Holly and Her Naughty eReader by Julianne Spencer Page A

and gemstone
companies, and doesn’t care if they use children in the mines or work in a war
zone. He has plenty of money in the defense industry, profiting handsomely from
all the wars around the world. And the text hints that he built this empire
using a hefty dose of sorcery, that he wasn’t above using magic to destroy his
rivals or grow his bank account.
    As a reader (and as Annabelle),
you don’t know exactly what motivates Christoph to be the way he is, but you
know it’s something. He doesn’t apologize for or excuse the actions of his
business. Instead, he does what he wants to do and dares anyone to step in his
way.
    We finished our introductions.
To show his immediate interest in me, Christoph delayed his important
conference call so he and I could chat. He served me a cup of Earl Gray tea (I
read somewhere that the author has a big crush on Patrick Stewart). We talked
for an hour. Christoph asked questions about Annabelle’s personal life, and spoke
with such command she couldn’t help but answer honestly.
    I sat back inside Annabelle and
enjoyed the ride. Annabelle was already head over heels in love with Christoph,
and I was too. I knew full well where this was going, and I couldn’t wait to
get there.
    “So…our conference call this
morning,” Christoph said.
    This was a nice touch, I
thought. Here we were in Chapter 1 and he was already referring to the
conference call as ‘our’ call. LA Jones had written Christoph to connect with
Annabelle right away. Now in my second time through the book, I could see that
Christoph was lonely and sad right until the moment when Annabelle walked into
his office. Her rescue of this troubled man began the moment she stepped
inside.
    “Yes, what about our conference
call?” I said.
    “I have recently purchased an
electronics manufacturing outfit in India that is bleeding money because of
some poorly timed purchases of precious metals,” Christoph said. “This morning
I will be speaking with the managers about this. The call will be recorded, but
that’s just for the lawyers. I want to have my own notes on the call. That will
be your job. Write down as much as you can during the call. When it is over, we
will go over your notes and I will have you modify them as I see fit.”
    “Okay, I can do that,” I said.
    “Of course you can. Take your
place over there, please and we will begin.”
    He pointed to a laptop in the
corner of the room, out of view of the camera he would use for the call. I took
a seat, he contacted India, and the call was on.
    He was breathtaking in his
command of the situation. His managers in India threw lots of complicated
jargon his way, but he cut right through it and got straight to the point.
Somebody screwed up. I took careful notes, writing down as many exact phrases
as I could. They were speaking about gold, silver, and copper components used
in circuit boards and wires. The managers in India used options and futures
contracts to control the prices of their purchases, but between the metals
purchases and the demand forecasts and the production plans, it was clear that
there was lots of confusion in India.
    The last time I went through
this scene, and played it as the author wrote it, Christoph finished the call
with a frightening diatribe about a list of names of people who were to be
fired immediately. It was a scene that taunted the reader, showing Christoph at
his most ruthless, and daring the reader not to find him attractive anyway.
    And even as cute little
Annabelle typed away, getting more and more turned on as Christoph’s rant
increased in intensity, I found myself thinking through the problems that
Christoph was trying to solve, and realized the author had missed the obvious
solution to all this confusion about metals prices in India.
    As I had done with Catherine
Earnshaw when she left her bedroom to find Heathcliff in the night, I took
control of Annabelle’s character and changed the story. I stood up from my
chair