Page 97 of The Perfect Rom-Com

“Well . . . yes. Technically speaking. Under my name.”

“Ah.” Her brows rise even higher toward her hairline. “So you do some extra work then, I gather. Under another name.”

“I have. Yes.”

Good. This is good. She’s connecting the dots and doesn’t seem put off by any of it.

“And you . . . work for one of Jack’s clients, perhaps?”

“I do. Yes.” I grin. Finally. The relief of getting to say what I need to say without having to break any rules is incredible.

She mistakes my smile for nervousness and says, “Don’t worry. Jack has had hundreds in his time. I’ll never guess your little secret.”

She reads another few pages in silence, and then, just as I’m distracted by a stream of passersby out the window, I hear the snap of the cover over the tablet.

The definitive movement as she slips the tablet into her purse beside the chair.

Looks at me.

My stomach falls.

Rises again.

Then falls again.

There’s something definitive in her expression.

“I can’t work with you on this.”

“What?” I exclaim. “Wh-why?” I find myself peering down at the floor in the direction of the tablet in her purse, as if it’ll give me some clue as to what, exactly, just went wrong.

“Is it that I’m unpublished?” I ask, groping for clues.

“No.”

“I know I don’t have much of a following—”

“You have no following,” she corrects. “But no, it’s not that. I feel confident we could make it work out despite that. We’ve done that plenty of times with the right author.”

“Was it the thing about echoing you? Because I can be normal. I really am. I have a whole list of references who’d back me up. Tell you—”

Florence laughs outright. “No. You are quite normal. Endearing even. You remind me of myself starting out, and it is absolutely normal to be nervous.”

“Then what?” I say, completely at a loss.

And then it occurs to me.

“Have you talked with Jack?”

“What? No. Bryony, for the sake of your nerves, let me do the talking for a moment. It’s not that you are just starting out, or your platform numbers, or your personality—for the record there, I think we’d get along swimmingly. It’s because this manuscript isn’t your genre. This isn’t where your heart is.”

“What? Of course it is. This is the first manuscript I ever wrote. My heart is solemnly there!” I point in the direction of the tablet. “I spent more time on this novel than any of my other works!”

“Hence the 149,000 words.” Florence smiles slightly. She clasps her hands together on the table. Leans forward a little. “Bryony, I know you must be very talented. Jack doesn’t take on clients who aren’t talented. But this”—she waves a vague hand at the tablet—“this manuscript needs work. And lots of it. From the very little I’ve seen, it seems clear to me that you possess potential, but now you just need to take some time to hone that.”

“But I don’t have time.”

“Then make some.” She presses her lips together. “Take out forty or fifty thousand words. Change the start. Your story doesn’t begin there. It begins at page 20. And on that point, succinctly define your story, your plot, where you want it to go from page 1. Clarify your craft. Make it special. Make it your own. And then”—she shrugs—“let’s talk. I don’t know about you, but I’d be happy to revisit this conversation when you get those matters shaken out.”