Page 63 of Smoke and Fire
For a guy like him, that meant something.
“Are you answering emails for him?” she asked. This time, I blinked several times. What had the defensive note in her voice meant?
“Well, yes, but . . . I’m not pretending to be Jess, if that’s what you mean. I sign the emails as her assistant.”
She hesitated. “Oh?”
I shrugged. “I’m just responding to the emails that I can help, like people that ask for PR opportunities or questions about the books or availability or translations. That sort of thing. The people who reach out to Jess personally are left for Bastian to respond to.”
“And are you doing interviews for Jess?”
“Written ones that he's sort of pre-filled out. If I don't know the answer, I try my best guess. Sometimes he can text, so I send him the weird questions that no one on planet earth knows the answer to.”
“No podcasts?”
I shook my head, incredulous. “No! Of course not. I . . . I’m not Jess. I refused. I couldn’t take that on.”
“I see.”
“Do you?” The question came out of me before I could stop it. My gaze tapered. Although she’d given me no direct condescension, I felt it all the way through her tone. “Because I’m not sure you do.”
Priyanka’s nostrils flared as she drew in a deep breath. “You’re right. When Bastian presented the idea to me, he wanted to pay someone to become Jess. I thought it was a bad idea. He never told me he had done otherwise, just sent a text that said it was taken care of. I wanted to . . . check in on it.”
“Oh.”
The implications rushed through my mind. No wonder she’d been a little testy. She thought I was trying tobecomeJess. To act like her at a time when Bastian would be unable to direct what I said and did. It was the prime opportunity for someone to really take over Jess’s brand and financially benefit. An ideal chance to put Bastian on a hook and drag him where I wanted.
Pri was just looking out for him.
That thought sent a noodle-like feeling all the way through my body, and I sank lower in my chair.
“Ooooh,” I drawled. “I see. No, no. Absolutely not. He sort of presented the idea of me acting like Jess initially, but it sounded like the very worst possible plan. I shut it down and told him no.”
Her lips twitched with the second sign of humanity I’d seen. “Did you talk him out of it?” she asked.
“He’d mostly talked himself out of it by the time he and I spoke,” I said with a rueful smile, “but I helped it along. I could tell he didn’t really want to go that route, but wasn’t sure what else to do.”
Her teeth shone white when she grinned, and all tension left her body. “I’m happy to hear it. You’ve done a lovely job with the posts. I recognize some of what’s said, which means you’ve found his emails to me.”
“Guilty.”
“Smart.”
“That doesn’t feel like I violated your privacy or something?”
She shrugged. “Nah. It’s fine. These are strange circumstances. Besides, using his words keeps it close to him, but helps the readers understand the books better. They’ve certainly been more active than usual, and they were already quite active. You should work for a marketing team in New York publishing.”
I snorted. “They couldn’t afford me.”
She tilted her head back and laughed, her glossy back hair sliding around her ears as she did so. A diamond pendant sparkled at her throat. When she stopped laughing, I relaxed completely.
“Jess is safe,” I said. “So is Bastian, for that matter. I’m just making sure emails get answered and opportunities aren’t missed. There’s a fan that, I think, might have tracked him to here somehow, but I haven’t been able to confirm.”
“That would be troubling,” she murmured.
“Let’s hope not.”
“I believe Jess will make the push for bestseller,” Pri said. She glanced to the side, as if looking at another screen on her computer. “Sometimes the retail websites are slow to update their bestseller positions, but we’ll know more by the end of the day. I can’t remember the exact number, but if she sells at least 15,000 copies today, we would be safe to secure the slot.”
