The Siren

“I thought you’d be with Zach tonight,” Wesley said.

Nora found his hand and wrapped her fingers around his.

“No. I’m with you tonight.”

24

Zach spent the entire morning on the phone discussing the details of contracts and upcoming projects at Royal’s West Coast office. The meetings would normally have been rather enjoyable and interesting, but with Nora and last night’s events on his mind, he couldn’t concentrate. He rattled off information by rote, all the while thinking about how a few hours ago, he’d been wandering around New York’s most infamous underground S&M club with a Catholic priest and the son of John Fiske, the city’s most powerful financier. And then afterward in the car with Nora… He could still remember what she felt like on his fingers and how close he’d been to sliding inside her. Now in the Tuesday afternoon daylight, Zach had trouble believing it was real. He only had Nora as proof—Nora who seemed to pass from his world and into her world and back with frightening ease.

Meetings finally over, Zach got to sit down at his own desk in front of his computer. He discovered that he had twenty-five new pages from Nora and the promise of more to come.

I got up early this morning, Nora wrote. I was sleeping with Wes and he had an eight o’clock class. Microbiology at 8 f**king a.m.? Now that’s sadism.

You slept with your virgin intern last night? Zach replied after he read Nora’s email two more times to make sure he wasn’t missing anything. About fifteen minutes later Nora wrote back.

Don’t be jealous, darling. It was completely innocent. Well, mostly innocent. But you’ll have to excuse me while I get back to my homework. I’m not going to give you any excuse to pu**y out on our deal.

I think I may live to regret those words, Zach wrote back.

You won’t regret a thing once I’m done with you. Now leave me alone. I’m Papa Hemingway today.

Nora was the opposite of Hemingway in every possible way. For one thing, she couldn’t write terse prose if she had a gun to her head. For another, Zach actually enjoyed reading Nora’s books.

Hemingway was the king of understatement, economy of words and brevity. Are you sure you of all people want to use him as a model? Zach replied.

Nora’s next email was answer enough.

Yes.

Zach was still laughing when J.P. came into his office.

“Smiling and laughter? This hall hasn’t seen nearly as much fog lately,” J.P. said. “Do we have a certain writer to thank for this astonishing change of weather?”

“We were discussing Hemingway.”

“Yes, a comic genius that Hemingway. How’s Sutherlin’s book coming?”

“Very well. We’ve got two and a half weeks left and two hundred pages to rewrite, but if she keeps up the pace, we’ll get it done right before I leave.”

“Tight schedule there, Easton. That’s a lot of quantity to expect a great deal of quality.”

“She can do both. She has drive and a strong incentive to get the book finished.”

“Yes, her unsigned contract’s still hanging over her head, isn’t it?”

Zach smiled and leaned back in his chair. It felt shockingly good to smile like that, like he had a wicked secret that was his to keep or tell. This must be what Nora felt every time she smiled.

J.P. must have seen the secret in the smile.

“It’s not just the contract that’s keeping her working so hard, is it?” J.P. said, stroking his beard with an amused twinkle in his eye.

“We’re not sleeping together. Haven’t so much as kissed her.” He omitted the office floor incident and last night in the car. Technically, they hadn’t kissed, not on the lips anyway.

“You can do a lot without bothering with kissing. I was young once.”

“Thanks to Nora I have enough disturbing images in my head to last two lifetimes. Please do not add to them.”

“At this point,” J.P. began, standing up, “I don’t really care how you get the book finished. Just get it finished before you go to L.A. and without getting on Page Six, and I’ll be the happiest man on the face of the earth. You are still going to L.A., aren’t you?”

Zach paused. Of course he was going to L.A. Wasn’t he? Then again, leaving New York meant leaving Nora. Leaving London had meant leaving Grace—he wasn’t sure he ever wanted to leave like that again. “Yes, I’m going to L.A. It’s all about the book, J.P.” Zach said.

“Keep telling yourself that, Easton,” J.P. said. He turned around and threw a small wrapped box to Zach. “You’ve got another present, by the way.”

Zach caught the box and sighed. His office prankster had continued sending little kinky presents every few days. With some trepidation, Zach opened it. He pulled out the contents and furrowed his brow at them. They looked something like clip-on silver earrings, lightweight and dangling. Hardly kinky at all. Was his prankster teasing him about cross-dressing? Zach put the earrings back in the box and stuffed the box in his messenger bag, not sure what else to do with them. He’d let Nora have them if she liked them.

He pulled her contract out of his top desk drawer and flipped through it again. He picked up a pen and thought about signing it. He could sign it now and not tell her; then when the book was finished, he could show her how much faith he’d had in her all along. A slight exaggeration considering how loath he was to work with her in the beginning, but he knew she would be touched.