Page 30 of When Stars Collide
I touched my finger to his lips. “You’re right. A girl like me could seriously corrupt a guy like you. More than once, if you’re lucky.
*****
I stood at the entrance to the auditorium, listening to Phineas speak. His public speaking skills were on point as usual. That, coupled with his expertise of the industry, kept his audience right where he wanted them. Not to mention his youthful charisma and good looks. Those traits probably didn’t hurt in that area, either.Outside, each presenter’s agency had a table set up, filled with literature and other information for convention attendees. During the first three speakers, I noticed people trickling from the auditorium out into the hallway to peruse the tables. But when Phineas took the stage, the hallway emptied and every seat in the auditorium was filled.
“Man, I wonder if he’s hiring,” an attractive, young blonde with hair for days pondered, never taking her eyes off Phineas.
“He’s not,” I simply stated, without another glance in her direction.
Leaning against the doorway, I thumbed through the handful of manuscripts already received this morning, knowing that we’d have at least double that by the conclusion of the convention. If Phineas was trying to turn a boutique publishing company into an empire, he was doing a damn fine job of it. Who knows, maybe we would have room for blondie, after all. A sudden round of applause beckoned my attention back to the stage, where Phineas was wrapping up his speech. Classic Phineas, he gave the eager crowd a smile and a wave with his usual formal showing of gratitude and prepared to exit the stage, but not before he made it a point to look in my direction, flashing a smile that extended from ear to ear. His enthusiasm was enough to summon some of my own, and I gave him a thumbs-up as he walked behind the curtain.
As predicted, our table was quite popular the rest of the morning, so much so that we quickly ran out of most of our marketing materials.
“Excuse me.” A cute, young woman with a cherubic face, who was—holy shit—shorter than me, approached our table. “Is this Mr. Drake’s firm?”
“It is,” I greeted her. “Is there something I can do to assist you?”
“Um … my manuscript. I was going to take it over to Cruz & Vanderbilt, but then I heard Mr. Drake’s speech and found him to be so …”
“Accomplished? Enlightening? Passionate?”
“Oh, yes, all of that.” She leaned in closer to me and lowered her voice. “And he’s super handsome.”
“Yes, because one’s attractiveness should be the basis upon which we make all of our important life decisions.”
“What do we have here?”
The hopeful author’s eyes grew wider upon Phineas’s arrival at our table.“M-My manuscript, Mr. Drake. I’m Jessica. Jessica Lawson.”
“Nice to meet you, Jessica. Let’s have a look.” He took the document from the young woman and flipped through the pages, pausing every now and then to read a passage.
“I really enjoyed your speech today,” Jessica continued, admiration written all over her face. “I’ve been writing for a couple of years now. Your words were quite encouraging.”
Phineas smiled, and I swore I could see her heart melting right in front of my eyes. “Well, that’s certainly wonderful to hear. I always strive to provide encouragement wherever I can. It’s such a competitive dog-eat-dog world out there, and it’s easy for people with natural talent to get discouraged when there’s nothing but drivel hitting the market.”
“My thoughts exactly, Mr. Drake.”
I looked between Phineas and Jessica Lawson and back again, holding out my hand to accept the manuscript.
“Mena here will be reviewing your work. She’s my lead editor and has a true eye for talent. I wouldn’t be where I am right now without her. If you would, please leave your information with her before you leave.”
Still as smitten as ever, Jessica wrote her information down on one of the contact information cards we had available at our table and handed it to me without even a glance in my direction.
“I look forward to hearing Mena’s thoughts on your work, Ms. Lawson,” Phineas said as she was getting ready to depart.
“Thank you, Mr. Drake. It was a pleasure.”
“It was a pleasure meeting you, too,” I called out behind her, but by that point she was too starstruck to even hear anything other than whatever fantasy was playing itself out inside of her head.
I turned to Phineas, who was already starting to clear the rest of the materials from our table. “Do you have that effect on everyone you meet?”
“What do you mean?”
“I’m pretty certain Jessica Lawson would have given you one of her kidneys if you would have asked her for it. Probably both of them, if you bought her dinner.”
“And she may have to do that to pay rent one of these days, unless she plans on having a day job outside of writing.”
“That bad, huh?”
