Jack looked at his watch. “Meet me outside at eleven. Wear something black. Be quiet in your approach.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Trust me.”
Blair did trust Jack, so she went back home and started counting down the hours until the mystery operation was to commence. When Tiffany called, she welcomed the distraction.
“Are you sitting down?”
“Yes,” she lied.
“I had a meeting with this Swedish tech guy today. He asked for a meeting out of the blue last week. Well, he asked for a meeting with you, but I diverted him.”
Tiffany saw her mission, professionally anyway, as being that of freeing Blair up to be the boss. Tiffany was good at her job.
“His company recently went public, so he’s sitting on a lot of cash, and it turns out he has a bit of a, wait for it, F. Scott Fitzgerald obsession.”
Blair told herself not to get her hopes up.
“Twentieth-century American lit generally, actually,” Tiff said. “Apparently he studied it in college before he invented some… code, HTML, something, something, something, and found himself an accidental tech mogul. He did try to pitch me on the idea of aCatcher in the Ryeproject, but I told him we were not those girls.”
Blair snickered.
“Anyway, he might invest if he likes the script.”
“The script is junk, though.Allthe scripts have been junk.”
“Yes. We can finally, decisively fix that, and then this guy becomes a bottomless source of money. We can afford to get some big names attached.”
“I’d kind of come around to the idea that no one can fix the script except Angela.” That the project had died with her.
“No. I know I maybe haven’t been the biggest cheerleader for this project lately, but this is our chance to finally do it. The actual point of this call is that you have to meet him. I know you didn’t want the Christmas shindig to be a work party, but I invited him. Pitched it as very small, very exclusive. Don’t be mad. You just have to spend five minutes charming him.”
“OK.” She told herself not to freak out—about the party or about the prospect of having a potentialGreen Lightsavior at it. “What’s this guy’s name?”
“Bjorn Ekberg.”
“Wow, he reallyisSwedish.”
“Yep, and he’s about seven feet tall and blond, and in case you didn’t get it from the whole American-lit-major-turned-tech-mogul thing, insanely smart.”
“Is he single?”
“He is. You should totally go for it.”
“No, no, not me. I meant for you.”
“Oh, no, I’ve decided my type is more literary assholes.”
“You mean Jack?”
“Yeah, I don’t know, he’s growing on me. I’m going to turn on the charm at the party and see what happens.”
This was the second time Tiff had mentioned going after Jack, so she must be serious. Blair didn’t know what to say. Her first impulse was to say,Hands off. He’smyliterary asshole, but that wouldn’t be wise—or true.
“I’ve decided to take a break from looking for Mr. Right and have a Mr. Right Now interlude,” Tiff said. “And really, he’s perfect. He’s so handsome. He’salsoinsanely smart. But unlike Bjorn, there’s no potential I’ll ever be working with him since he already rejected us so soundly for Books with Blair.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Blair finally managed.
