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I pulled out my laptop and hooked it up. I placed pillows against my back and leaned into the headboard. I opened my manuscript and read through what I had already written, painting the picture of the woman in my story. Strong. Independent. Quiet, but not a pushover. And the man, with his hills of muscles and his tall stature. Looming in the darkness. Watching his island girl. Making sure she was safe and happy, despite the fact that he didn’t even know her name.
I was able to type up a few more paragraphs, but the imagery wasn’t coming after that.
I shut my laptop and tossed it to the side. This was fucking ridiculous. I’d never struggled this much to write before.
I drew back the covers and resolved myself to a decent night’s rest. Hopefully, my dreams would bring about the rest of the story that wanted to flood through my fingers. I tossed and turned, trying to get comfortable as tears rose to my eyes.
But when sleep finally took me under, it wasn’t my characters in the story or the island they were on that I dreamt of. It wasn’t the lighthouse the woman lived in or the chiseled architecture of the male protagonist I saw in my dreams.
It was Kevin.
CHAPTER 15
KEVIN
“How did it go?” Owen asked. “You never called me yesterday.”
“Believe it or not, I’m still in the Caribbean trying to salvage my vacation with my children,” I said flatly.
“Then you shouldn’t have attempted to open up this deal while you were there,” he said.
“I saw an opportunity and jumped. I didn’t think it would fall apart or cause this much drama,” I said.
“It’s business, Kevin. Every deal is filled with drama of some sort.”
“Well, you’ve got only ten minutes of my time. The rest of the day is for my kids.”
“I’m getting nasty emails from Gianni,” he said.
“What kind of nasty emails?”
“The kind threatening us with a defamation lawsuit,” he said.
“A defamation lawsuit? What are we, the press?” I asked. “What the hell do they say?”
“That I’m trying to ruin his reputation and that my calculations must be off. You showed him the numbers yesterday, right?”
“Yeah, I did. He accused me of having the wrong financials, but I told him this was exactly what you were sent, which was why we were so concerned.”
“What did he do after that?”
“He accused you of lying, trying to destroy his reputation and our strong business relationship. I told him you were very reputable and that you would never lie about something like this, then I broke off the contract with him. But I didn’t think he would try to personally attack you like this,” I said.
“Well, he is. I’m forwarding all of his emails to Legal for them to handle, but if it gets to be too much I’m going to have to address him personally.”
“Don’t do that. You’re a hot-head when you do that.”
“Every time I turn around, that asshole is sending me another email, with more financial files that only prove my point. It’s like he’s not even looking at them himself.”
“Or he refuses to see what’s really going on,” I said. “Gianni’s been in business for over twenty years. He built the wealth of his entire family off one institution, and that’s hard to do. He’s got a sparkling reputation in the community and he’s about to lose it all. But you can’t lash out at him, Owen. Promise me.”
“Is there a way to auto-forward his emails to Legal so I don’t have to see them?”
“There is. Do you want me to go in and set that up?” I asked.
“Please. And now.”
I hung up the video conference with Owen and pulled up my email. I logged out and plugged in his credentials, and I saw what he was talking about. There were four unopened emails, all at the top of the hour like clockwork, and all from Gianni with pretty nasty headlines. I had no idea what the hell was going on, but I felt like I’d woken up in another universe. I forwarded the emails to Legal before deleting them, then I opened the settings and started plugging in requirements for the email address. All of Gianni’s emails would go to spam as well as be forwarded to our lawyers, and they could handle the harassment from
