The Enticement

My pen froze. I blinked. “You want me to what?” I finally asked.

“We’d like for you to answer questions on the air once a week.” Meagan tapped him on the shoulder and they put their heads together and whispered for a few very long seconds. Didn’t really matter. I was so surprised by what he’d said, I doubted I’d have heard or understood anything they were talking about.

Me? On TV?

“I understand there may be a concern about privacy,” Mr. Black said. “I assure you, we don’t want you to do anything that would put you in an uncomfortable position. We can work out a way to ensure you are not identified.”

“We can put you in a floppy hat and big sunglasses,” Meagan suggested. “Sell you as a lady of mystery. People would eat it with a spoon.”

“The questions wouldn’t be live, would they?” I asked. Holy shit, am I seriously thinking about accepting the position? “I’d get a list of them ahead of time, so I could do some research if necessary?”

“That won’t be a problem,” Black assured me. “One of your strong selling points is your realism. We don’t want you to answer anything without doing the necessary research.” He looked at his watch. “Unfortunately, I have to be on my way to California. Meagan, can you take over?”

Meagan jumped to her feet. “Yes, sir.”

I stood and shook his hand. “Nice meeting you. Safe travels.”

“I’m glad you’re on our team, Mrs. West,” he said, looking at me with intelligent eyes. “Let’s go one step higher, shall we? Think about it. Meagan will fill you in on the details.”

My mind was still stuck on: Me? On TV? But I managed to mumble something that sounded somewhat similar to “I’ll think about it.”

When the door closed behind him, I dropped into my seat. “Damn.”

Meagan leaned forward. “Well, what do you think?”

“I think I’m still in shock.”

“It’s a lot to take in. And I understand you’ll need to talk it over with your husband.” Her long platinum hair had been straightened today. Paired with the silver and black suit she wore, it looked like she should be the one getting in front of the camera.

“I don’t know anything about television,” I confessed.

“Abby, dear.” She walked over to me and pulled me up out of the chair. “That’s why you’ll be perfect. Come here.”

She led me to a picture window. We were about sixty stories high, making the people on the sidewalk look like Elizabeth’s play dolls. I could almost envision reaching down, picking one up, and carrying them to a new location altogether.

“You see all those people?” Meagan asked. “Take those that you see and multiply times one hundred—heck, say a thousand. That’s a hell of a lot of people. You know what most of them are looking for?”

“What?”

“Something real. They can smell the fake shit from two blocks away, but they’ll always be drawn in by the real thing.” She lightly punched my arm. “That’s you. You’re the real thing. I told you this when you started writing for the site and I’ll remind you again: people are drawn to you because they know real when they see it, when they read it, when they hear it, and when they feel it.”

“Live TV?” I imagined all the people below the window watching me on the air and almost hyperventilated. “Do you know how many ways I can mess that up?”

“You know we won’t let you do that.” She took me by the shoulders and spun me around to face her. I recognized the look in her eyes immediately and I remembered her once saying she topped women. “Focus on who you are, what you know, and who you can help. When you’re in your collar and your Master asks you to do something you’re not sure about, do you fret about messing it up or do you focus on him?”

“I force myself to focus on him.”

“Why?”

“Because it makes me leave doubt behind.”

She smiled. “Yes, and if you decide to do this, we’ll have a lot of mock situations and practice questions. We’ll go over the routine so many times, you’ll be sleep-talking your answers. You’ve got this. Trust me, okay?”

I let out a shaky breath. “Okay.”

“There you go,” she said. “Do you want to go see the set? You want to chill out in my office or just go home and think?”

It would be fun to visit the set, but I could always do that another day. And while it was nice of her to offer her office, I really wanted to get back home, throw on some comfortable clothes and think. Nathaniel would wonder how the meeting went; I needed to call him before I talked to Linda or anyone else about it. And I wanted to swing by Felicia and Jackson’s house, since I promised her I’d stop by.