Don't Move Your Desk: Chapter Twenty-Four
In which many things are hard
A summary for you on what to expect in this edition in case you want to scroll down to the interesting bits: a call to review; future bits coming down the pipeline; Chapter Twenty-Four of Don’t Move Your Desk; and the progress report with an update on my week-on-week sales and writing progress.
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Recently, I’ve been starting to think about what I serialise next. I’ll be putting up a poll sometime soon, I think, because I just have so many ideas on what that might be. I could go in a hundred different directions, and the list keeps growing.
A quick call to action: if you have read the ebook version of Don’t Move Your Desk, or if you’re just following along in real time, you are now able to leave a review on Amazon (or GoodReads, Storygraph, wherever you do your reviews). All of them are great, but an Amazon review would really help my sales - even if you just leave a ‘star’ review with no comments. If you’re enjoying the story, please go do that now so I can make a few more sales and justify writing more!
I had a New Releases For Less email go out for DMYD this week, and there have been some good results. I’m not 100% sure it broke even yet, but since I’m still getting more sales from the previous Featured Deal, I’m not so mad about it.
I’m soon going to gear up to try and increase the chances of my other series, Serial Investigations, getting a featured deal because those kinds of sales could be a game changer. I’ll let you know when that’s happening, as I’d be happy to send out ARC copies to readers here if I’m sending them out elsewhere anyway.
As a quick reminder: this chapter will go behind the paywall 60 days after publication. Don’t miss the chance to read the next chapter for free by subscribing for email updates!
Okay, that’s it! On with the chapter!
Olly
It was hard not to walk back over there.
It was hard not to drag Keaton out of his chair with my hands fisted in his shirt.
It was hard not to push him up against the wall behind his desk and crush my mouth against his.
It was hard not to celebrate this victory in all the ways my body was dying to.
It had to be him. Ace and I had been working on this around the clock and yet it had to be Keaton that solved it. It seemed like Keaton was always the one with the solution to every problem I had since we’d hired him.
Except he was also my biggest problem. A boss couldn’t have those thoughts about his secretary. Not if he wanted to avoid a sexual harassment lawsuit.
Unless the secretary was the one who wanted it.
A knock on the door heralded the arrival of Fernando Quijada. He entered and closed the door behind him.
“Hey, you needed me?” he asked. I held up a hand to stop him. The first news alert had just pinged into my inbox.
I clicked the link and opened the report. A breaking news story about Ridley Angus having his drink spiked.
It was starting. “Come over here,” I said. I beckoned him as I scooted my chair across. I turned my screen so he could watch the video as I played it. “We have them red-handed.”
Fernando straightened quickly after watching the clip. “Wow,” he said. His voice was rushed. Clipped. Why was that? “I guess you never know who you can trust.”
“No,” I said. “You don’t.”
He looked at me. “What did you need me for?” he asked. He gestured at the screen. “This is Ace’s client.”
Hmm.
“It’s not about the clip,” I said. “Not directly. Ace and I will be busy dealing with the fallout for the rest of the day. Maybe the week. I want you to help out the junior agents. Deal with anything that comes up. You’re in charge of them until this blows over.”
“I can do that,” Fernando said. I wasn’t sure if it was just my imagination or if he sounded relieved. But there were lots of reasons for a man to sound relieved. Perhaps he wasn’t a fan of Ridley and didn’t want to work with him. “I’ll go down and let them know to bring their problems to me until you say anything different.”
I nodded. “Good. That saves me some time. I have some interviews to run to.”
Keaton looked up from his desk. “You’re going out?” he asked.
I stood with a nod as I buttoned my suit jacket. “I have to go now,” I said. “I have a couple of major networks requesting face time already. Cancel and move my appointments for the rest of the day.”
“Of course,” Keaton said. He lunged forward and grabbed his desk phone from the cradle. “Do you need me to call a car for you?”
I almost said no. I liked driving my own car. But he had a point. It was going to be a long day and I had a lot to think about. I could take my laptop with me and get some work done as a passenger. “Fine,” I said.
Keaton nodded rapidly. He was already dialing. “I’ll have them bring it around before you hit the street.”
I walked out of the office confident in the fact that the car would be waiting for me. And it was. That was just how reliable Keaton could be.
But sitting in the back of that car turned out not to be a place where I could get work done. I ended up not finishing off a single thing I started.
What I did instead was stare out of the window and think.
I thought about Keaton. How much I wanted him. How I wanted to let someone in. The timing was wrong but I somehow knew in the back of my head that the timing would always be wrong.
No one had ever made me want to let them in as badly as he did. I’d made him inner circle. Inner circle! I had agents who’d worked with me for five or more years whose marital status I didn’t even know! There were people in my life who had known me for decades and didn’t know I was gay!
There were so few people I trusted with the truth about who I was. What had possessed me to trust him?
Why didn’t I feel like I had made a mistake even now?
I thought about Brody Driver and how badly he must have wanted to ruin my business. Or maybe just steal Ridley and boost his own career. It was hard to tell.
I thought about Helen. I had trusted her. Not as much as I trusted Keaton – but I had allowed her to run my calendar. To deal with my correspondence. To attend and make notes at meetings. I had fired her for a reason.
Not a reason I could bring to mind right now. They all drifted into one. Was Helen the one who was always late? Or the one who had screwed up the Heathwell meeting? Or had she been the one who spilled coffee over the contracts I was working on for a midday deadline?
I couldn’t even bring her face to mind at the moment when I fired her. I probably hadn’t bothered looking.
I had earned my reputation as cold and aloof. I had earned it deliberately. Now…
Now this had happened. I had to wonder whether there was some cosmic reason why my very next secretary happened to be the one who made me want to stop being cold and aloof at all.
And now I was thinking about Keaton again.
I tried thinking about Quijada. About whether there was something off about him when he came into my office or it was just my paranoid imagination. Getting attacked by a former employee who knew half your corporate secrets could bring on paranoia.
There was a lot about him that seemed complicated from today’s vantage point. The fact that he was dating Keaton’s sister could turn him into an asset or a liability. Both Keaton and now I had reasons to let him off easy if he did something poorly.
Because I couldn’t do anything that might make Keaton upset or disappointed in me.
And we weren’t even dating.
How bad would it get if we were?
Shit.
And now I was thinking about Keaton again.
And I thought about Keaton on every trip to and from every studio. I thought about Keaton at lunch when I couldn’t eat with him but instead had to grab a salad in the back of the car. I thought about Keaton as I explained time and time again what his footage had uncovered. I never named him as the cameraman. It didn’t matter. He never strayed too far from my thoughts.
And with every thought of him, there was an unfamiliar feeling growing.
A feeling of doubt.
It started to play over and over in my head. The footage. The fact that footage from later on that same night had been leaked.
I hadn’t asked him about it when he showed me the clip. It hadn’t even crossed my mind that Keaton could be the one who had betrayed us. It seemed obvious that Brody and Helen were in this together. Where would Keaton even fit into the picture?
And yet…
Why had he even been in the club in the first place?
Why had he been pointing his camera towards the place where Ridley was hanging out and filming?
Why hadn’t he said a word about the fact that he had been there when the footage first came out?
“Last one?” the driver asked. I looked up at him and met his eyes in the rearview mirror. I’d almost forgotten I wasn’t alone.
“Oh? Yes,” I said. I recovered my thoughts enough to realize he was trying to confirm where we needed to go next. “Yes, take me back to the office.”
I had to see him again.
Not for the usual reasons this time – but because there was a cold fear slowly taking over my gut.
A fear that Keaton was not what I thought he was.
That I had trusted the wrong person and told him some of my deepest secrets.
The car pulled up outside of the office and I practically jumped out of the door before it had finished slowing down. The driver was on payroll – he knew to take the car back to the parking garage below the building. I didn’t need to worry about that.
What I did need to worry about was where my secretary was. I had left him alone in my office for almost a full day.
My office – with all my files.
All the information anyone would need if they were planning to take down my company and take our spot as the top sports agency in the country.
I didn’t want to think it. I walked across the lobby not wanting to think it. I went up in the elevator not wanting to think it.
I strode down the hall not wanting to think it but knowing that I did.
I walked inside the office without pausing. I threw the doors open in front of me and immediately looked around. If he didn’t know I was coming then maybe I could catch him –
But Keaton was sitting exactly where I had told him to be. Behind his desk. Doing his job.
I glanced around. There were no files out of place. No sign that any of my paperwork had been touched.
“Mr. Harvey,” Keaton said with a note of surprise. “You’re back! I have some messages for you. Nothing urgent, so I thought I’d leave it until you came back, but I can respond to them now if you’d like. Would you like to hear them?”
I looked at him. Hard. Tried to see him.
Past the unruly dark curls and the horn-rimmed glasses. Past the cute pout he made with his lips when he was concentrating. Past the cheeks I loved to make flare up pink.
That cold fear pooled in my gut.
I couldn’t tell if I was really seeing him – or just what I wanted to see.
I pushed the doors shut and faced him.
“Keaton Dunbar,” I growled. “Why the hell did you have that footage in the first place?”
And I prayed for an answer that wouldn’t ruin everything I had been building of him in my head.
Here ends this week’s chapter! What did you think? I’d love to hear your thoughts below. I really appreciate your comments - what you like, what you don’t like, and what you’d like to see next.
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Progress Report
Note: Changes are in bold. The reporting issues with ebook sales is now over, so all figures should be accurate.
TOTAL SALES:
Don’t Move Out: ebook - 741, paperback - 8, KU pages read - 354,066 (238 pages = 1,487 equivalent full-book reads), free downloads - 6,304
Don’t Go Outside: ebook - 115, paperback - 6, KU pages read - 138,582 (222 pages = 624 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Fly Home: ebook - 64, paperback - 4, KU pages read - 86,143 (224 pages = 384 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Leave Town: ebook - 65, paperback - 4, KU pages read - 60,583 (299 pages = 202 equivalent full-book reads)
Don’t Check Out: ebook - 55, paperback - 2, KU pages read - 33,349 (192 pages = 173 equivalent full-book reads)
CC 1-5 Boxset: KU pages read - 15,148 (1,068 pages = 14 equivalent full-set reads)
Don’t Move Your Desk: ebook - 13 (no other formats available as yet)
Serial Investigations full series (Pre-Substack releases: books 1-12, 2 bonus novellas, 2 boxsets): ebook - 483, paperback/hardback - 68, KU pages read - 370,478, free downloads - 546
WRITING:
Don’t Move Your Desk - written and edited fully, serialisation underway, all chapters queued up ready (7 ‘spare’ chapters with no set date), ebook on sale
Kiss The Cook cover revealed, ebook ready, planning to launch preorder very soon
Cook Up A Storm: full plot done, 46k words written - another week, another excuse. I’m sick and I’ve been focusing on other tasks when I was well enough to do them. FFFFFFF. I’m determined to finish this damn book this week. Please harass me in the comments or on notes if you see me not working on it.
(Books 8+): 8 covers, themes, and titles done, Crowhill Kitchen release schedule and titles announced, all Kitchen characters created and romances/interpersonal relationships between books set up, all Club characters created and romances/interpersonal relationships between books set up
SUBSTACK:
Subscribers: free - 59, paid - 2 plus 1 temp comp
Followers: 232
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XO Rhiannon