“I don’t know why you are taking these jobs, Nat. You know that you can do better than this.”
I’d heard this routine time and time again.
“I did a year of working here and hated it, Amy. I can’t come back here and do that again. Plus, let’s see…all expenses paid to travel destinations around the world with free lodging and unlimited time to write. Plus, I get paid. You do the math.”
“You get paid enough to eat,” Amy said. “If I’d known, when my parents offered you the opportunity to watch their place in Paris, that this would start an obsession, then I would have told them to hire it out in an Airbnb.”
“You’re such a great friend.”
“Oh, I know.” Amy turned to face me, pulling down her sunglasses. “So, how is the new manuscript coming along?”
I groaned. “Never ask a writer that. The answer is always horrible. It’s horrible. The book sucks. It’s never going to sell. My agent thinks I’m a hack, and basically, my life is over.”
“So dramatic,” Amy said with a laugh. “I doubt your agent thinks you’re a hack. She signed off on your first manuscript, right?”
“Yeah. The one that didn’t sell. And the one after that hasn’t sold either.”
“It’s only been two years since graduation, Nat. You’ll catch your break.”
I shrugged. “Maybe.”
“You could always self-publish them.”
“I would. I really would if I wrote in a different genre. Do you remember Mindi from that Lit class I took?”
Amy nodded.
“She self-publishes and is making bank. Why did I decide to write literary fiction again?”
“Because you clearly hate yourself.”
“Oh, right,” I muttered with an eye roll.
“How long do I have you back in town anyway?” Amy asked.
“I don’t know. Maybe your dream will come true, and I’ll be here indefinitely.” I tugged my hat lower. “I don’t have a gig waiting for me. I’ve put out my resume and recommendations on my agency website that pairs vacation home watchers with vacation homes. I mentioned that I was looking for something else to Elizabeth when I left Aspen, but she is always up in space.”
“Psh, you’ll find something and be whisked away from me again.”
“You can come stay for a weekend.”
Amy grinned at me. “That is a perk of this weird job.”
“I can’t even believe that you think this is weird. You’re the one who did a study abroad where you fucked your way through the Italian Renaissance.”
“Priorities,” Amy said with a hair flip. “And who are you fucking nowadays?”
My phone started ringing noisily from my beach bag. “Oh, look, saved by the bell.”
“We’re not done with this conversation.”
“Oh, yes, we are,” I said, grabbing my phone.
It wasn’t a number I recognized, but I’d gotten used to that after working in this business. Being a vacation home watcher for the uber wealthy generally meant getting random phone calls at weird times of the day and meeting with strangers at the houses for upgrades during the off-season. It wasn’t my favorite part of the job.
“Hello, this is Natalie.”
“Natalie, this is Larkin St. Vincent. I work for Mayor Kensington’s office.”
I racked my brain for why this information was relevant. “The mayor of…”
“New York City,” Lark said as if I were daft.
“Oh, wow! Okay. Well, so nice to speak with you. How can I help you?”
“You were recommended to Mayor Kensington by Elizabeth Cunningham as a vacation home watcher. She’s looking for someone to watch her Hamptons home after Labor Day weekend.”
My eyes bugged. Elizabeth had recommended me to the mayor of New York? Holy shit! Maybe she was even better connected than I’d thought.
“That sounds like a great opportunity,” I managed to get out.
“Great. I’ll send over the details and everything Mayor Kensington has in mind. Let me know if you have any questions. You can always reach me on this line.”
“Thank you. I really appreciate it.”
“Thank you, Natalie.”
The line went dead, and I stared down at it in shock.
“What is it?” Amy asked.
“The mayor of New York City just asked me to watch her house in the Hamptons.”
Amy jumped to her feet and screamed, “Oh my god! That’s amazing!”
My hands were shaking as I dropped my phone into my beach bag. This was it. This was my break in this business. It might be strange, and I might not have been doing it for very long, but I was already in love with it.
And I couldn’t wait to have several months on the beach in New York to finish off my latest manuscript in peace.
No parents.
No guys.
No distractions.
Just uninterrupted hours of writing.
It was almost too good to be true.
TO BE CONTINUED
Penn & Natalie return January 22nd in…
CRUEL MONEY.
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She was supposed to be a one night stand. A way to sate my sexual appetite.
I let her glimpse the man I am. The face that I hide behind my carefully cultivated life. But she ripped open that divide—and there’s no going back.
Now, she’s here. In my city. I don’t care that I’m Manhattan royalty and she’s the help. Only that she’s living in my summer home. With me.
And I want more.
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Cruel Money
Chapter 1
Dear Natalie,
Here are the latest rejection letters from publishers regarding Told You So. I will follow up with a list from Caroline of the remaining publishers who have the manuscript out on submission.
Regards,
Meredith Mayberry
Assistant to Caroline Liebermann
Whitten, Jones, & Liebermann Literary
Enclosed:
From Hartfield:
Told You So has an interesting take on the value and cost of friendship. I enjoyed the journey the characters take and style of prose. But, unfortunately, that’s where my praise ends. The heroine, Karla, was a caricature of bad judgment and a complete Mary Sue in every other regard. She’s plain, ordinary, and not at all interesting enough to follow for 100k words. I felt Tina might have been a better lead, but it wasn’t clear from the start whether the author was knowledgeable enough to convey the true depth of either of the characters. Perhaps the author should find a muse.
From Warren:
Natalie definitely knows how to tell a story and pull the reader in with a clever introduction. I just didn’t find the characters relatable or the story high concept enough for what Warren is looking for right now. For us, we weren’t completely sold on the genre, as it straddles the line between women’s fiction and literary and thus, sits with neither.