Martha’s image breaks and blurs, cutting off to a terrified face, and then a funnier one somehow, before it stabilizes. “Of course. Birdie made us all sign NDAs. Anything involving that crazy-ass freak is off-limits. Not that I’m stupid enough to get on his wrong side. He killed Gia for crying out loud!”
“We don’t know that for sure,” I chime in. “But it’s better to be safe than sorry.”
“Mr. Stalker, if you’re listening, I’m sorry for calling you a crazy ass freak, and I love Birdie. I’ve never done anything to hurt her. I even got her that deal she wanted.”
I blink incredulously. “You did?”
“Well, not exactly fifty percent, but twenty-five. I can definitely push for thirty.”
Thirty percent of what I’ve made the house, not bad at all. “What about my rights? Will they revert them back to me?”
“Uh…no, but they’re offering a seven-figure deal per book in whatever new series you’ll write next. I can get you a whole five mil for a trio!”
I mull it over. “No. I don’t want to publish with them again. I’ll take the thirty percent and my rights. Nothing more, nothing less. But listen, keep stalling them until my divorce is over. Warnthem if Blake knows anything about this deal, it’s void, and I’ll sue their dirty asses penniless. I don’t know how far Blake is willing to fight, but I won’t let him get a single dime out of this deal.”
“I understand. You got it.”
“Be safe, Martha, and please let me know asap if you hear from Blake.”
Tristan presses a few more buttons before he ends the call. “One down. One to go.”
I nod, all innocence and compliance. “Of course. Whatever you think is best.”
“Good girl,” he taunts back.
For some reason, my vagina likes it.Traitress.
My email takes painstakingly long to open. “Is this normal?”
“Yes. Routing and rerouting and encrypting—”
“Oh God, I’d rather just watch the page load in silence.”
“Really?” He bends lower, his breath tickling my ear. “I thought the technical boredom would be a nice distraction from the aching throbs in your—”
“Email!” The aching throbs in my email. Yup. That would totally make a cute line in a cutesy rom com, but my book is definitely not one of those. The emails staring me in the face are enough proof. “Adriana sent me five emails in the past forty-eight hours.”
“Open them.”
I read as fast as the letters load. “She’s reached out to Blake because…he contested the divorce. Fuck.” I was hoping he’d be too wasted and miss the twenty-day window to contest it.
“What did he say when she talked to him?”
“I don’t know.” I read each email thoroughly. “She doesn’t say. But it doesn’t look so good if she’s urging me to call her that badly.”
“Then what are you waiting for? Make the call.”
My breath shakes on my fingers, pressing over my lips, as I wait for the call to go through.
“Hello? Birdie?” Adriana is in her office, stunned. “Is that you?”
“Hi. Yes. Sorry for the strangeness. This is not how we usually communicate. But it’s the safest option at the moment.”
“Don’t worry about it.” A frown contorts her face. “Are you all right? Has your husband made any contact with you? Did he hurt you in any way?”
“He didn’t directly contact me, not since the day he tried to attack me, but he did leak the stalker issue to the press when he received the divorce papers. It’s been escalating since. I’m worried it may escalate even further. I was hoping you’d already talked to him and mentioned our leverage…”
She pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs. “About that…”
