Don't Tell Eve Read Online Free PDF Page A

he kept taking baby steps backwards was any indication, wasn’t enjoying the experience.
    ‘What I really love is the energy of creative people – that’s why I got into this business,’ Eve was saying.
    The agent was a man used to intimidating people – in fact he was a man who took pleasure in intimidating people. Bullish and brutish, he didn’t read but demolished books. Eve was doing well to make him squirm. But he wasn’t simply squirming. Like everyone else, he was confused about her. He couldn’t work out why someone so seemingly ditzy should be sent halfway around the world to run a place like Papyrus. He’d heard a number of theories – the most popular being that someone wanted her out of the way, which made sense as she was neither qualified nor did she appear to want to be there. But the agent couldn’t believe it was possible tobe quite so gauche and ignorant – which meant it had to be an act designed to make people underestimate her.
    Whatever it was, he didn’t trust her and he hadn’t supported his author’s move to Papyrus. Instead he’d done all he could to get the author not to move. However, the author had listened, he’d nodded and he’d then told the agent he didn’t give a fuck what he thought. It was only later that the agent heard about the author’s affair with Ilona. This was probably about the same time as most people heard, and from the same person. There was a reason Phil was such a popular lunch date and the agent regretted not having spoken to him sooner, as he’d have used completely different arguments and wouldn’t be in the position he was now in: specifically, leaning back with Eve unsteadily hovering over him.
    ‘I’ve always felt the same way. To me it’s not about the money,’ said the agent with a straight face, in his booming, gravelly voice.
    ‘Of course it’s about the money, it’s always about the money, vanity just makes us pretend otherwise,’ whispered Jess to Zoë.
    Unaware that someone was doubting his own sincerity, the agent continued. ‘Though I always do my best for my authors – don’t make any mistake about that – for me it’s about the power of good, imaginative writing. As for tonight, I have no doubt this is his most powerful, provocative work yet.’ He continued for approximately ever about how the author had captured the Zeitgeist, the atmosphere of insecurity, mistrust and sense of impending doom.
    ‘Just like work,’ said Jess to Zoë.
    Eve, his target, was assessing those assembled. For a reason not immediately apparent to the onlookers, she was watching David, who was standing in a corner slightly away from everyone else, uncomfortable in yet another ill-advised black poloneck jumper. When he moved forwards, the reason forEve’s interest in that particular corner of the room became clear.
    ‘Oh. My. God. Just look at that – cheekbones, eyes, body … Surely he’s at the wrong party?’ Zoë fanned herself.
    She was referring to her long-running joke about the geekiness of people who worked with books. The first time Zoë had made the joke was about ten years earlier. She and Jess had been at a charity event for a book to raise funds for health scares involving native animals – koalas with chlamydia had generated the most interest, certainly in the media. That day Jess had agreed Zoë was pretty close to the mark. Comfortable shoes, flannelette shirts, baggy stone-washed jeans and unwashed hair: the overriding effect wasn’t high fashion. But that was then. They were now at an inappropriate inner-city bar, David was doing a tolerable impression of a chubby Beat poet and his boss was dressed as a stinging insect.
    ‘Nope, then he wouldn’t be talking to David. The man’s pathologically shy. Put it this way, meeting new authors is one of the aspects of the job he hates most, even if he’s passionate about their writing.’
    ‘So who is young Cheekbones then?’
    ‘I’m not sure, but we could easily find