I walk into the Lowes Regency hotel in the Financial District, feeling like a million bucks. Maybe even a billion. The wind whips up Pine Street, slamming into my tightly buttoned coat and lifting my hair into the air. I can hear the cable car a few blocks down, the cables whirring, the gears clanking, and the tinkling bell. It’s a tourist thing, but I still smile when I hear it.
I’m also smiling because my agent, my editor, and the head of the imprint I publish with are waiting inside to meet with me. It can only be good news to have all three of them come out here to meet me—the author goes to New York to meet with these people pretty much one hundred percent of the time. They don’t come to you, especially the head of the imprint. Unless you’re really important.
It has to be good news. Maybe a new offer, for multiple books of poetry, with a massive advance. Or… I can hardly imagine what else. Merchandising? I doubt it’s a movie or TV deal, because poetry isn’t exactly filmable. But maybe. Maybe they’re actually going to try it.
I bounce up the stairs, shivering when I hit the warm air in the lobby. I didn’t even notice how frigid it was outside.
My agent is already waiting, clearly in a state of high anxiety. My mood dims a touch when I see her.
Without even a greeting, she grabs my arm. “Did they say anything to you?”
“To me? About the meeting?” My mood is sinking fast now, like the Hindenburg about to ignite. “Wait, this isn’t good?”
They wouldn’t come all the way here to reject my latest proposal or tell me I’d never publish again. That’s not how this works.
“I don’t know what it is.” Jane drags me up the stairs to a meeting room. “They just told me to be here and wouldn’t tell me anything else. Although Cass”—that’s my editor—“told me you really should not say no to this deal. Almost as a warning.”
I shiver again, almost stumbling on the step. Suddenly the thigh-high boots I put on in celebration this morning don’t seem like such a good idea.
“I don’t understand,” I say. We’ve come to the meeting room door, and Jane spins me toward her, brushing some lint off my pants. I wrestle out of my coat even though I’m feeling even colder than I was outside. “I thought this was a good thing.”
“It probably is.” Jane flashes a smile that’s supposed to be reassuring but just looks terrified. “I’ve never had something like this happen before.”
I square my shoulders. “Okay, then it is good. So stop freaking out.”
I’m telling Jane and myself that, although really it’s Jane’s job to talk me down. Writers are a high-strung bunch, as nervy as a team of thoroughbreds asked to pull a plow. We need someone’s hands on the reins, telling us how amazing we are at all times.
I pull open the door with all the force of a hurricane. Tropical Storm Zara has arrived and the forecast calls for fantasticness.
Then I see who’s in the room and it hits me like a cold, heavy rain.
Archer is sitting there.
He’s not smiling, because why would that bastard smile, but he definitely looks pleased. Pleasure on those hard planes of his face isn’t pleasant. I ignore the not entirely bad frisson that moves through me.
“What the fuck?” I say it right out loud because I don’t care. Inside my head, the fish guy from Star Wars is screaming, “It’s a trap!”
The entire publishing team—my editor, the head of the imprint, and oh look, they even sent a publicist too—blanches.
Archer almost smiles. “It’s nice to see you again too.”
Jane sits me down so hard my ass bounces in the chair. “Zara is very happy to see all of you too,” she says with the fakest smile, “and very excited to hear your news.”
I’m one hundred percent sure the news isn’t good, not with Archer Asshole Billionaire, Hater of Literature here, but I force my expression out of surliness and into something closer to not super pissed.
“Right.” I don’t look at Archer as I say it. “It must be big if you came all the way here. So… yeah, I’m excited.”
Jane next to me releases a long, relieved exhale. “We both are.”
I look to the publishing team, ready to hear what they’ve got to say. But all three of them turn to look at Archer to take the lead.
Fuck.
My gaze turns to him in spite of my best intentions. He’s watching me already, with an assessing, intent look. Another warm shudder goes through me.
Asshole. Bastard. He can’t do this to me.
“I have an opportunity for Ms. Antonova. After our debate, I came to a few realizations.”
Unless one of those realizations was that his head was up his ass, I’m not interested. But I keep my mouth shut like a good little author.
“We at Lingvar need to be more involved in the current translation market. Truly, we don’t want literary translations to disappear. And for that to happen, we need to support them.”
Oh, so he’s going to put us on life support after shanking us? How sweet. If he thinks I’m going to have anything to do with any of what he’s got planned, he’s out of his mind.
“So, with this amazing publishing team already in place”—he gestures graciously to the team, who brighten at his attention—“I’ve decided that we should start a collaboration. We have so much to learn from each other, don’t you agree?” He addresses that to me, although everyone but me nods enthusiastically.
“What exactly is this collaboration?” I ask flatly. I’ll have to hear him out entirely before I can tell him no. Again.
“I want to fund an imprint. Entirely new, mostly under your editorial control. Exclusively focused on translations. You should hire who you want, translate what you want. You’d be the public face of it, and Lingvar will provide the funding and support.”
For a moment, all I can hear is buzzing. An entire imprint, mostly under my control? It’s like… it’s like being offered my own publishing house. My own empire of books.
Jane looks stunned. The publishing team looks smugly pleased. A billionaire coming to them with a blank check? Yeah, that’s going to make them pretty happy.
“And what do you want in return?” I’m the only one who’s not pleased here, and I’m not afraid to show it.
Archer shifts, the first sign that he might actually experience discomfort. “You—and the translation team you put together—would work at Lingvar as well. Helping us optimize our translation software. This collaboration would be attacking the problem from both ends.”
“And if I say no?” I can’t believe he’s put all this together and left me with a way out.
The head of the imprint clears his throat. “This collaboration would be—is—very important to us. If you were unwilling to work on this project… the imprint would have to seriously rethink your relationship with us.”
Meaning that my contracts with them would be terminated, and I’d never get another one. I get that message very distinctly.
He clears his throat again. “Also, we’d make it clear to others that you were uncooperative. To others in the publishing industry.”
My bravado completely deflates at that. Archer is threatening… everything of mine here. Not at some future, obscure date by deploying his translation software—right here, right now, and quite explicitly.
This isn’t about whatever bullshit collaboration he’s talking about. This is about him not being able to handle the word no.
“He only wants to download my skills into his machine.” I jab my finger at the publishing team, trying to get them to see what he’s doing. “Once he’s gotten what he’s wanted, this imprint, this collaboration, will be shut down. He means to put us all out of a job. Permanently.”
The team only looks embarrassed at my words, as if I’ve said something obscene instead of trying to warn them.
“That’s not my intention,” Archer says so mildly I want to scream. “I’ve explained what I want very clearly.”
“Oh yes, you did, with your first offer. Which I rejected.” Along with translating that weird gibberish he showed me. I wonder if that has something to do with this… But how? That document was worthless. I can’t see why he’d go to all this trouble for that.
Jane gasps. “Wait, when was this?”
Yeah, I probably should have told her about that. “After the debate. He wanted me to come work at his company.” I send him a slicing look. “There wasn’t any mention of an imprint then.”
“I’ve had time to reconsider your impassioned arguments.” Archer’s demeanor is completely unruffled. He doesn’t care that I’m mad at him. Amazing.
“He’s mentioning it now,” the head of the imprint says. Now you need to say yes is what he’s really saying.
I grit my teeth and make the effort to not roll my eyes. Archer didn’t need time to reconsider my arguments—he needed time to set up this trap for me.
And he’s not even sorry. Not a single bit.
That’s what makes me snap. How sure he is that he’ll get away with this. “Stop pretending that you care about this collaboration,” I whip out at him. “Why don’t you just take out my brain and put it into a jar?”
“And lose the rest of you?” His gaze runs over me, and I swear to God, I blush all over. Me, Zara, who’s never blinked at anything.
“Zara.” Jane practically hisses that, her nails digging into my bicep. “Could we have a moment outside?”
She gives the publishing people a look that says Don’t worry, I’ll bring her to heel and I’ll do it hard.
I follow her out, not letting myself look at Archer. He hasn’t won yet, and I refuse to give him the satisfaction of gloating at me.
Jane rounds on me as soon as we’re alone. “What the hell is your problem? And don’t give me this temperamental-poet bullshit. You can settle down to business when you need to. And this?” She leans in until we’re almost nose to nose. “This is business.”
“I understand that,” I say slowly. “But I’m talking about business too. This guy, his master plan is to have his translation software take over everything. He thinks what I do is obsolete.”
“You think I don’t know that? Tech people have been declaring books dead for forever. Everyone’s said poetry’s dead for even longer. And you’ve been proving them wrong. You can keep doing it with this imprint. It will be yours, for however long it lasts—think about what you can do now, not whenever he thinks he can bring us down.”
Jane’s right. I think of everything that hasn’t had a proper translation since the 1800s, things that haven’t had a proper translation ever, all the amazing and talented people I could be helping with this, all the lovely, lovely new books I could put into people’s hands. More books is always good.
I’d have to work with Archer, but since I know his project is fundamentally flawed, would it be so bad? No matter how much help I give him, he’ll never be able to really put my brain in a computer.
I exhale long and low, imagining spending lots of long hours alone with him. That’s going to suck, especially since he pulled this. But then I think of my imprint, my very own imprint…
I could single handedly rebuild the poetry market in America. I’d go down in literary history. And oh, all the lovely poetry I could share with everyone. It’d be like pressing your favorite book into someone’s hands, only times a million.
“That’s right,” Jane says, reading my capitulation in my expression. “This is a good thing. Even if his intentions are bad.”
“Okay.” I pull my shoulders back. “I’ll do it.”
I try not to think about how I really have no choice. If I do that, I’ll start screaming.
“Awesome.” Jane pats my arm, relief relaxing the lines of her face. “Do you think you could try to be polite with him? Or at least not look like you want to punch him?”
I smile, sweet as sugared tea. “Sure.”
When I sweep back into the room, I ignore the publishing team entirely. I save everything I have for Archer, pinning him with my stare. He meets my gaze with an inscrutable expression—nothing’s there but focus on me.
I set my hand on my hip and announce straight to him, “You won.”