No one in my real life knew about thatside. When it started out, I was worried that it’d flop or that the guys woulddrive me crazy about it, so I’d just worked on that stuff at night when it’dcaught my attention, but now it was harder to manage on my own. Self-publishingwas time-consuming, but the control freak side of me liked being able to makeall the decisions on those.
But my publisher would have kittens if theyfound out about it, so I’d been careful.
“When Austin was humping Silas on TV, itseemed like half the country started looking for dirty books.” And mine werehot and funny, so they’d done really well over the past few months.
But there were only so many hours in theday and it wasn’t fair to Jonah to guilt him into giving me more hours. Shit.With the club starting to come together, I had a feeling he would need to putmore hours in there.
“That makes sense.” Tristan nodded andsuddenly something about his expression looked more professional.
Still hot…but professional.
“Right around that time period, there werealso changes in what traditional publishing was looking for, so the leadingonline companies started relaxing their stances on what they’d promote.” Heshrugged, still looking very business casual instead of hot and distracting.“There was a bit of flack when Smith & Benson sent out your newest book toone of their big mailing lists, but not as much as they were expecting, so Ithink you’ll see them doing it again in the future.”
“There was? They did?” That explained whythat one did so well. “They will?”
That professional look slipped just for asecond as he chuckled. “Yes. I’ve got some inside contacts and the rumors weregreat.”
Interesting.
“I was really in their newsletter?” Mymysteries were in there on a regular basis, but most companies ignored anythingthat wasn’t sweetly romantic…and that was when they didn’t just blindly ban it.
“Yes.” He seemed just as excited as I was.“It seems like Austin’s performance helped turn the tide. It was already movingin that direction, but he definitely gave it a push. And honestly, all thosecompanies care about in the long run is money. Before, it was in their bestinterest to keep anything like that hidden away, and now, they need to appearsupportive and open-minded.”
I rolled my eyes. “It’s all insane.”
Since Tristan actually seemed to know whathe was doing, I focused on that and not his looks. Of course, that meantlooking over his shoulder instead of at him directly, but it helped my brainfunction. “The…the fun side of my business will never be as profitable as themysteries. I know that. But it's an outlet I need and I enjoy it. What I don’tenjoy or have time for is everything else.”
He nodded, still looking professional.“Most artistic types don’t do well on the business side of things. Some learnand some just ignore it completely and hire someone.”
I chuckled. “Bradley forced me to learnsome of it and I don’t do too badly, but I’m running out of hours in the day toget everything done.”
“Yeah, with the books and the club startingto open, time is a precious commodity for you.” His expression said heunderstood what I was dealing with and it had me relaxing even more.
The fact that he knew about everything,including the club, made it easier as well.
Easier and creepier.
“You really figured out the connectionbetween the two sides by the name?” That just seemed so far-fetched.
Tristan chuckled. “He’s the same person.You just highlighted two sides of his personality. One where he’s the sweet guywho helps little old ladies and the other, more private side. It’s no one’sbusiness in town who he sleeps with, so there was no need to mention sex in themystery books. It would be like a cop walking up to a crime scene andannouncing he was a beta who had a thing for lace. It would be weird.”
No, what was weird was having thisconversation.
“How do you know all this?” I shook myhead, trying to clear it. “I mean, not my stuff, but the book world in general.In your emails and on your resume you talked about wanting to focus on thebusiness side, but it didn’t have enough on it for this level of detail.”
At least, I didn’t think it had.
It was vague in my head, but the slim workhistory was why I’d thought he was the short younger guy.
Was this a second career?
No, he looked like he was probably in histhirties but I was bad with ages, so he honestly could have been anywherebetween twenty and forty.
He shrugged, looking slightly guilty. “Imight have left a few things off my resume.”
And this was where I found out he was goingto abduct me and lock me in his basement so I could only write books for him.
“Why?”
