Tame Me (The Macintyre Brothers 3)

"I'll deal with it, Josh," I said. "I'm all grown up and will support you, no matter what the outcome."

"Thanks," he said and kissed me tenderly. "Hopefully, it's not mine and we can move on and put all of this behind us. If it is mine, we'll do our best to deal with it. I won't deny my responsibility if it is my child. But she won't ever get in between us, Ella. I promise that. She meant nothing to me but a nice fuck when I was hurting after Christie. That's it. If this child is mine, I will be a good parent and make sure I provide for it, and get to know him or her, but it will never interfere with us our family."

"I know," I said and smiled. "You're a good man, Josh. I know you'll do the right thing."

He was. When he did the right thing, I'd be right there with him.

* * *

He got the call from the lab one day during lunch, when we had come up to the apartment to eat together and go over some plans for the apartment. The receptionist had a date for Josh to go for the paternity test. I'd almost forgotten about it, but the question remained this little sense of gloom in my otherwise happy life. We'd been busy looking at kitchen appliances, picking ones out for our apartment when he got the call.

He answered his cell and spoke with the person on the other end of the line. "Oh, yeah," he said and ran his fingers through his hair, which was getting way too long. He jumped up and opened his laptop, checking his calendar to make sure he could make the date, and then put down his cell. "Yes, I can make it. Thanks."

He ended the call and stood looking at me.

"That was the lab," I said.

"Yep. I'm going down on Tuesday afternoon for the test."

"How long will it take?"

"Two days. I guess we'll know by the end of next week, one way or the other."

I sighed. "Then we can move on."

"Yes," he said and pulled on his jacket. "Then we can move on. I have a meeting in fifteen, so I'm heading back downstairs."

"Me, too," I said. "Back to the slush pile."

I grabbed my bag and the two of us went to the elevator, and then down to our respective floors. Josh kissed me before he got off the elevator.

"Tonight, we should go out for supper. I feel like meatballs."

I smiled. "Meatballs are always good."

Then, he was gone, and I exhaled and tried to clear my mind for the rest of the afternoon. Next week couldn't come fast enough.

* * *

Sharon wanted me to start sitting in on the editorial meetings, so I could get a sense of the kind of dilemmas an editor faced. It meant I was moving up in the world and was exciting. Editors did more than just edit manuscripts. They decided on what books to buy and what books to promote and had to pitch them to the management team. I would start as an assistant editor as soon as my six month-unpaid internship finished, which would coincide with my return from our honeymoon.

The next couple of months would be me learning my new job. So far, I'd spent my time reading manuscripts that were sent to us from various agents who the company did business with on a regular basis. I also got the manuscripts that came in without an agent. They were unsolicited manuscripts. While we usually didn't buy any of those, we had to read them just in case there was a gem that we didn't want to miss. There were horror stories of manuscripts that had been rejected without being read that went on to make the publisher who did buy the book millions.

It was rare for that to happen, but Dominion Publishing, an imprint of Macintyre Publishing, didn't want to be the one who let a bestseller get away.

I'd met all the usual editors during my work at Dominion, but we had some new staff and it was my first real time sitting in an editorial meeting where actual decisions would be made. I wasn't expected to speak or present anything -- just soak up the ambience and learn the ropes.

I couldn't wait.

* * *

At three o'clock, I sat with my laptop at the back of the room, behind Sharon, and listened to the editors talk. There was some good-natured banter among the editors for the first ten minutes as they discussed the latest news in the publishing world -- what books had been a hit or miss at other publishing houses and what authors had signed big deals and what agents were hot at the moment with their fingers on the pulse of the readership.

It was all so exciting to me, because I tended to read the rejects and books that no one would want. Seeing the editors discuss big name authors with million-dollar deals made me envious and I dreamed of the day when I, too, might sign such a deal or find a book worth a million-dollar deal.

That dream was a long way off. I hadn't even finished my chick lit book yet, stuck as I was on the second plot point, so even the idea of finishing a novel was a big deal for me. I knew it would take years before I ever signed a deal, if then. But it was inspirational, listening to them discuss this or that author, this or that deal.

When the meeting was over, Krista, one of the young editorial assistants caught up with me in the hallway. In her early thirties, she was tall and gangly, reminding me of Steph a bit in her physical appearance. She wore funky dark-rimmed cat's eye glasses and had her hair back in a perky ponytail. You could have put a pink sweater on her and handed her pom poms and she'd be a perfect cheerleader type.