Men Like This. Roxanne Smith
banana pudding with chocolate cheesecake and tiramisu on the menu?
“My standard year and then some. I’ll have a better grasp on timeline once I’ve completed my outline.” She shook her head. “Talk about a different animal. None of the same rules apply.”
When it came to good advice, Quinn would be hard-pressed to call on anyone better than her father. He was the anti-Emily, always supportive and caring. However, like her sister, he wouldn’t quell at sharing his opinion. He hadn’t batted an eye when she’d slipped her idea of writing a romance novel into their conversation. It was all the encouragement she needed.
“Research.” He pointed his fork at her, his eyebrows raised knowingly. “That’ll be a challenge.”
She chased a crouton across her plate. “You’re right. I’ve been slashing for so long there’s not much I have to study up on to write an accurate bloodbath scene. I could probably analyze blood spatter for the LAPD crime scene unit if I ever needed a real job. But romance is a whole new search log. Thank God for the Internet, right?”
Douglas gave her a disappointed look through his silver square-framed glasses. He was still handsome at his sixty-some odd years. His thick hair had the good grace to turn stark white rather than fall out as he’d aged, and he was the source of Emily’s chocolate-brown eyes. The uncommon hue of Quinn’s green eyes had come from their mother.
Her father’s body language put her on the defensive. She squared her shoulders. “What?”
He glared at her intently the way he did anytime he was adamant about a point, which made it impossible to look away. It proved a more effective tactic when he didn’t have a mouthful of lettuce.
With his usual intensity dulled by food, he let his words do the talking. “The Internet won’t churn butter this time, Quinnie. You want this romance idea of yours to fly it’s got to be genuine. You can’t have stale nuggets of information taken from the pages of Wikipedia. You’ve got to infuse your history with emotion, and the emotion has to reflect the history of the place and the era.”
Jeez. She hadn’t expected the passionate argument. She also hadn’t planned on her dad finding fault in her research techniques. She quirked a brow. “How do I go about doing emotionally enriching research on eighteenth-century Great Britain?” She posed the question with equal parts sarcasm and sincerity. She wanted a real answer but didn’t expect he’d have one.
Their entrees arrived. She waited patiently for an answer while he paused to slice a thin piece of filet mignon before giving his matter-of-fact reply. “You go.” His eyes never left his steak.
Quinn choked on the huge bite of penne rigate she had shoveled into her mouth. She gasped and grabbed for a napkin with one hand and water with the other. After she recovered, she sought clarification. Surely, her ears deceived her. “I’m sorry, did you say I go? Like…go to Europe? To write a book? That’s nuts, Dad. I don’t have time for a vacation right now, not even a working one.”
“Not vacation. Move there. Spend the whole year in Europe. London is the ideal base. Lots of museums, tons of history.” He didn’t seem to grasp the absurdity of the idea. He tucked into his mashed potatoes without a care for how her head spun.
Her meal sat untouched since she’d nearly checked out on a piece of pasta. Driving when you were upset was a bad idea. Apparently eating while experiencing high emotion was equally dangerous. “I can’t go to London. Seth would hate me. Blake would… Well, Blake probably wouldn’t care. Still, it’s fanciful and nuts. Mostly nuts.”
He shrugged. Your funeral, the motion seemed to say. “If you’re going to do something, do it right. Otherwise—”
“Don’t bother.” Quinn finished the familiar axiom with a moan. Only a fair amount of willpower allowed her to resist the dramatic eye roll that had been the standard response of her youth. “London, Dad? London? What about Seth?”
This time his shrug came touched with impatience. “I’m not saying jump on a plane tomorrow. Find a house, get joint custody, and take him with you. Lots of kids spend a year abroad. It’s a great educational opportunity for a boy his age.”
She shook her head even as she gave the idea true consideration for the first time. She sipped water to soothe her suddenly parched throat. “I don’t know, Dad. There’s no guarantee Seth will want to go. He could end up hating me no matter the outcome of the custody hearing.”
“Quinnie. Listen to me. You’ve never done anything for you, never done a thing because you felt like it and wanted to. This is your chance. There will always be a million reasons to hold back from doing what you want, a million people telling you not to.”
Already, he had a point.
“Seth is thirteen. He’s the kid, you’re the adult. If you’re going to London for a year and he doesn’t like it, he can stay with his dad. Blake doesn’t have to like it, either. He’s Seth’s father, and that’s his damn job. In my mind, the bastard owes you. Who put college aside to take care of Seth when he was a baby? Not Blake, that’s for sure.”
Douglas went back to his steak with a little more punch. Discussing Blake agitated him. She loved having someone on her side, especially since Emily tended to accuse her of “overreacting” to Blake’s five-year affair, but Quinn didn’t like upsetting her dad.
Most of the insult seemed to come from the way Blake treated her career with complete disregard. Her hard-won accolades were of no more consequence than if she’d been named ringleader of the neighborhood canasta club. It was a lucrative hobby, an easy occupation for a housewife who didn’t want to work too hard doing a real job.
Blake wore the stiffly starched pants in their relationship, and it was crucial to his reputation he maintain the image no matter how many of his clients were avid Clementine Hazel readers. And many of them were. It served as an interesting conversational piece at business dinners, but that was about it.
Her dad broke into her wandering thoughts with a reminder of what lie ahead rather than lay behind. “This is a great time to settle a few other things, besides family matters.”
She nodded and poked at the cold pasta on her plate. “Buy a house, like you said.”
“Why buy when you can rent? No use making such a permanent decision when you’re on the cusp of change. I meant Richard.”
“Oh. That.” In times like these, she questioned whether she perhaps shared too much with her dad.
“Yes, that. A woman is more likely to support your change in genres.”
Quinn refused to make eye contact. “Very sexist of you.”
“Sure, but it’s also true.” He shrugged as if in apology but didn’t seem a bit sorry. “Fire Richard while you have cause.”
In a strange way, she was grateful for Richard’s stunt. Through his ill-fated attempt to seduce her, she’d discovered her newest muse. Poor guy. He’d done all the leg work for someone else to take home the prize. It’d be like if she wrote the thriller of the year, and another author’s name showed up on the book cover.
“Maybe.” She wouldn’t commit until she had time to mull it over. Firing an agent wasn’t a decision to make lightly, especially an agent as successful as Richard.
Douglas didn’t let it settle there. He was like a dog with a pig ear. “Richard is a rat. There’s always been something off about him, don’t you think? A shadiness I can’t quite put my finger on, but it’s definitely there. I’ll bet you a twenty right now he’s not going to support this romance idea of yours. Switching genres for an author like you is starting over again, your entire career, from scratch. You’ll have to prove yourself, but it’s up to your agent to sell the product. It helps if he believes in what he’s selling. Richard is a very good agent. Doesn’t make him the right agent, does it?”
Quinn finally braved