Aubrey was working on her book. She was writing the section about Ian; It would be several chapters long. Several important chapters. She thought about Ian’s threats to sue her, but she was going ahead with it anyway.
Let the lawyers sort it out.
Aubrey was looking at a blank computer screen. How the hell would she start writing anything about him? He defied words. Defied description.
And how could she sort out her personal feelings from her professional ones?
Aubrey started by talking about how she felt about him as a woman:
"When he came into the room, he didn’t just enter it, he filled it…"
That sounded like something from a trashy romance novel.
What about addressing Ian from a clinical point of view:
"I decided to role-play with Ian, playing the battered wife to his overbearing husband. He didn’t realize it was him…."
No matter what angle she tried, Aubrey couldn’t find a way to start. Finally, she decided to write it out as cold, hard facts:
"When Ian came to my office, he didn’t want to be there at all. He had never gone to therapy because he never thought he needed it. As a therapist, I didn’t think he would want advice from a woman, but I had to suspend my judgment until he proved otherwise."
This was not the book Aubrey wanted to write at all.
She was overthinking it. Aubrey needed to approach the book from a casual standpoint, one that was informal, but intriguing and sexy. Was that possible?
What she needed was a strong first sentence, then the rest would follow.
Aubrey took a sip from her bottled water and reached deep down into her true feelings:
"Ian did not come to therapy to heal. He came to get access to me under the guise of needing help. He played me. And I let him."
She stood up abruptly, paced the room once, then sat back down.
She continued.
“He bought me jewelry. He tried to protect me. He tried to control me. He was hurtful when I said anything. He put me through a total mind fuck.”
Looking back, Aubrey felt she had betrayed herself.
That some part of her had wanted it.
She finished the paragraph.
“There is a myth that educated women are immune to emotional entanglement. That is because we understand psychology; we cannot be manipulated by longing, so we will recognize danger and step away gracefully.
I did recognize it.
I walked towards it anyway.
But Ian was not my great love story. He was my reckoning.
He forced me to confront the needy parts of myself that I hid from the world. He exposed my hunger to be wanted by men. He offered me a lifestyle he knew I couldn’t refuse.”
She saved the document.
This chapter hurt more than any other.
Not because Ian had been dangerous.
But because she had been willing.
The next day, Jennifer read the finished chapter about Ian twice.
The first time straight through.
The second time, slower, with a pen.
This was about a woman who was deeply hurt.
But Aubrey was overcoming this. What an intense story.
After she finished reading, she walked into Aubrey’s office.
Aubrey was at her desk, reorganizing note cards into neat little stacks.
“You ready for my opinion?” Jennifer asked.
Aubrey looked up.
“You hated it.”
“No,” Jennifer said. “I loved it. I never knew what you were going through.”
“Now, the whole world will know too.”
Jennifer sat across from Aubrey, the marked-up pages in her lap.
“Okay,” Jennifer said. “This is intense. I couldn’t put it down. Your whole book should be like this.”
“But?”
Jennifer smiled. “There’s always a but.”
She flipped to the first page.
“You open with Ian was never just a patient. That’s perfect. Keep it. But after that, you go back to being intellectual way too fast. You go into your professional analysis before you let the reader feel who he is.”
Aubrey frowned. “He’s not supposed to be sympathetic.”
“I know,” Jennifer said. “But he has to be human.”
She tapped the page.
“Right now, he’s an idea of a man you know. Power. Control. Charisma. But you need to flesh out his character. Make him into a real man who lives and breathes.”
Aubrey nodded.
“This line—”
She pointed.
"There is a particular danger in being taken by a man who does not know how to love safely."
“That’s gorgeous. That goes on the back cover of the book.”
“Really? That’s good to hear. Thank you.”
“But,” Jennifer said, “you harden yourself too much afterward.”
“You make yourself into a femme fatale, someone who likes to cause disaster to men. But that’s not you at all.”
She flipped a page.
“Then you say you failed him, but you didn’t. You gave him good advice. He just didn’t take it.”
Aubrey looked away.
“You need to paint a more realistic picture of yourself. Not the instigator. Not the victim. The real person whom other women, in the same situation, can relate to.”
Jennifer went on.
“You hint at wanting him. But you never actually say it. You need to make that clear.”
Aubrey said, “I didn’t want to sound pathetic.”
Jennifer shook her head.
“It won’t sound pathetic. It’ll sound human.”
She flipped again.
“This part, where you write: I recognized the danger and walked toward it anyway—that’s your thesis. That’s the whole book. Everything else should be written around that.”
Aubrey closed her eyes.
“I also think you’re being too generous to him,” Jennifer said.
“What do you mean?”
“You frame him as emotionally ill, learning, trying, changing. But you forget that he was a jerk before your treatment and after it. He was playing you.”
“What a complicated mess I created.”
“Also, practical note, you need to clarify the ethics issue. You made a mistake. Readers will forgive that. But you can offset it by the fact that Ian took advantage of your weakness.”
Then Jennifer smiled.
“For what it’s worth?”
“Yes?”
“This chapter is going to make people uncomfortable. Especially men.”
“Good.” Aubrey was content with that.
Jennifer smiled back. “You’re on the right track, but what you need now is a professional book editor.”
Jennifer stood.
She handed Aubrey the pages.
“Don’t worry so much about the clinical jargon and theories. Make it a dark love story.”
Aubrey took the manuscript.
“Thank you.”
Jennifer paused at the door.
“You’re not writing about how Ian hurt you, Aubrey.”
Aubrey looked up.
“You’re writing about the moment you stopped pretending you were in control.”
Then she left.
A few days later, Aubrey and Jennifer were in Charlotte’s office watching her look over the newest chapter of Aubrey’s book. Charlotte Davids didn’t waste time on pleasantries.
She spread Aubrey’s outline and sample chapters across the conference table in her Midtown office. It was a substantial amount of paper to organize.
Jennifer had brought her laptop to take notes.
Charlotte adjusted her glasses.
“Okay,” she said. “First of all, this is real.”
Aubrey wasn’t sure what that meant.
“That’s good,” Charlotte clarified. “Real sells.”
She looked directly at Aubrey.
“You’re not writing a self-help book. You’re writing a chilling cautionary tale of a toxic relationship that could happen to any woman.”
Jennifer nodded enthusiastically.
Charlotte flipped through the pages.
“Your voice is strongest when you stop teaching and start confessing.”
Jennifer had been right.
“You have a tendency to explain your expertise,” Charlotte continued. “Readers don’t need credentials. They need vulnerability.”
She tapped the Ian chapter.
“This is the engine of the book. But right now, you’re still making him a nice guy. Just misunderstood. You need to demonize him. Why else would you fall for him unless he was a total player?”
Jennifer kept typing notes on her laptop.
“You have to think about what readers want,” Charlotte said, but you have to think about what publishers will print.”
“The main thing publishers want is high stakes. What do you have to do to get what you want, and what do you lose if you go too far?”
Aubrey thought of Foster. Her career. Her reputation.
Her self-respect.
Charlotte continued. “Publishers want to see a transformation in the main character. That’s you. You have to be one person at the beginning of the book and another one at the end. A complete transformation.
The last thing they want to see is conflict between you and Ian. The protagonist and the antagonist. It’s a love-hate relationship.
“You cannot present yourself as a passive participant in any of this. Tell it like it is. You violated your ethics. Admit it. Readers will forgive you as long as you make Ian the villain.”
Aubrey was thinking. “How much do I have to admit?”
Charlotte flipped to the ending.
“I like where you’re heading. You’ve regained your independence, your agency. But the ending stinks. You say that the reward is that you got a book deal. Readers hate that. What they want to hear is how you overcame your faults. The ones that led men to treat you like trash.”
“Like trash,” Aubrey said. “I guess that’s the part that gets to me. That I should have known better.”
“But that’s what women are looking for Aubrey,” Charlotte said. “All women fall for a man’s lies at some point in their lives, but hat’s to be expected. What’s not forgivable is when an educated and accomplished woman like your self sees all the red flags and dives in anyway. Women need to feel they are not alone in their mistakes and that if it can happen to someone like you, it can happen to anyone.”
“That’s a good point,” Aubrey said.
“But that’s not all,” Charlotte said. “Writing the book is only half the battle. Then comes the marketing. And this book is perfect for the talk show circuit and celebrity book clubs. Make it brutally honest and it will be a bestseller.”
“All right,” Aubrey said, “I’m willing to bare my soul for everyone to read about.”
“And Aubrey?”
“Yes?”
“Don’t censor yourself for publication. ‘Honest’ is the brand we’re giving to you.”
Aubrey and Jennifer left.
***
A few weeks later, Aubrey got a call from Charlotte. The editor of a publishing house wanted to meet her.
Aubrey was beside herself. Jennifer helped her get ready for the meeting.
“Remember, Aubrey, they need you more than you need them.”
Aubrey went to the Midtown address Charlotte gave her. It wasn’t an impressive building, not like the one Aubrey had seen in movies, but it had a comfortable look about it, where people worked with authors to get their message heard.
Aubrey nodded to the doorman and pressed the elevator button for the tenth floor, Egerton Publishing. She exited the elevator and approached the front desk.
“I’m Aubrey Prentice, here to see Judith, in editing.”
“She’s expecting you,” said the receptionist. “But there’s someone who wants to welcome you to the Egerton Publishing Family first. He’s the owner of the publishing house, Ian Henshaw III.” She pointed in the direction behind her. “His office is right down that hallway, at the end.”
Aubrey stood frozen, catatonic. But her feet willed her to walk down the hallway to Mr. Henshaw’s office.
It can’t be, but it is.
Aubrey reached the doorway of the office, and there stood Ian Henshaw III, with a shit-eating grin on his face.
“Welcome to Egerton Publishing, Dr. Prentice. I’m Ian Henshaw III, the new owner.”