Eve laughed. ‘There isn’t much difference to be honest but it would be nice for my résumé if I were called an editor. Otherwise, I’ll be stuck in admin forever.’
Edward ate slowly, as though considering every mouthful. ‘Do you edit much of Serena’s list?’
Eve knew to be careful how she answered. ‘A bit,’ she said vaguely.
She could feel Edward’s eyes on her and she looked down at her plate.
‘What about you? What’s your sad story as to why you became an author?’
‘None,’ he said but she saw a shadow cross his face.
‘You know, they say that a writer is someone who managed to escape their unhappy childhood with imagination and then turned it into a career.’
He laughed but it was hollow. ‘Perhaps they were right,’ he said. ‘Whoever they are.’
The sound of a high-pitched scream in the distance chilled Eve’s bones.
‘There’s that noise again. It can’t be the wind. It sounds human. Or electric or something I can’t place.’
Edward sipped his wine. ‘It’s the wind. I used to think it was something else also but it’s not. Now what did you think of my words? Did I put them in the correct order?’
Eve put down her fork, taking his lead to ignore the noise, but it had unsettled her.
‘The words were mostly in the right order but that’s a very subjective take.’
Edward leaned forward. ‘So be impartial.’
Eve took a sip of her wine. ‘You wrote quickly today. I can tell because the ideas were all there but the lines were rushed. This is a crime book; it should be a slow leak. You hit your word target plus another one hundred but you also panicked. I could tell by the way you structured some of the sentences.’
Edward laughed loudly and clapped his hands.
‘God, you are absolutely right. I haven’t written that fast since I wrote my vows as Amber walked up the aisle.’
A prickle of jealousy spiked Eve’s mood. It was unsettling and unfamiliar. Eve had never really been the jealous type. She’d had boyfriends but no one she had said she loved with her whole heart. She loved parts of them but loving someone wholly and completely hadn’t happened so far in her life. But then again, she hadn’t found anyone who loved silence and books as much as she had.
Her dad had teased her that she needed to fall in love with a librarian and Eve had agreed. A librarian would be her soul mate she had told her father, who had rolled his eyes at her.
‘Are you going to tell Serena that I’m writing a crime book?’ asked Edward.
Eve thought for a moment. Maybe she could work on the structural edit herself and put Serena off for just long enough that she wouldn’t have a choice in the matter. Serena wouldn’t like that Eve had taken on the structural edit for a crime book but when the deadline was looming to start the marketing and promotion for the presale, then she would have to accept Edward’s book. Besides, it was going to be great – Eve could tell by what she had already read.
Edward was a naturally gifted storyteller and with some good editing this book could relaunch his career.
‘I’m going to wait,’ Eve said with a smile. ‘She will read it in one go and be blown away, I’m sure.’ She crossed her fingers as she spoke.
Edward nodded. ‘Probably best.’
They both knew what the other was thinking. They couldn’t give Serena a choice, otherwise she would scream blue murder over the crime book.
‘Serena doesn’t like change very much.’ Eve was careful how she used her words but she knew Edward understood when he nodded in agreement.
‘She likes things to be the same, the staff to stay the same and the books to be predictable?’ he asked and then laughed because she knew he knew the answer.
Eve finished her wine.
Edward was right. The nagging feeling that Eve had of late – telling her if she didn’t get out of Henshaw and Carlson soon, then she’d be stuck as Serena’s assistant forever – now felt like a punch to the gut.
She had to leave, but jobs in publishing in London were highly contested. Even though she had done so much of Serena’s editing and work, she couldn’t claim any of it because Serena took credit for it all.
