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  “I’m not,” she pointed out as she joined him. “You are.”

  The laugh was self-deprecating and fueled by another sip of wine. “I don’t count.”

  Elisha looked around, surprised not to see Carole lurking in some corner, ready to pounce on Sinclair or someone of equal importance. In one area, a server was fussing with several piles of tiny cocktail napkins imprinted with the name of the new thriller. “I take it your father’s around.”

  Rocky sighed. After finishing his drink, he placed the glass on the counter and nodded at the bartender who was busy at the other end, filling glasses. “My father’s always around, even when you don’t see him.” He laughed. The sound was a little like a mule, braying. “Especially when you don’t see him.”

  Elisha eyed the man she considered her friend more than her boss. “How many glasses of wine have you had, Rocky?”

  He twirled the stem of the glass with his long, thin fingers. It tottered a little and he placed it back down. “This is the only glass,” he told her solemnly. “The bartender keeps pouring wine into it, but I’ve only been using the one.”

  She pretended to frown slightly. “You’re playing with words.”

  Rocky looked back at her, the soul of innocence. “Isn’t that what we in the publishing world are supposed to do? Play with words?”

  A server with a tray full of crab cakes approached. Remembering the reason for her wearing a slimming black dress, Elisha shook her head. The server then turned to Rocky, who took two servings, his own and hers.

  “The authors, yes,” she said, enviously watching him consume both of the tiny cakes, “not the editors. Or the executive editors.” Elisha gave him a penetrating look.

  Rocky plucked up one of the tiny napkins and delicately wiped his mouth. “Executive, my ass.”

  He was running himself down again. It was a lifelong habit, learned at his father’s knee. “If you want to be executive of your ass, that’s your business, but I suggest you do it on your own time, away from your father’s watchful eye.”

  He looked at her as if she should know better. “I could be dead and buried six feet under and I’d still be under his watchful eye.”

  Because no one else had arrived yet, the server lingered at her elbow. The aroma from the warm crab cakes was getting to her. “You’re paranoid,” she told Rocky.

  “Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean they’re not after you.” Turning back to the bartender, he nodded for the man to top off his glass. The balding man obliged. Rocky lifted the glass in another silent toast before bringing it back to his lips.

  “Your father’s not after you, he just wants you to be the best that you can be,” Elisha consoled him. It wasn’t long after she was hired that she undertook the job of attempting to bolster Rocky’s sagging ego. The fact that she couldn’t was in no way because she didn’t say the right things, but that his father had conducted a scorched-earth policy long before she ever arrived on the scene.

  “No,” Rocky contradicted her, “my father wants me to be better than him and we all know that’s not humanly possible.”

  Catching his arm, Elisha gently redirected Rocky’s elbow to make contact with the bar, causing the glass to fall short of making contact with his lips. “You’re wrong there.”

  “About me being better than him?”

  She grinned. No amount of talking would convince Rocky that in many ways, he was actually better than the dynamic, take-no-prisoners Hayden Randolph.

  “No, about him wanting you to be better than him. I think if you were, it would completely crush your father. He’s always wanted to be nothing short of the best.” The goal applied to his publishing firm as well, which the man saw, more than his own flesh and blood, as an extension of himself.

  “Crush him, huh?”

  She smiled at Rocky affectionately. In a way, she almost thought of him as an older brother. But he was less self-assured than her own younger brother. “That wasn’t the key thought there. Keep up, Rocky.”

  “With you? Not possible.” He took another sip of his wine. “You do the work of ten and your heart is pure. If this were the Middle Ages, there’d be a balladeer singing about you on every corner of the kingdom.” He laughed and shook his head. “The best thing I ever did was hire you.” He looked up at her. “Tell me, how is it that you and I never married?”

  “Because you’re gay, Rocky.” It was one of those things that was regarded as an open secret, a secret he neither broadcasted nor guarded zealously. She’d had suspicions for a while before he had confided in her in a scene that had unfolded much the way this evening was heading.

  He put a finger to his lips and winked. “Shh, not too loud.”

  “I guess that means I should cancel my posting on the Internet,” she remarked glibly. Succumbing to both hunger and the aroma drifting around from the crab cakes, she finally took one from the server’s tray. The man smiled at her knowingly.

  “The old man doesn’t know,” Rocky said before popping another crab cake into his mouth.

  She saw the facts in a slightly different light. Hayden Randolph was too savvy to be ignorant. “The old man doesn’t want to know,” she corrected Rocky.

  “Yeah, it would be like Ernest Hemingway suddenly admitting that he fathered Truman Capote.”

  That was a little harsh. Up until now, she’d thought that he was putting her on as to his condition. But now she was beginning to grow concerned. She didn’t want the man to embarrass himself tonight. Aside from his father and the staff, there would be the usual gaggle of literary critics attending. “So how long have you been drinking?”

  “Since tenth grade.”

  “Tonight, Rocky,” she emphasized. “How long have you been drinking tonight?”

  He thought a moment. “Before I got here. That’s the beauty of having a limo bring you. New York’s finest can’t arrest you for drunk sitting.”

  More people began to arrive, which brought the party to life. But her attention was focused on Rocky. Turning her back to the entrance so that her body partially shielded Rocky from view, she glared at him. “Why do you let him get to you like that? You’re very good at what you do.”

  He raised his brow before bringing the glass to his lips again. “Drink? None better.”

  “I mean being the executive editor.” His father had insisted he work his way up through the ranks. Rocky had a flair for picking the gem in a tray full of semiprecious stones. He’d schooled her until she’d developed the same knack and she never forgot that. “And, let’s not forget, you were the one who convinced Sinclair Jones to leave his publisher and come aboard here.”

  Narrow, bony shoulders moved up and down within his custom-fitted jacket. “The man felt sorry for me.”

  She hated when Rocky did this, when he did his father’s work for him and ran himself down this way. “When it comes to money, people don’t allow their emotions to get in the way. You gave him the better deal and you were the one who saw that he had better books in him.”

  There was pure affection in the look he gave her. “You are good for me, Elisha. Promise me you’ll never leave.”

  This was her life, for better or for worse. Luckily, most of the time it was for better. “I’m not going anywhere, Rocky.”

  He took a deep breath, then paused. “Funny, but you seem to be swaying some now.”

  Very gently, she disengaged his fingers from the stem of his glass. “I suggest you slow down your intake.”

  “There you go, mothering me.” But he made no effort to pick up the glass again. “We’re the same age, Elisha, you can’t mother me.”

  She gave him a reproving look. For the most part, Rocky didn’t let his drinking get out of hand. But it was touch-and-go sometimes. “I’m three years younger than you are.”

  He winced. “Not like you to throw age at me.”

  “I’m not, just making you check your facts.” She grinned. “Besides, they say that you’re only as old as you feel.”
r />   “Right now, I’m not feeling much of anything. Especially my feet.” He looked down at them as if to make sure they were still there.

  “Okay, that does it. You’re on the wagon for the rest of the evening.” She glanced at the bartender, drafting him in her battle to keep Rocky from embarrassing himself. “What have you got back there that looks like alcohol but isn’t?”

  “Ginger ale?” the man suggested, putting a bottle of same on the counter.

  She nodded, pleased. “Perfect.”

  “Ginger ale?” Rocky echoed in dismay. “Elisha, how do you expect me to get drunk on ginger ale?”

  “I don’t.”

  He contemplated the bottle, then nodded. The bartender poured the contents into his glass. “Then you have to promise me that when the old man comes out, you won’t leave my side.”

  They both knew she had obligations tonight. They entailed holding her author’s hand. Sinclair was terrified of critics. “As long as Sinclair doesn’t need me, I won’t.”

  “He’ll be too busy soaking up the attention.” He took a sip of the ginger ale and made a face. “No kick,” he lamented. “You like working with him?”

  “Sinclair?” She nodded. “He reminds me a little of my grandfather. Except he’s less secure.”

  “They say the publishing world is like that.”

  “The world is like that,” she told him. “Insecurity is more or less a way of life for everyone. Some just hide it better than others.”

  Rocky knew better. “Except for you,” he told her affectionately. “You have the confidence of ten because your heart is pure.”

  “That’s the strength of ten,” she corrected him.

  “Strong, too.” He leaned back, as if taking complete measure of her. “God, you’re pretty much the perfect woman, Lise.”

  “If you say so, Rocky.” She smiled at him. “Will you do the perfect woman a favor?”

  “What?” he asked cautiously.

  She indicated the glass on the counter. “Drink your ginger ale.”

  Instead of picking up the glass, Rocky turned toward the rear exit. “Right after I visit the little boys’ room.”

  Elisha looked at him, a little concerned. Rocky looked pale, but then, Rocky always looked pale. “Are you feeling sick?”

  He grinned at her. “You really do need a pet. Or a kid.”

  “At this stage of my life, Rocky,” she told him, “a pet is all I can handle.”

  As he walked away, Elisha reached for another crab cake. It was her second, but then who was counting?

  CHAPTER 3

  At this stage of my life.

  The words she’d just uttered echoed back in her head. Elisha frowned.

  What did that even mean? Did it mean she was settling, resigning herself to something? That she felt she was drifting in her middle age and beyond and wasn’t even going to put up a halfhearted fight to remain in the game of life? Was this her subconscious saying that her life was set in stone and there was no point in attempting to create something different?

  God, what had they put into these crab cakes?

  Taking stock of herself, Elisha dusted her fingers off, then passed the tiny cocktail napkin over them to get the last of the residue. She didn’t usually get philosophical during the course of the day and certainly never at a party.

  Fine, she was doing fine, she silently told herself with as much passion as silence could muster. As for “this stage of her life,” well, life unfolded in stages. Lots of stages. This was just another one of them.

  Hell, she’d fought hard to get to where she was now and by no means was she going to just sit back on the sidelines.

  Like Carole Chambers wanted her to do.

  Elisha’s dark green eyes narrowed. Sinclair Jones had just entered the ballroom and from out of nowhere, the sexy, dark-haired woman who had been the overly attractive thorn in her side for the last six months materialized. Completely unfamiliar with the words subdued or understated, Carole wore a gauze-inspired red dress that brought new meaning to the word vivid. Elisha frowned. She’d seen tourniquets wrapped more loosely than Carole’s dress.

  Since when had cellophane become a fashion statement?

  Time for action, Elisha thought. Carole was heading directly for the author like a torpedo targeting a cruise ship.

  Elisha tossed aside her napkin. Over my dead body, sweetie.

  She made it across the room in record time, reaching Sinclair only two beats after Carole had joined herself to him. Sinclair looked a little startled. The statuesque younger woman had slipped her arm through the author’s and was looking up at him with the adoration of a true believer, as if he were single-handedly responsible for both finding the Rosetta stone and bringing the restored Ten Commandments down from Mount Sinai.

  When it came to kissing up, the assistant editor she’d been plagued with had absolutely no equal.

  Someone should drop a house on the woman, Elisha thought.

  A tight smile on her lips, she nodded at Carole. But then the tight smile faded, replaced by a genuine one as she regarded the tall, portly man wearing gray slacks, navy jacket and a perpetual line of perspiration just beneath his graying hairline. The man whose hand she’d held through every bout of writer’s block over the last ten years.

  Warmth and affection washed over her as she asked, “How are you doing, Sinclair?”

  “Sweating bullets,” Sinclair confided in response to her question.

  Taking out a perfectly folded white handkerchief, he passed it over his brow. Within seconds, another line of perspiration swiftly arrived to take its place. Giving up, he pocketed the handkerchief.

  Still hermetically sealed to his arm, the assistant editor’s eyes widened at Sinclair’s comment.

  “Oh, Mr. Jones, you?” Carole declared in a syrupy voice that would have made Scarlett O’Hara more than moderately proud. “Why would you be worried? You’re one of the bestselling authors of all time. People just love your books.”

  Never missing a beat, Elisha disengaged Sinclair’s arm from the sexy barracuda’s death grip and slipped her arm through it to take its place. She glanced over her shoulder at the woman she’d just usurped.

  “Carole, be a dear and tell that server we need more crab cakes.” She nodded toward the handsome young man whose tray she was partly responsible for depleting.

  It was an obvious dismissal.

  Carole pressed her lips together, as if she was swallowing a response that had leapt there. A response that could easily be construed as less than congenial. She was a woman who was biding her time. Praying it would be short.

  “Of course.” With a gracious, slightly seductive and suggestive nod toward the author, Carole Chambers retreated from the scrimmage line over which she’d lost control.

  Elisha felt she kept her smirk well under control. Score one for the over-forty set.

  She turned her attention back to Sinclair.

  “She’s right, you know,” Elisha said to the man who seemed momentarily diverted and amused by the exchange. “People really do love your books. There is no reason for this.” To punctuate her statement, she lightly wiped her fingertips along his damp brow.

  “People are fickle, Elisha. They profess their undying love one day, then the next, they go rushing off to worship at someone else’s altar.”

  She didn’t know about people, but that aptly described men. At least the last man in her life. And maybe the man before that, she amended. She forced a wide smile to her lips as she banked down further musing along the wrong path.

  Tonight was all about Sinclair. His triumph and his future royalties.

  “Which is why you should be enjoying all this now,” she told him, not for the first time. “You’ve earned it, you deserve it, and tomorrow you’ll come up with an even better, bigger altar.”

  With a laugh, Sinclair patted the hand that was resting on his arm. His own hand covered it like a paw. “Keep talking. It’s helping.”

  She
pretended to look at him in disbelief. “You mean to tell me that little Miss Skintight-Red-Dress didn’t gush enough at you?”

  The comment was catty, she knew, but just for tonight, she’d allow herself that luxury. Sinclair had dedicated his about-to-be-blockbuster to her, a fact that she knew irritated the hell out of Carole. She had no doubts it made the woman even more determined than ever to unseat her from her present position.

  Bring it on, Carole. I’ve outlasted better editors than you.

  “Oh, she gushed all right,” Sinclair told her, “but I have this feeling that the young woman would gush at anyone she thought might be able to get her ahead in the game.”

  Elisha grinned fondly. “That’s what I like about you, Sinclair, you’re so astute.”

  And then she felt all five foot ten of him stiffen into an almost military stance of attention. He was no longer looking at her.

  “Speaking of astute, or pretending to be, they’re here.” He nodded at several people who entered the ballroom.

  She didn’t bother to look. She didn’t need to, or even to ask who “they” were. She knew. The tightness in his voice told her everything. Enter the critics, the keepers of every writer’s self-esteem, no matter what was protested to the contrary.

  Elisha placed one hand over the man’s thick barrel chest, as if she could somehow regulate his intake of air with the simple pressure of her fingers.

  “Deep breaths, Sinclair. Take deep breaths,” she counseled, never taking her eyes off his face. “Don’t hyperventilate on me now. I left my paper bag in my other purse.”

  It was a standing joke between them, born of the one time, early in their association, when, spiraling into the depths of fear and insecurity over the direction of a book, he actually began to hyperventilate. Before stopping at his split-level apartment, Elisha had gone to the store to pick up some groceries in order to replenish his naked pantry. With lightning moves, she’d swiftly dumped said groceries on the floor and all but shoved the gasping writer’s head into the bag, ordering him to breathe.

  He’d recovered in a matter of minutes, emerging from the bag and the ordeal with a damp forehead and a new, healthy respect for her quick thinking. They’d built the foundation of their solid relationship on the actions of that afternoon.