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“Owns what?” Emmet asks, annoyingly clueless.
“My book. What I've been writing… she says that it's work product. Since I worked for her while I wrote it, she owns it.”
“Well that's —”
“And then when I refused to give it to her to be chopped into hundred-word sections and hidden on the bottom of the page, she fired me.”
She stares at me, helpless, silently pleading with her eyes.
“Do you understand?” she asks in a shuddering whisper. “I had a book, now I don't. I had a job, now I don't. I had a plan, and now…”
“Okay, that's bullshit,” Emmet declares.
She starts to glance at him, but I reach up and take her cheek in my hand, drawing her attention back to me.
“Don't look at him, he's being an insensitive ass,” I command her, drawing out at least a little bit of a smile. “She doesn't own your book, okay? Let’s say that first. And maybe she did you a favor.”
“She says she does own the book,” Bella counters. “And I have no plan.”
“Planning is my middle name,” I boast. (It's not, really. My middle name is actually Drew.)
“Yeah, good idea,” Emmet says, suddenly becoming serious. I hear his voice change and realize he's fired up the old thinking machine. “First of all, is that what you still want? A book?”
“Of course it's what I still want!”
Emmet raises his hands defensively. “Okay, okay… just asking. I’m on your side, here, Bella, okay?” he asks her.
She breathes calmly, deeply. “Okay,” she agrees.
“Okay, glad we settled that,” he smiles. “So let’s piece this out. Does it exist?”
“Yes,” she nods. “It’s about 80% completed.”
“Okay. Did she see it?”
Bella shakes her head.
“But you were fired?” I ask her. She nods tightly. “And is there proof of that? A document?”
“Well, no…” she shakes her head, apparently losing steam, then brightening again. “But she did have security escort me out. That was fun!”
I cringe, imagining the sort of humiliation Hannah decided to throw out. What a jerk. “I'm sorry, she's kind of a bitch.”
“I know!” Bella whines, her mouth open. “But we have been friends forever!”
I pat her knee sympathetically, thinking that seemed like an appropriate thing to do. But with friends like that, who needs enemies?
“So, you're in possession of an asset — the book. You were released from your legal responsibilities by Hannah, with a security guard as witness.”
Bella nods. I look at Emmet, bouncing my ideas off him mentally until he nods as well.
“So it just looks like you need to publish the book,” Emmet says in a low voice. “Do we have someone at Random House?”
“Well there’s Xavier… I could give him a call,” I muse. “Oh! You know what, I think Patty at Universal Pictures would want to hear about this too. I want Ryan Gosling to play me!”
“You are no Ryan Gosling,” Emmet rolls his eyes.
“Fine,” I sulk, wounded. “Chris Pratt, then.”
