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  His smile faded. “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, if Sutherland starts giving me ulcers, I might have to go Paula’s route and quit.”

  “I’ll take him away before I’d let you quit.”

  She looked at him. Rocky had managed to surprise her. “You mean that?”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Okay, then we have a deal. Bring on the ex-SEAL. Maybe I can teach him to behave.”

  Rocky shook his head. “Not even you, Lise. I’m just hoping for some kind of semi-peaceful existence.”

  “Ah, Rocky, a man’s grasp should extend his reach, or what’s a heaven for?”

  “Just make sure you stay out of Sutherland’s grasp.”

  She looked at him. “Am I going to have to worry about that, too?”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll handle him if anything gets out of hand.”

  She leveled her gaze at him. “All right, I will hold you to your word.”

  They shook hands on it. Elisha was pretty certain that the one Rocky kept out of her line of vision had its fingers crossed.

  CHAPTER 9

  “So, are you the latest sacrificial lamb they’ve decided to send into the arena?”

  She had been braced for this all day. All week, really. Ever since she’d shaken Rocky’s hand and agreed to take on Ryan Sutherland, Randolph & Sons’ highest-drawing card, as her author.

  She knew him, of course. It was hard to work for the publishing house and not know the tall, bombastic man who looked every bit the action hero he detailed in his books.

  He moved into her office like a dark storm crouching on the horizon and inching its way across the sea. At approximately five-eleven, he was not an overly tall man, but he had a larger-than-life quality as well as an aura of danger that she sensed he was careful to cultivate. It was good for sales and good for drawing women to him. As if his celebrity status wasn’t enough.

  But they had never done more than nod at one another whenever their paths crossed, either in the halls of Randolph & Sons Publishing or at a book launch. She had been to several of his launches. He, in turn, had attended a handful of others for people he might not call friend but to whom he felt he owed some sort of allegiance.

  Either that or it was a good excuse to imbibe alcohol, which he was able to do on a grand scale without looking the slightest bit inebriated.

  Part of his SEAL training, no doubt.

  Feeling a little like someone whose ramparts had just been scaled, Elisha forced her mouth to curve as she sat back in her chair. She slid off her glasses and took a good look at the man who was going to make her life a living hell.

  “A sacrificial lamb? Now, that’s an interesting metaphor, Mr. Sutherland. Do you see yourself as a gladiator or a butcher?”

  Ryan smiled at his new editor. He hadn’t expected a comeback. Most editors, particularly those of the softer sex, usually mumbled and laughed self-consciously. He threw people off-kilter and he liked it. “I see myself as someone who doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”

  If he expected her to cringe, he was going to be disappointed, Elisha thought. She was more than up to the challenge he represented. “Judging by your last contract, I doubt if you suffer at all. I understand bales of money were involved.”

  He was accustomed to his editors bowing and scraping, had come to take it for granted. This woman looked as if she wanted to go fifteen rounds with him. He was in no mood for a sparring partner.

  “Bales of money that wouldn’t have appeared on Randolph’s doorstep without the product of the sweat of my brow. Namely, my talent.” He looked at the chair before her desk. “Mind if I sit?”

  She gestured toward the chair. “Please.” She waited until he had lowered what looked to be his still-taut body into the chair. Once upon a time, when she had thought about life taking a different turn, this would have been the kind of “hero” she might have invented for herself. But now he was just a writer, albeit a very successful writer, and her regard of him was in a purely professional capacity.

  “Granted,” she continued once Sutherland had placed his leather briefcase on the floor, “but as I hear it, half that money was spent on headache tablets and tranquilizers.”

  He looked at her, vaguely puzzled. They’d given him a babbler, he thought with a disgust he didn’t attempt to hide. “I don’t take tranquilizers.”

  No, but you do keep the companies who make them in business. “I was referring to all the editors you’ve chewed up then spit out in the last year.”

  Piercing blue eyes narrowed on her. He’d stopped by his publisher’s, as was his habit whenever he was in the city. This time there had been more of a specific purpose to his visit. But he was beginning to regret it. “Did Rockefeller select you to antagonize me?”

  “No, to work with you.” She flashed him her best, most disarming smile, hoping to get them back on track. “Maybe we should get to know each other a little better before we leap into the creative process.”

  Ryan moved his torso forward as he slid to the edge of the chair. He gave her the impression of a commando about to jump from a plane and yell “Geronimo.” His voice was so low when he spoke, it seemed to rumble in her chest first before she heard it with her ears.

  “One, I neither need nor want to get to know you. I don’t need to know the name of your parents, or that you called your first pet, a goldfish, Simon. None of that matters. You are what the publisher whimsically wishes to call my editor, not my intended mate. And two, we are not leaping anywhere, least of all into a creative process. That process is strictly for me alone. Your main job is to take what I have done and bring it over to the production department.”

  She stared at him, trying desperately to keep a poker face and not let the writer see that she thought he was just about the biggest egotist she had ever met. “Like a messenger.”

  His sardonic expression never changed. “You have a fairly good grasp of the language, I see.”

  She could understand why Paula had fled after three months of this. Paula thought of herself as the end product of a long line of incredibly intelligent women. To be regarded as a single-celled amoeba would have been difficult for her. She, on the other hand, was not about to allow herself to get rattled. She decided to think of this as a tennis game. She was going to hit back every ball the man lobbed at her.

  She smiled, exuding a calmness that only went down to the first layer. Beneath that was an entirely different matter.

  “I have an infinitely wonderful grasp of the English language,” she replied, “which is why I am a successful editor. And for the time being, until God or Rockefeller Randolph tears us asunder, I am your editor, Mr. Sutherland. That means I will be editing.” Her gaze never wavered as she looked him straight in the eye. “Undoubtedly lightly, but I will be editing.”

  He glanced down at the briefcase he’d brought. Inside were the fruits of his latest labor. Protocol dictated that he present it to his newest editor. No thought was given to its pages being marked up because that just didn’t happen with one of his works. “Change one word of what I’ve written and you won’t have to wait for God to tear us asunder. I’ll do it myself. With my bare hands if I have to.”

  She read between the lines. “Editing isn’t an insult, Mr. Sutherland. Even Hemingway and Fitzgerald had Maxwell Perkins.”

  The reference, coming out of nowhere, amused him. “And you fancy yourself my Maxwell?”

  “I fancy myself part of the team that is putting out your books, Mr. Sutherland.” Her mouth curved again, because what she said was true. “I am your first audience, devoid of the hero worship.”

  Thunder rolled across the plains again. The look in his eyes darkened. “You don’t like my books?”

  She’d found his Achilles’ heel, she thought. Despite his bombastic manner, he felt a thread of insecurity about his books. Good, she’d make that work for her. “I never said I didn’t like your books, Mr. Sutherland. But it’s not my job to read them for pleasure.”
r />   His mouth twitched in dismissive disgust. “Perhaps you should. Everyone else who’s plunking down their hard-earned money is going to be doing just that, reading for pleasure, for entertainment. For escape. Maybe you would better serve your employer and the public by remembering that and trying to implement those principles when you read the results of my efforts.”

  She didn’t particularly like the way he’d lingered on the word serve. Sutherland undoubtedly viewed her as some sort of servant. If that’s what he thought, man, did he have the wrong job description.

  “It might have slipped your mind, but we’re supposed to be a team,” she reminded him.

  “It never slipped my mind because it was never on my mind to begin with.” His eyes were penetrating as he looked at her, pulling out her secrets. Making her feel that he had somehow been blessed with X-ray vision. It took everything she had not to shift uncomfortably. “The last ‘team member’ I had jumped out of a helicopter with me into the Indian Ocean at two o’clock in the morning. He didn’t make it back.”

  “Was he reading one of your manuscripts at the time?”

  Ryan opened his mouth to answer, then stopped. Instead of saying something, he began to laugh. It was a deep, rumbling sound, like the beginnings of an earthquake deep within the bowels of the earth.

  He gave up the opposition. For now. “All right, tell Rockefeller you’re acceptable.”

  She wondered if everyone wanted to pluck out every dark hair on his head within five minutes of the initial introduction, or if she was setting some kind of record. “He already knows that.”

  “To me,” Ryan emphasized, not caring a damn what anyone else thought on the subject. He was the one who would have to deal with her, although he was determined to keep the contact down to a minimum. Maybe if she were more attractive, he might feel more inclined to interact with her, but she made him think of an old-fashioned schoolmarm, right down to the glasses atop her dark blond head. That had never been the type to pique his interest. “Tell him you’re acceptable to me.”

  She knew that he was trying to make her look away. She stared back harder. And smiled wider. “He already assumed as much.”

  Ryan wasn’t sure whether he admired her bravado or was annoyed by it. “Oh, he did, did he? And why is that?”

  “Because he’s never met an author who didn’t like me.” She was very proud of that. Rocky had once said that, if he had a worthwhile story to tell, she could probably get along with the devil himself. Obviously, he had decided to put that theory to the test.

  Sutherland made no effort to mask his disdain. “You’re not one of those needy types who needs people to like her, are you?”

  “No.” She didn’t strictly “need” it. She did, however, like it. “It’s just a happy by-product of my work.” Maybe he’d treat her with more respect if she began to sound more like an editor and less like a verbal sparring partner, she thought. Elisha took out a pad from the middle drawer. “Now then, I see by the notes that Paula left—”

  Sutherland looked away. His sneer seemed to fill up the room. “A thoroughly scattered female.”

  Maybe another editor might have tried to placate him by murmuring something in agreement, but she couldn’t. She didn’t even like Paula, but the woman didn’t deserve to be reviled like this. She needed someone to stand up for her and for lack of anyone else in the room, the lot fell to her. “She was a very competent editor until you peeled her like a grape.”

  He blew out a breath that was meant to dismiss not only Paula and her theory, but Elisha, as well. “Her nerves were far too close to the surface. If she’d been a Navy SEAL, she would have been killed the second she entered enemy territory.”

  “In case you didn’t notice, Paula wasn’t a Navy SEAL, she was an editor,” Elisha pointed out, refusing to back down. “And do you consider yourself enemy territory?”

  His eyes held hers. Again she felt as if she were being breached. “I am if you intend to invade.”

  She spread her hands wide in complete innocence. “I’m just here to facilitate the tremendous effort it takes to produce the blockbusters you write.”

  “Well, ‘Max,’ you can facilitate the ‘tremendous effort’—and you’re right about that—by staying out of my way and letting me do what I do best.”

  “Filleting those around you?” she guessed.

  For the second time since he’d walked into her office, Ryan Sutherland laughed.

  “Only as a last resort.” After a moment’s debate, he picked up the worn leather briefcase that was resting against his chair. After putting it on his lap, he withdrew a considerably large manuscript from within. Leaning forward, he placed the book on her desk. “All right, here it is.”

  She eyed the offering, wondering if he expected her to bow down before it. “Your first draft?”

  “My only draft.”

  Shivers raced down her back. They weren’t the kind she had once welcomed. These were meant to warn her and keep her alive.

  CHAPTER 10

  It wasn’t until well after lunch that Rocky ventured to stick first his head, then the rest of his lanky body, into her office. There was a hesitant expression on his face, as if he doubted the wisdom of even asking, but knew he had to.

  “So.” The single word hung in the air as he eased the door closed behind him, never taking his eyes off her face. Or possibly it was her hands that he was watching warily. Milo had thrown something at him before tendering his resignation. “I didn’t hear any wild screams or robust cursing this morning. How did it go?”

  As soon as Ryan had left, Elisha had barricaded herself in her office, determined to read his book from first page to last. She had initially wanted to just get a flavor for what he had written, but editing was second nature to her and the pencil had found its way into her hand by the time she had gotten to page ten.

  She raised her eyes from the manuscript. “I’m surprised you had the nerve to show your face in my office.”

  Rocky frowned, looking mournful. “That bad, huh?”

  As far as first official meetings went, she’d had better. Any one of her first meetings had been better. Ryan Sutherland made the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Working with him was going to be a challenge.

  “The man doesn’t need an editor, Rocky, he needs a lion tamer. Ryan Sutherland gives new meaning to the word hubris.” She realized she wasn’t saying anything new. Everyone who knew the man probably thought that. Except the bimbos he occasionally squired and only because they probably didn’t know the meaning of the word. She sighed, indicating the manuscript she was working on. “Too bad he’s talented as hell.”

  A spark entered Rocky’s brown eyes. “Is that his latest book?”

  Elisha nodded in response. “That’s it.”

  There was nothing but sheer admiration and gratitude in Rocky’s voice. She knew if the meeting had gone badly, Sutherland would have taken his manuscript back home with him, a bartering chip to be used in his demand for another editor. Rocky had to be congratulating himself for pairing them up.

  “Well, you got more out of him than Paula did, that’s for sure. When she asked to see the first few chapters, he refused to show them to her.”

  “But she was his editor, not to mention probably his type.” The woman under discussion was tall, leggy and endowed. All the things she had once aspired to be herself, before things like that had taken on a lesser importance in deference to deadlines. And gravity.

  “I don’t know about his type, but he’d said something about her being more suited to parade around before the judges of a Miss America beauty contest than to touching, much less offering, a comment about one of his manuscripts.”

  Elisha sighed. “Sounds like the dear man.” She shook her head. “I’m surprised she didn’t threaten to sue him and Randolph & Sons for sexual harassment.”

  “She wanted to,” he admitted, perching for a moment on the side of her desk like a sparrow ready to take flight at the first sign
of danger. “And it was touch-and-go for a while. But I pulled a few strings and got her a job at Arlington Press—at slightly more pay. The executive editor there owes me a favor.”

  “And now you owe him one.”

  He shrugged, his thin shoulders rising and falling like a marionette whose strings had suddenly been pulled then dropped.

  “It’s what makes the world go around.” Repositioning himself on her desk to catch a glimpse of Ryan’s latest tome, he asked, “So, how is it?”

  She nodded, looking back at what she’d been reading. “Good. Needs a little polish, but good.”

  “Tell Sutherland about the good part, skip the talk about the polish.” He rose from her desk and moved over to the window. “I don’t have time to attend another funeral this month.”

  She looked at him. “Rocky, the manuscript could be better.”

  He turned away from the window. There was a note of pleading in his voice as well as in his eyes. “And I could be taller, but I’m not. If the book’s readable, and of course it is, we put it out.” He drew closer to her. “Maybe you missed this part, but Sutherland doesn’t exactly handle criticism well.”

  In her experience, no one liked to be criticized unless they were masochistic. However, good criticism served a purpose. It made you grow. Everyone could stand to grow a little, even Sutherland. Everything but his ego.

  “Maybe he should learn.”

  Rocky stared at her as if she’d just told him to cut the author loose. Which was what her suggestion amounted to.

  “He’s the top-selling author we have, Lise. One of the top-selling authors in the country.” His voice had risen several ranges. After clearing his throat, he tried again at a lower octave. “In other words, if it’s not broke, don’t fix it.”

  She frowned, her eyes pinning him where he stood. “Then why did you give him to me, Rocky? Why didn’t you just take him on yourself if all you wanted was a rubber stamp?”

  “Take him on myself?” he repeated incredulously. “Because I’m already taking tranquilizers and Sutherland makes me nervous. Really nervous. Almost as nervous as my father does.” He seemed to reconsider that. “Maybe even more. There’s blood between my father and me. Sutherland was known for spilling blood in the days before he began to write. Besides,” he protested, “you’re good with people.”