The Color of Love

Chapter One

At ten to nine, Emily settled into one of the leather and mahogany captain’s chairs at the round oak table in the library on the second floor of the Winfield Building and looked out the tall leaded-glass windows into the Flatiron District. A light, late snow fell, delicate and subtly powerful. So far the dusting was pleasantly picturesque, painting the sidewalks and marquees in a fleeting lacquer of white, and not enough to snarl traffic in Manhattan. She’d been in her office before six and hadn’t minded the walk from her apartment in Chelsea. Spring was around the corner, snow or not.

She sipped her Earl Grey and waited for the others, soothed as always by the faint lemony scent of furniture polish and the seductive aroma of parchment. She never used the renovated conference room on the first floor, with its bright lights, steel and glass tables, sleek modern chairs, and absolutely no soul. This room had soul. The shelves were filled with history—history she was part of now—books discovered, sponsored, birthed by the Winfield Literary Agency for a hundred years. She hadn’t been born into this world, but she’d been born with the love of words and she’d found her home.

Home. A flood of melancholy washed through her even after all this time. Almost ten years since home had become a place of sorrows and loss. She brushed the fleeting sadness aside, even while knowing it would return. The past was never truly gone, and she didn’t want it to be. She had forged a new life, but memories, even painful ones, could still bring moments of joy. She did not regret hers.

Right now she had a very busy day ahead of her, and she looked forward to it. She sipped more tea and scanned the agenda on her tablet. Acquisitions, launches, marketing and ads, budget, contracts. Business items to some, but excitement to her. Behind every bullet point a book was waiting.

At five to nine, Ron Elliott arrived, looking neat and polished as he always did in an open-collared, blue button-down shirt and flawlessly tailored black trousers. His chestnut brown hair draped over his forehead in a subtly artful accentuation of his dark brows and piercing blue eyes. He was handsome in the way some men could be beautiful and masculine at the same time. If she’d been interested in men in a personal way, and if he hadn’t been gay and happily married, she would have picked Ron as the perfect match. He loved the work the way she did—as more than a job. He hadn’t even complained when she’d been moved ahead of him into the senior agent position when she was younger and had less time in than him. He claimed he really only wanted to spend his time on acquisitions, and she believed him. Some days she envied him, when her carefully scheduled half-day of reviewing the slush pile went to hell in a handbasket with an unanticipated fiscal crisis, a frantic author with a missed deadline, or an impossible publisher request to advance a pub date.

“New haircut?” Ron sat opposite her at the round table.

Emily fingered the loose curls that just touched her shoulders and feathered back from her face. “Just a few inches off.”

“Looks good. Now you could almost pass for twenty instead of twelve.”

“I do have a mirror, you know. The twelve thing hasn’t been true for at least five years. And you’re the only one who ever thought so anyhow.”

Ron grinned. “Just make sure to have ID if we ever go out clubbing again—or, miracle of miracles, you say yes the next time someone asks you for a date.”

Emily shook her head and concentrated on her tablet. Ron was just about her best friend, but he was also one of those people who thought everyone should be as happily married as he was. She couldn’t convince him she was far too busy and had too much to accomplish to need anything else. Anyone else. Maybe someday, when she was sure Pam’s future was secure. Right now, her life was going according to plan—her plan, and that was all she wanted. No more surprises, no more disappointments.

At 8:59, the senior members of the agency arrived. Her team—two acquiring agents in addition to Ron, their interns, the marketing director and his intern, and the budget supervisor.

“Morning, everybody.” Emily received a chorus of mornings and one barely audible groan. Clearly, one of the interns was not a morning person, but that would change if they wanted to make it in the rapidly transforming and ever-competitive world of literary discovery. Greetings completed, Emily jumped in.

“Okay, we’ve got three months to the launch of the summer season—so where are we in terms of ads, promotions, and tours? Ron—why don’t you start.”

Ron ran down his six forthcoming titles with reports from the corresponding publishers’ marketing divisions, recaps of conversations with the authors, and summaries of his agenda for pushing his titles out to reviewers and bloggers ahead of release. Emily listened but didn’t take notes. Ron was always on top of his list. For nearly an hour, the other agents in turn reviewed the forthcoming titles of the authors they represented, strategies were revised, and projected costs were approved, amended, and revised.

“We should be in good shape,” Emily said, scanning the notes she’d made and projecting the timelines for the intersecting campaigns in her head. “Ron, Terry, you’ve got to keep on top of Heron—they’re going to let the Emery and Rosen titles fall to the bottom of the list if we don’t push, especially now that they’ve moved up the release of Baldwin’s mystery.”

“On it,” Terry said.

“Already talking to them about it,” Ron echoed.

“Good. Any author issues we need to know about?” Acquiring books and promoting them was only part of their job. Once the manuscripts were contracted and handed off to the publishers, a great deal of hand-holding was required to get their authors, especially the new ones, through the long, arduous process of editing, cover design, and advance promotion before the books went to press.

“All my chickens are happy,” Terry said.

“Race Evans doesn’t like his cover,” Ron said. “I can’t say I really blame him, but it’s right for the market and we got Sellers and Saylor’s art department to come as close as we could to what he was hoping for.”

“Hopefully he’ll be happier when he sees the sales.” Emily cast one more look around. Everyone seemed satisfied and on point. “All right, then. I’ll see you all Wednesday for production.”

She stayed seated while the others left, adding a few more notes. She had fifteen minutes before a phone call to a client about acquiring their manuscript, her favorite kind of call. The author was usually excited, and she was happy to be adding another new title to their list.

When her cell rang, she checked the number and answered immediately. “Hi, Vonnie.”

“Hi, Emily,” Vonnie Hall, the president’s personal secretary, replied. “Can you come on by? She wants to talk to you for a few minutes.”

Emily frowned and checked her watch. “Is it urgent? I have a phone conference in five.”

“I’ll let her know you’ll be half an hour.”

“Thanks.”

Thirty minutes and one about-to-be-signed contract later, Emily tucked her phone and tablet into her shoulder bag and climbed the winding wooden staircase to the fourth floor and made her way down the plush carpeted hall to the office at the far end. The top floor housed the senior agents’ offices and looked as Emily imagined it had a century before with its vaulted tin ceilings, ornate hanging light fixtures, and recessed alcoves framed in dark, carved wood. Above the gleaming walnut wainscoting, framed portraits of generations of Winfields adorned the pale green, floral-patterned wallpaper. In the muted light, the eyes of the men and one woman followed her. With each step, she felt as if she moved back in time, although there was nothing outdated or antiquated about the woman she was about to see. Like Emily, Henrietta Winfield simply appreciated history.

Vonnie Hall, a trim, flawlessly presented woman in a red suit with thin ribbons of black along the collar and cuffs, guarded the door to Henrietta Winfield’s inner sanctum with the ferocity of a she-wolf and the smile of an angel. She greeted Emily with genuine pleasure. “She’ll just be a minute. She’s finishing a phone call.”

“Sure,” Emily said. “How are you? Is Tom on his way home yet?”

Vonnie’s smile blazed at the mention of her husband, still deployed with the National Guard. “He’s in Germany, thank the Lord. He ought to be home in about ten days.”

“I’m so glad.”

A light on Vonnie’s phone blinked and she gestured toward the closed door behind her. “Go on in.”

“Thanks.” Emily shifted her shoulder bag a little higher, skirted Vonnie’s desk, and stepped into Henrietta Winfield’s domain. The room was twice the size of the library she’d just left but resembled it with its filled-to-capacity bookshelves on two walls, the comfortable leather sofa and chair in the seating area, and the big wooden library table that served as a desk. The president of the Winfield Agency sat behind it now in a dark brown leather swivel chair.

At five-four and a hundred and ten pounds, Henrietta should have been dwarfed by the size of the table and the expansiveness of the room, but she filled the space—any space—with a palpable energy. When Emily had first met her seven years before, she’d been twenty-two and fresh out of school, and had felt as if she’d walked into the path of a hurricane. Despite being five inches taller and nearly forty years younger than Henrietta—HW, as everyone called her in casual conversation—she still sometimes had to run to keep up with her. Henrietta was energetic, trim, and formidable. She was also Emily’s mentor, role model, and closest friend.

Henrietta, her shining black hair cut casually short, without any gray and naturally so, nodded hello. As was always the case, she wore a business suit, this one a gray pinstripe with a white open-collared shirt and a plain gold necklace showing at the throat.

“Hi,” Emily said. “Sorry I couldn’t make it sooner, but I just finished a call with a client.”

“That was the fantasy you were telling me about the other night at dinner?”

Emily shook her head, although she shouldn’t be surprised. HW’s memory was prodigious and enviable. “That’s the one.”

“Is the author signing?”

“She is.”

“Excellent. I agree with you—we’re going to see a resurgence in high fantasy in the next year. Can you get this one positioned with one of the brand divisions?”

“I think so.” Emily doubted Henrietta had called her in to discuss a relatively straightforward contract, but she waited patiently.

“Sit down. This will take a minute.”

Emily’s heart jumped. Something about the way Henrietta was looking at her sent a chill down her spine. When she’d been a young intern working directly for HW, she’d been the recipient of a few hard stares, an occasional quiet but unforgettable admonishment, and a thousand more words of encouragement. Henrietta Winfield was the best at what she did, and she’d held the reins of her company in a firm grasp through economic and industry upheavals that had decimated other agencies. If she was unhappy, Emily couldn’t fathom what might be the cause. She sat, feeling the pulse beat in her throat.

“I’ve just been on the phone with our attorneys,” Henrietta said without preamble. “There’s a better than even chance we’re going to lose our H-1B approval at the end of the year.”

Emily caught her breath. If that happened, her application for permanent residence would be in limbo—or terminated. “Why?”

“Because the idiots who make the laws, or listen to the people who elect them, are hysterical about immigration issues right now and they’re cutting all the quotas. We are not tech, and that’s where most of the allocations go.”

Emily knew that, but she’d been in the United States since she’d enrolled at Harvard as an undergraduate. Singapore had a very good working relationship with educational institutions in the United States and obtaining a student visa had been easy. Then when she’d been accepted as an intern after a year of graduate school, she’d moved into H-1B status. Other than being a supreme hassle in terms of paperwork and documentation, her visa had never really been a problem.

“But if—” Emily swallowed. “Am I going to lose my job?”

“Not if I can help it,” Henrietta said, a fierce light in her eyes. “The entire thing is ridiculous, and we’re working on it, but I wanted you to know.”

“Of course, yes.” Emily’s mind reeled. She couldn’t lose this job—this was more than a job, it was her passion, her future, and if she had to return to Singapore…she couldn’t. She’d never find the kind of job there she had here, and even if she could, she’d never earn the same. The cost of living was even worse than New York City, and with Pam’s expenses…she’d never manage.

“I don’t want you to worry.” Henrietta laughed shortly, her voice catching as she coughed. She drank from a glass on her desk and grimaced impatiently. “I know that’s a ridiculous thing to say, but we’ve worked our way through miles of red tape more than once. Unfortunately, this time we have to deal with multiple agencies, federal at that, and it might take some time.”

“I—” Emily cleared her throat. “I’ll do anything necessary. I love this job, you know that.”

Henrietta’s expression softened. “Of course I do. You also happen to be very good at it. We’ve never really talked about it, but someday, I expect you’ll have a much larger role in the company.”

“I can’t imagine being anywhere else, doing anything else.”

“Well, I don’t plan on retiring anytime soon,” Henrietta said, “and there’s time for us to talk about that when this visa business is straightened out. We need to get you that green card and be done with it.”

Emily sighed. “Believe me, I know.”

“Well, I’ve set up a meeting with our attorneys for the end of the week. We’ll talk about all of it then.”

“Thank you.” Emily swallowed around the lump in her throat. She wouldn’t panic. They had time to straighten it all out. She’d keep her job, she’d be able to take care of Pam. Her plans would all be fine.

“Emily,” Henrietta said, rising from behind her desk and starting toward her. “You don’t need to worry. I’m not going to let—” She stopped abruptly, one hand reaching for the side of her desk. Her expression registered surprise and then she gasped, “Oh.”

“I’m sorry? What?” Emily said. “Henrietta? Henrietta!”

Emily jumped up as Henrietta Winfield slumped to the floor.