care if she wrote the book or if she had stolen it from someone who was less media savvy but a better writer.

She pulled out her cell, hoping for a message from Charming. But nothing appeared on the screen. She had no messages at all.

As distressed as she felt, she should have had a few messages. Somehow she felt like the entire world had just seen her humiliation.

But she knew that wasn't the case. No one would see the interview for hours.

The cab finally stopped outside the hotel. Mellie wanted to flee to her ostentatious room and never, ever leave it.

But she waited as LaTisha paid the driver, then they walked inside together.

“Act normal,” LaTisha said, as they walked toward the elevator bank.

Mellie had no idea what normal was. Would she have been giddy after a good interview or just plain tired? Did she ever act normal? She wasn't sure.

Still, she managed to keep pace with LaTisha as they walked across the lobby. No one looked at them; no one even seemed to notice them. Mellie hoped that was what LaTisha wanted.

An elevator stood open and as they got inside, Mellie turned to LaTisha.

“What the hell happened there?” Mellie asked.

“Something we'll discuss away from cameras,” LaTisha said, staring at the little red numbers going steadily upward beside the sliding doors.

Mellie didn't see any cameras, but she decided to trust LaTisha. When the elevator stopped, LaTisha got off first, and headed toward her room.

“What cameras?” Mellie asked, as LaTisha unlocked the door to her room.

“Security cameras,” LaTisha said. “All the public areas have them.”

Both women stepped inside.

“So?” Mellie asked.

“If any of that crap Cindy Jordan said back there is true, you're about to become the flavor of the week. Every newscast, every entertainment program, every magazine, and every newspaper will cover your story.”

“That's good, right?” Mellie asked.

“Are you kidding me? They're going to lump you with all of the horrible publishing scandals of the past decade. You're going to be the new poster child for an out-of-control industry.”

“Is the industry out of control?” Mellie asked.

“
No
!” LaTisha tossed her purse on a nearby chair. The room wasn't nearly as fancy as Mellie's but it was still lovely. A sofa and chair filled the main area, along with a round dining table, and a huge television set. A door opened to the small bedroom. The entire place smelled of lemons.

“Well, if the industry's not out of control,” Mellie said, “why would they claim it is?”

“Oh, Christ.” LaTisha collapsed on the couch. “Look, do you know how many books get published every year?”

“No.” Mellie cautiously made her way to one of the dining chairs.

“Hundreds of thousands,” LaTisha said. “No one knows exactly for sure. Maybe a million. And there are always big books, splashy books, bestselling books, game-changing books.”

“You said
Evil
is one of those.”

“Yes.” LaTisha looked annoyed. “I said that because it was a game-changer, just this morning. But now it's a crisis book.”

“Crisis?” Mellie asked.

“We get one of those every two or three years—statistically insignificant, really,” LaTisha said. “But you'd think from the press attention that it's every book at every publishing house, and everyone fails to do their due diligence, although for the life of me, I can't figure out why we would have had to do due diligence on a book that's just a simple retelling of a fairy tale.”

“I don't understand,” Mellie said.

“Neither do I,” LaTisha said. “I have no idea why Cindy Jordan decided she could resurrect her dying career by attacking you, but the one thing I know about that woman is that she checks her sources before she uses them. So she has something on you from this Dave guy—there were two Dave guys, right?”

“Um—yeah.” Mellie had trouble thinking of Charming as Dave.

“She said she had a letter from a Dave…” And here LaTisha checked her BlackBerry, because she'd clearly been taking notes. “David Bourke. Who is that?”

“A guy I met in a coffee shop,” Mellie said.

“And?”

Mellie's cheeks warmed. “He's a screen writer for some TV show, something I don't watch—about some macho guy who goes after terrorists?”

LaTisha rolled her eyes. “That could be half a dozen shows. I'll look him up. Tell me more.”

“I was trying to write the book, and it wasn't working. He was a writer. I thought I could pick his brain. But he turned out to be a horrible jerk who—he said—just wanted to get into my pants. We had a fight in the coffee shop, and he got thrown out. For good.”

“So he hates you,” LaTisha said. “And you can prove that?”

“I suppose,” Mellie said. “The barista was the one who was going to call the police on him.”

“Crap,” LaTisha said. “This just gets worse and worse. So who is the Encanto guy?”

“He's a friend,” Mellie said. “He helped me with the book. He's the one who sent the book to Sheldon McArthur who gave the book to Mary Linda.”

“So he's got ties to the book,” LaTisha said.

“And he was there, fighting with Dave Bourke, when Dave Bourke got kicked out of the coffee shop.”

“I suppose your stepdaughter, Miss White, was there too?”

“I haven't seen her in a long time,” Mellie said.

LaTisha frowned at her. “There's more to all of this, isn't there?”

“Everybody's life is complicated,” Mellie said, not sure what she could say and what she couldn't say. She wanted to talk to Charming. She needed to talk to Charming.

“Yes, I know,” LaTisha said. “But now I have to figure out if your life is good-complicated, and the press we get is going to be favorable or if your life is bad-complicated, and we're going to have to duck every single interview from here on out.”

LaTisha checked her watch, then reached for the remote.

“The six o'clock news is five minutes away,” she said. “You want me to order room service?”

“We're still doing the signing tonight, right?” Mellie asked.

LaTisha nodded.

“Then I'd like to rest for the next hour or so,” Mellie said. “Just come get me when it's time to leave.”

“I think we should watch this together,” LaTisha said.

“I'm sure I'll hear about it,” Mellie said. She got up and headed to the door. She needed the time alone. She needed to reach Charming.

She needed to think about everything that happened.

And she didn't dare watch that television show beside LaTisha. Mellie fully expected to get angry, and she was apt to blurt something she would regret.

She had been so close to a success. In fact, she had been having a great success. And then someone had to spoil it.

Dave Bourke. Who knew?

And Snow. How had she even heard about the book? And why did she care?

Mellie stepped into the hallway. It was cooler than LaTisha's room had been.

Snow cared because the book revealed what Mellie had done, how Mellie had saved her life. At this late date, Snow wouldn't believe it. Mellie knew that. And she knew it would make Snow angry, make Snow believe that Mellie was just making herself look good at Snow's expense.

Mellie was shaking as she used the key card to unlock her own door. She got inside the big, fabulous room, and realized her original instincts were correct. She did want to stay here forever. She never ever wanted to go outside again.

She had a hunch everything that waited for her outside this room was going to be bad. She'd been in this position before. She had entered both of her marriages with great hope, only to experience great disappointment. The death of her first husband had hurt. The death of her second had hurt as well, but it was what came after—that horribleness with Snow and Mellie's loss of reputation, loss of friends, loss of almost everything she believed in—that hurt worse.

She had just started to recover. This book was helping her recover.

And now she was going to lose it too.

In a very public way.

The moment Charming stepped into the reception area of Gussie's office, his phone started vibrating. He kept it in his breast pocket, and the vibration was startling. He had forgotten that Gussie's office was a magic-free zone.

Still, he didn't look at the screen right away. Instead, he scanned for his daughters.

Grace sat on the sofa against the wall, legs curled under her, reading her book. She didn't look up as he came in, so she really was reading.

Imperia, on the other hand, glanced at him immediately. She was surrounded by books, most of which looked older than he was. On her regal face, he saw a mixture of expressions—impatient teenager and terrified little girl.

He gave her a reassuring smile.

William the Younger was digging through a box in the back of the room. He held up a few more books. “How about
History of the Fates and the Magical World
,” he said. “Or
The Law, the Fates, and Magic
?”

“It's okay,” Imperia said. “My dad is here.”

Grace still didn't look up, but she turned the page. She was lost in the story. His girl.

Charming glanced at his phone and was startled to see that he had missed fifteen text messages and twenty phone calls.

His heart twisted.

“Just give me a minute,” he said, and stepped outside.

Outside was a dense forest, dark and gloomy. The tree canopies, which mostly hid Gussie's office, touched the ground here, giving everything the scent of green leaves. That was the plus side. The downside was the preponderance of moss, which made his Greater World dress shoes slip with each step.

He stood just outside the door, and listened to the drip, drip, drip of rain through the leaves. He didn't mind getting wet. The leaves protected him from the worst of it.

He looked at the texts first, mostly because he knew that people who couldn't reach him by phone often sent their messages by text.

All of the messages were from Mellie. The first was upbeat—she had great news. But the rest got increasingly desperate:

Need to talk

Where are you? Call me right away.

Call me.

CALL ME.

She took to leaving her phone number, as if he didn't already know it. The missed calls were from her as well—all of them, even though she only left two voice mails. He listened to the first:

Terrible interview today
, she said.
My publicist thinks this is the beginning of the end. Maybe it'll destroy the book. Please call.

He frowned, then listened to the second.

I sent you a link in your email
, she said.
Please watch it, then call
.

He opened his email program, not sure it would work in the Kingdoms. He didn't get any mail except Mellie's. Briefly he wondered how the program could know who was a Kingdom native and who wasn't.

Then he remembered it was magic, which was answer enough.

He clicked on the link, which took him to a video on a Boston TV station's website.

Two generic anchors sat side by side—the square-jawed middle-aged male anchor, and a perky young female anchor. Off to the side, sat a middle-aged woman with helmet hair, who looked like she had once been a perky young female anchor.

“I hear you had a surprising interaction today, Cindy,” the male anchor said.

“I did,” said Miss Helmet Hair, sounding as scripted as she probably was. “You've all heard of the stepmother blockbuster,
Evil
, by now. If you haven't, then you've been living under a rock. Its so-called author has been touting it on various shows and appearances all over the country.”

Charming's breath caught at “so-called author.”

He listened to the rest of the report in disbelief. It was a long segment, maybe eight minutes. Helmet Hair had an interview with the odious Dave Bourke, done “with thanks to our Los Angeles affiliate,” where Bourke sat like a victorious toad, telling the world that Mellie didn't write the book.

“She can't write,” Bourke said. “I read what she put on the page. She doesn't know grammar or how to spell. Worst of all, she has no sense of story. When I saw her last, she was searching for a ghost writer, and she clearly found one. There's no way this woman could have written her way out of a paper bag.”

“Neither can you,” Charming whispered to the image on his phone.

“I understand she asked you to write the book,” Helmet Hair said.

“Actually, she wanted me to write a screenplay. But when I told her that most screenplays don't get produced, and showed her the excellent screenplays I'd already written that hadn't yet been made into films, she got discouraged. She asked me if I could write a book, and I told her that I was a macho guy who couldn't get the female perspective right—no real man could—”

Charming rolled his eyes at the dig.

“—and gave her information on classes to take to learn how to write. But no one learns that fast, especially when they're not a reader. And she made no bones about the fact that she didn't read books.”

“Not only that,” Helmet Hair said in her voice over, “but she also doesn't write them. Her stepdaughter, the much maligned Essy White-Levanger, says her stepmother hired a man known for shady dealings, a shadowy man known as David Encanto, to write the book for her and to keep that work a secret.”

The film cut to a sad-eyed woman with hair so raven-black that the streak of white along one side looked like an affectation. Worse, it made her look like the prototype for Cruella de Vil.

“Dave Encanto is a well-known ghost,” she said. “He had the ability to write that novel, not my stepmother. She's a hideous woman who'll stop at nothing to obtain fame and fortune.”

The report went on from there, with Helmet Hair saying that the publisher had been duped, that no one had heard of this Encanto, and that there was a possibility that Mellie had actually stolen the book from him.

Charges, unsubstantiated and salacious, filled the rest of the report.

And then they got to Mellie. Who, when she was asked if she wrote the book, vacillated between belligerent and dumbstruck.

It didn't play well. All of her media skills had failed her there.

And some of that was his fault. She quoted the words he had given her when she asked what she should say if someone asked if she had written the book.

It's my story
.

Yeah, it was. But he wrote it.

And unless they figured out how to deal with the public relations nightmare, that one little fact might destroy everything they had worked toward.

Worse, it might make Mellie hate him. Forever.