LITMIR.BIZ

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her finger with a sweet smile and little flutter of her lashes. With a big grin to them both, he stepped over the spilled lunch and hurried to do Mindy’s bidding, tugging the shade down on his way.

      “Instant obedience,” Delaney breathed. “Always. How do you do that? I thought maybe it was just a girly thing. But I’m wearing girly stuff now, all the way to my pastel panties, and I can’t get that kind of attention.”

      “You’d better figure it out,” Mindy warned with a little frown. “You know the makeover is only part of what you need to get the promotion. Belkin can’t claim he’s hiring on looks, even if he is. He’s going to use the argument that he needs a charismatic, commanding assistant.”

      Delaney’s jaw clenched. No. She’d gone through so much already, spent a month having her face and body analyzed like a freakish puzzle. She’d almost blown her anonymity when she’d slipped up in her “after” interview and told the Risqué people she was a book reviewer. The discussion turned to hot authors and next thing she knew, she’d opened her big mouth and critiqued Nick Angel’s books. Since she’d entered the contest using her pseudonym, she’d been worried her face attached to it would blow her cover. But Risqué wasn’t typical reading material for Rosewood’s students or faculty. Heck, it wasn’t even sold in bookstores or newsstands anywhere in the Santa Rosa area. It might be false confidence, but she figured her reviewing secret was safe.

      She wanted that promotion. It was more than a job now. It was a symbol of her worth. To herself, to the college and to her father.

      “You know,” Mindy said, picking at her nails like she always did when she was nervous, “I might have a suggestion that’d help you with that.”

      “What?” Delaney asked slowly, eying the fingernails. As long as they stayed away from Mindy’s mouth, the idea probably wasn’t too crazy. It’s when she started nibbling on those things that Delaney really worried.

      “My brother is the station manager at the local TV station. He mentioned last week their morning show is thinking of expanding their summer programming to include a critic’s corner.” Delaney’s stomach tightened when Mindy raised her hand to her mouth, pressing her thumbnail to her lip. “When I mentioned your name, Mike said he’d wait to post the job until I talked to you.”

      “Me?”

      “They’re looking for someone with a good handle on literature to do book reviews, discussions, that kind of thing,” Mindy finished in a rush, the words falling around the fingernail she was now diligently chewing. “It’s right up your alley. You do reviews already, love to read, and it’d be a great way to learn to become visible.”

      “A TV show?” She couldn’t help it, she started laughing. “You’re joking, right? Me, on TV?”

      She hyperventilated at the idea of having her driver’s license picture taken. Why on earth would she want to be on TV?

      She’d make a complete ass of herself.

      “It’s a great idea,” Mindy argued.

      “No, it’s a crazy idea. What if someone saw me? I’m trying to hide that I’m a reviewer, remember?”

      “It’s a San Francisco station, we don’t even get it up here,” Mindy assured her. “Besides, it’s a morning show, on the air during school hours. Who’d see it?”

      “My father?”

      “Does he even own a TV?”

      No, but that wasn’t the point.

      “Ahem.”

      Both women turned startled glances to the tall, angular man standing by their table glaring at the mess the waiter had yet to clear. He turned his glare to Delaney. His eyes widened briefly, then narrowed with consideration.

      Delaney grimaced. Professor Belkin. Then she glanced past him and felt herself turn pale. Her father. She’d been avoiding him, easy enough now that the spring semester was over. This wasn’t how she’d intended to tell him about the makeover.

      She forced a smile on her suddenly stiff lips, but he didn’t respond. He didn’t even look at her, so engrossed was he in his discussion with a physics professor. Two feet away, and she was invisible to her own father. As usual.

      “Ms. Adams, Professor. Perhaps they can bring you a bib,” Belkin said, his tone stiff and annoyed as he stepped over the scattered croutons.

      He was obviously not impressed with her makeover, and even less with her dining skills. Delaney wanted to pick up a tomato and throw it at his departing head. Bet that would get his attention. It’d blow her ever-narrowing shot at the promotion, too. So she choked back her temper with a deep breath.

      “TV?” she asked Mindy, blinking away the frustrated tears as she watched her father depart.

      “Keep using your pseudonym,” Mindy advised. “Let Delaney Madison become the woman you’ve always wanted to be. Imagine the shock value when you waltz into the hiring meeting and wow them all with your newly acquired charisma and command of the room.”

      The woman she’d always wanted to be? Her ultimate fantasy was to be a woman like the kind she loved to read about. Sexy, powerful, confident. The kind who could handle the most arrogant snobs and the hottest guys with the same panache.

      Delaney knew there were a million reasons why TV was a crazy idea. But this was to improve her chances of getting the promotion. She’d thought the makeup would be enough, that it’d make her stand out. Obviously she needed a little more than a costume. She needed to learn to command attention. So she’d do TV and become Delaney Madison. Super Reviewer. Savvy, sexy and commanding.

      Nobody was ruining this for her. No way, no how.

      “SEX IS SECONDARY,” Delaney insisted to Sean Logan, host of the morning show Wake Up California. Despite the fact that she was almost hyperventilating with nerves, she managed a quick smile and strong, assured tone. Nothing like a good literary argument to put her at ease. After three weeks of her weekly fifteen-minute segment on “Critic’s Corner,” she still hadn’t gotten past the terror of being on camera.

      “Yes, I want to be invested in a hot, wild love scene,” she continued. “I want to feel just as turned-on as they are when I read the character’s actions. But unless I care about them, unless I’ve already developed a connection to them, it’s just…well, bodies. Often messy, rarely appealing.”

      “So what you’re saying is you want emotionally driven love scenes when you read?” Sean, the epitome of the all-American boy grown up, asked as he shifted in his chair.

      “I’m saying all stories, to really draw in the reader, benefit from an emotional depth the reader can empathize with,” Delaney clarified.

      While Sean tugged his bottom lip and nodded, she shifted in the hard wood chair, wishing she could take a deep breath. She assured herself it wasn’t nerves—after three shows, she had to be getting over those by now, didn’t she?—but it was just the bite of leather where her belt snugged around her waist. Why couldn’t fashion and comfort be synonymous? According to Mindy, her skirt was the “latest fashion,” which apparently meant uncomfortably short and tight.

      “Tell me the truth, Delaney,” Sean said with a schmoozy smile, leaning toward her like an old friend about to share a secret. “Do you really buy in to all that romance…stuff?”

      Delaney grinned at the last-second correction. Halfway through her first segment, she and Sean had gotten past the formal Q&A they’d started with, and relaxed into a casual conversation. Used to his technique now, she knew this was the sign to wrap up the chosen topic for this week’s segment—the romance genre.

      “Romance is what makes the world go ’round,” she paraphrased. “The excitement of falling in love in all its varieties, the quest for happily ever after.”

      “You really believe that? That romance has that much of an impact on the world?”

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