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“It’s interesting,” she says.
“It’s awful,” I counter. “Fucking—medieval.”
“I know, right? Like what a good story it is in modern-day society?”
I narrow my eyes at her. “Are you asking as a friend right now, or are you asking as an acquisitions editor?”
She gives an innocent shoulder shrug, and I get a flash of a thought. “It actually might make a good book.”
“Yeah?” she asks, all smug and cute. “Pitch it to me.”
“Upper East Side heirs tell all about what it takes to avoid working for the rest of their lives?”
“No,” she laughs. “Go deeper.”
“About…the dark side of inheriting an ass ton of money?”
“You’re getting warmer. I’m listening…”
“The secret suffering of spoiled socialites.”
“Sold.”
I huff. “Yeah, they’re just like the rest of us.”
“Well, they hooked you,” she says with a little snap in her voice. She’s entitled to it. I don’t even try to defend myself, and I don’t think she wants to hear me apologize again.
“How much would you pay for a book like that?”
“A tell-all from an Arnaud and a Lafayette? Six figures.”
“Are you shitting me? They just have to be born and be rich and they get a six-figure publishing deal?”
“Right? Look. I don’t make the rules. They might even get seven figures with Olivier’s recent brush with the law, but only if there’s more dirt.”
“There’s dirt,” I say because the whiskey made me do it.
“Is there proof?”
“I have no idea. Neither of them are exactly open books.”
She traces a finger down the phone sitting near her hip. “You think I could maybe…get Olivier Arnaud’s number…?”
I sigh and then I say the most I’m going to say about it. “You should really talk to Elodie.”
She puts a fingertip to her nose. “Got it. But—” she turns the finger out to hold it up to me, “If I get a deal for her—or them—or whatever—your part of the story isn’t nothing, you know?”
My eyes widen. “What do I have to do with it?”
“Well, it’s a love story.”
“Oh, come on, no one said anything about love.”
I mean…fine, I had a moment last night. Whatever. I can still take it back. And it’s not like I came here with some sort of hero complex hoping Jericho would solve all of their problems. And yeah. Maybe it’s really irritating that someone who’s done nothing worthwhile with their life could garner a seven-figure book deal for a book they probably won’t even have to write.
On the other hand… It would be enough money to get Olivier out from under his parents’ thumb. Of course, he’d have to figure out something to do with the rest of his life, but a book deal would buy him some time to do that.
Maybe I am his fucking hero. The doorman.
