Total pages in book: 151
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 140874 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 704(@200wpm)___ 563(@250wpm)___ 470(@300wpm)
* * * *
Once I got into the rhythm, the reading went surprisingly well. It helped that I pretended I was reading something someone else wrote, instead of my own book. By the time I finished, to more polite applause, I dared to feel confident about the evening.
Well, as confident as I could feel.
“Darling, you were wonderful,” Neil gushed, one arm around my shoulders. “Brilliant.”
“Wasn’t she just, though?” Valerie agreed smoothly, sipping her champagne.
Had Valerie praised me? I couldn’t believe it.
“Sophie!” Emma dragged Michael through the crowd of guests keeping a polite distance from the signing table. “We got here late, we could barely get in! Are all these people here for you?”
“All these people are here because they want to see your dad’s trophy girlfriend and gossip about her,” I corrected. “But hopefully they end up liking the book, too.”
“I don’t see how they wouldn’t,” Emma enthused. “I mean, I’ll heed your warning and not read it, but if it’s all like what you read tonight—”
“I will read it, Sophie,” Michael interrupted with a laugh.
Valerie raised her glass to him. “You have a stronger stomach than I.”
Well, that was nice while it lasted.
India thankfully pulled me away just as Neil tried to make a response to smooth over the remark. I don’t know whether it was her relief at how well the evening was going, or the wine in her hand, that made India seem so unusually relaxed. Her lack of tension was actually kind of unnerving. “Sophie, come along. You need to sign these.”
“Excuse me,” I said, glad to have an exit. It would be far easier to talk to total strangers than to keep my cool in a high-pressure situation with Valerie poking me like a bear in a cage.
By the time the party was over, I felt like I’d talked to every single person in Manhattan. Some of them had asked questions I’d been unprepared for: Did I have an allowance? Was my name on the bank account? If we were engaged, why hadn’t it been announced publicly? And the most offensive of all, did we actually have sex?
I’d merely gaped at the last questioner, and he’d winked conspiratorially and said, “We do what we must for the almighty dollar.”
The idea that anyone thought they could speak to me that way had shocked me into righteous indignation. I couldn’t imagine who in their right mind wouldn’t want to sleep with Neil, and even if they didn’t, it was none of their business to project it onto me. There was nothing I found more tiresome than the insinuation that I was faking our relationship for money.
Luckily, India had been standing at my side and heard the exchange. As the smug asshole questioner had walked away, fully satisfied at his dig, she’d leaned down and said in a low voice, “Honey, vinegar, something about flies. Whatever you Midwesterners like to say.”
The genuinely nice people far outshone the handful of rude ones. They congratulated me and asked me how Neil was doing now, and told me that I was brave for sticking by him through his experience. Even though I didn’t think I’d been brave at all, I was touched to see how much people seemed to care, when I was a total stranger to them. Some of the M & R employees, who’d read the book in its various stages of production, commented on how well it had turned out, which was nice to hear. I couldn’t be objective from my perspective.
While it wasn’t as horrible as I thought it was going to be, I was glad when the evening started winding down.
“We’d better leave before everyone else does, and you turn into a pumpkin,” India suggested. “A sad little pumpkin who’s the last guest left at her own party.”
“You have such a way with words, India,” Neil said tersely. When he’d been temporarily in charge of Porteras, he and India had bashed heads more than once.
“Let’s go out the back,” she suggested, ignoring his remark. “It went very well tonight, Sophie.”
“I felt like it went well.” I stood up a little taller. “Dare I say, I felt poised.”
“You were very charming,” Neil agreed, looping his arm around my waist. “But how on Earth did you think you were going to be on television, when you can’t talk to a room full of people?”
“You’re right. The TV gig falling through is probably the best thing that could have happened to me.” I’d had massive stage fright in a room of a hundred people. I probably would have peed my pants at the thought of talking to five million.
As we slipped out the backdoor, India said conspiratorially, “I thought it might interest you to know that I’ve handed in my notice at Porteras.”
I looked to Neil, and he raised his eyebrows. “This is the first I’m hearing of it. I don’t run Porteras anymore, that’s all under Valerie’s oversight.”