Blitz: An Enemies-to-Lovers Romantic Comedy (Blast Brothers Book 3), стр. 32
I mean, hey, a little degeneracy made life interesting. But too much, and you start looking like a raging pervert.
With an effort, I returned my thoughts to the business.
Perversion didn't sell tools. And neither did screaming matches with buxom blonde journalists – or whatever Angelique was calling herself these days.
To Brody, I said, "As far as the fighting, that was all Angelique, not me."
It was no lie. Angelique had two settings – hot and crazy. The hot part I'd liked. The crazy part was hit or miss.
A few months ago, she'd warned me that she was going to get even with me for breaking up with her.
Breaking up.
Like she and I had ever been exclusive.
We hadn't. And I'd been up-front about it, too.
After our so-called breakup, a few months had passed with no sign of her promised revenge. I'd almost forgotten the whole thing until her recent voicemail.
The voicemail had been long and ranting. Technically, it was five voicemails, one after another because she kept running out of time.
Come to think of it, I'd listened to most of these voicemails outside the coffee shop where I'd first met Mina.
Huh. No wonder I'd been in a shitty mood.
My mood wasn't terrific today either, considering that Mason had seen the book before I did. Apparently, someone at the publishing house had slipped him an advance copy on the sly.
His copy wasn't even part of the print run, but rather some advance mockup for the production people. Even the reviewers wouldn't be getting copies for at least a month or two.
Unlike me, Mason had read the book from cover to cover. I knew this because last night's fatherly lecture was still fresh in my brain. He'd quoted passages from the book word-for-word, including a particular passage dealing with me and a few of Angelique's friends.
The word orgy was used more than once.
The lecture might've been funny, if only Mason hadn't believed every single word of what Angelique had claimed. He hadn't said so, but the look on his face had made it plain enough.
In the end, I'd let him say his piece and be done with it.
It was either that or kick his ass. And last night, I hadn't been in the mood for ass-kicking, whether to give or receive.
With Mason, it could've played out either way.
He'd left a half-hour after his arrival with the suggestion – some might say a command – that we meet early this morning to hash out a plan for mitigating the damage.
So, here I was, in the office and ready to roll.
I already had a plan, too. And it involved a certain farmer's daughter who was no Angelique.
Chapter 29
Mina
This was my third time in Chase's office, and I still wasn't used to it. Or maybe I wasn't used to him.
From behind his desk, he said, "Change of plans."
It was nine o'clock in the morning, and I was sitting in one of his visitor's chairs, feeling more than a little nervous.
A couple of hours ago, I'd received an email from Chase himself, telling me that our meeting scheduled for this afternoon had been moved up to nine o'clock this morning.
Just in time, I'd arrived at Blast Headquarters, where I'd been escorted up to his office not by Chase himself, but by his assistant.
That was fine by me. I didn't need a personal escort, but I did need the sponsorship – now more than ever, considering that I'd already given my parents the good news.
Since then, the news had only spread, and not through me.
Even though my mom had been skeptical when I'd first told her, that hadn't stopped her from sharing the announcement far and wide among her circle of friends, probably to fend off further rumors from Ginger Hawthorne.
Now, as I sat in Chase's office, I said a silent prayer that my good news hadn't been premature. Reluctantly, I asked, "What kind of change?"
He leaned back in his chair. "Here's the deal," he said. "I want to go bigger."
"Oh." Something in my shoulders eased. "Bigger how?"
As I listened, Chase explained that he wanted to get the TV people involved and tie it to a larger campaign. Among other things, he mentioned advertising spots, social media plans, and even personal appearances. By who, he didn't say.
But it was easy to guess that he probably meant himself and possibly his two brothers. Who knows, maybe he'd even include Arden Weathers.
Arden was Brody Blastoviak's fiancée, and I almost felt like I knew her.
Last year, I'd watched along with millions of other people as she and Brody had fallen in love while remodeling a beach house right here in Bayside.
Embarrassingly, I'd loved watching that even more than I'd loved watching the transformation of the house itself.
Probably, it was all the fireworks, and I didn't mean the Fourth-of-July kind.
When Chase finished talking, I was almost too stunned to speak. "Wow, that is big."
"And it might get bigger," he said. "Any questions?"
I had a ton of questions, but no idea where to begin. And although I was obnoxiously pleased that he was planning to take my idea and run with it, my primary concern remained unchanged.
I felt to compelled to say, "But you're still going to allocate money for the festivals, right?"
He smiled. "No."
My stomach sank. "What?"
"You're going to allocate it. And you'll get a commission."
I wasn't following. "Excuse me?"
"Five percent commission," he said. "That's your cut of the festival budget."
"But wait, why would I get a cut?"
"Because it was your idea," he said. "And I want you hands-on throughout the process."
"Hands-on?" I wasn't even sure what that meant. "Sorry, could you be more specific?"
"Lemme back up," he said. "Our total contribution will be a million even."
My jaw dropped. A million? As in dollars?
I'd proposed half that amount, and had felt slightly outrageous doing it. But there'd been a method to my madness. There were a hundred festivals on my list, and I'd suggested an average of five-thousand