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CHAPTER 1 –

A/N: Yes, here’s another WIP for you. Yes, it’s rated PG-13 for now but, if you know anything about my stories, you know it will be NC-17 eventually. Consider yourself warned.



Buffy Summers yawned, re-crossing her legs in the plush leather chair she perched in. Wishing she would have brought a magazine, she took to glancing about the room, searching for some aspect that she hadn’t noticed before. The rectangular office she sat in was more than familiar. She could map it out in her head – a wooden door led into the deep red toned room, an appropriate color for its dramatic owner. Its décor was minimal. A fireplace was built into the wall behind her. Swanky was an appropriate term. Only in New York.

Across from her, behind his mahogany desk sat her editor, William “Spike” Giles, both elbows on the smooth top as he hunched over her latest manuscript, thin frames perched on his nose.

Buffy fidgeted her hands in her lap. No matter how many chapters of her writing he read, and he had read every word she had written since she arrived in the Big Apple four years ago, she was still nervous for his opinion.

Seeing movement out of the corner of her eye, her gaze shot to the man in front of her. When he did nothing but turn the page and continue reading, failing to acknowledge her annoyance, she sighed deeply.

Why she subjected herself to this torture time and time again, she didn’t know. A sadist when it came to her writing, Buffy always chose to hang around his office while he poured over her writings. She wouldn’t let him go home to read it, like he did so many of his other clients. She wanted him to read her stuff right then and now and give her instant responses. She had tried leaving her manuscript with him overnight once, but she was so nerve wracked that she couldn’t sleep. Would he spill something on it? Or would someone steal it while he was at the gym? What if he read it and forgot to tell her some important aspect of his review the next time he saw her? He would have read numerous transcripts by then and would have forgotten the whole ambiance of the piece!

Ten minutes later, Buffy held her breath, straightening her spine, and waited for his final verdict.

He looked up at her.

“Your last sentence doesn’t make any sense.”

Making a noise of protest, Buffy stood defiantly, coming to lean over behind him, reading the sentence he was pointing to. “Yes it does,” she said finally.

Spike shook his head, “It’s grammatically incorrect in so many ways it makes my head spin.”

“I’m experimenting with language,” she defended haughtily. “Who was Shakespeare if not a daring wordsmith?”

He shot her a look, “You’re hardly the Bard. And the fact that you would stoop so low as to use my idol against me does nothing but show your desperation.”

“Well other than the last sentence . . . which we’re keeping,” she added determinedly, moving back around the desk.

He sighed, pushing the chair out from under him and standing up, “Yet another brilliant manifesto on how all men are pigs who take pride in nothing but sowing our wild oats and lying to you fairer sex.”

“Really?” She squealed, “Brilliant?” she asked, ignoring the rest of his tirade.

“I’m sure you’ll sell millions, yet again, to the bitter women of the world,” he waved his hand toward the large window to his right, gesturing to the potential buyers that walked the streets ten floors below them, his voice lacking in excitement.

He walked around the perimeter of his desk, gathering up piles of papers and sliding them into his briefcase, Buffy hot on his heels and making her way to follow him out the door.

“So when you say ‘brilliant,’ is that more brilliant than my last book? Or is it a different kind of brilliant, because I think this one has a much different tone. Do you think I may loose some people or am I only in a situation to gain?”

“Summers,” he interrupted, “you are the only writer that I edit who I am also friends with outside work. You are the only one I have given my home address and phone number to. Please don’t make me regret it.” He made his way around the group of people exiting the elevator, entering and pressing the down button. Buffy came to a rest next to him.

“I’m dedicated,” she commented.

“You’re neurotic,” he answered as the doors closed.

Leaving the building, they waited for the light, crossing the congested New York street, Spike in his dark grey Armani suit, coffee in hand, and Buffy hurrying along side him as much as she could in her sensible brown skirt, suit top, and heels.

“It’s Friday, Summers, why don’t you take some time off and relax? That’s what I plan to do.” They safely navigated the zigzagging taxis and reached the sidewalk. Spike spun in front of her, “Come out with me tonight,” he requested smoothly.

But not smooth enough, as Buffy easily dodged his statement with ease, “I’m afraid your idea of relaxation – a/k/a whoring your way around New York . . .”

“How many years have I known you, Summers?” he interrupted.

“Four, and you’ve been trying to get into my pants for three of them,” she countered coolly. “I’m sorry, Spike, but it’s just not my idea of a good time.” She moved to go around him, but he blocked her path.

“I’ll show you enough good times to fill two of those books of yours,” he stated cockily, giving her a promisingly heated look that, for a slit second, had her thinking twice. But years of practice had her brushing off the notion as ludicrous within seconds.

She looked at him, astounded by his persistence, “Where does this misguided optimism of yours come from?”

“Who was it?” he challenged, ignoring her question.

She shook her head in confusion, “Who was who?” She continued her way down the street.

“The man who ruined you for the rest of us,” he said, following her.

“For the rest of you?” she balked, “Like I’m some kind of buffet?”

Truthfully, there hadn’t been that many given the chance to ‘ruin her’. But those who had had been doosies. Firstly, there had been Angel. Who, to make a long and very melodramatic story short, left her after they graduated because he knew ‘it was best for her’. For about five seconds, there had been Parker, who had come closest to breaking her spirit. And then there was Riley, who had had the misguided notion that men were to protect women. When he discovered that Buffy was strong and independent enough to take care of herself and didn’t need to rely on him in any way, he bolted to places unknown. All these men and, as some New York shrinks would suggest, her father, left her with her jaded and some say bitter outlook on romance. But the common factor of all of them? She had been perfectly content until they had decided it was over.

“Well you just wait for my next chapter,” she warned Spike. “It has to do with my friend Willow’s first love. First, she catches him in bed with another woman. Actually, it was the floor, but anyway, he up and leaves her without so much as saying goodbye and . . .”

The ringing of her cell phone interrupted her.

“Hello?” she answered, only for her voice to drop into an annoyed anger, “Oh, hi. She’s what!? When? No, I absolutely cannot. This is unacceptable.” There was a pause as the person on the other line stated their case. “You know what? Fine.” She slammed the phone shut.

“Arch nemesis?” Spike questioned nodding to her phone, noting her hostile tone.

“Mother,” she answered in a huff. “I have to go home for my sister’s wedding in two weeks and this is the kind of warning I get.”

“Shotgun wedding?” he questioned the abruptness of the nuptials.

“No, we all had a pretty good idea this was coming. Since they met two years ago they’ve been joined at the hip.” Spike detected a hint of snarl in her voice.

“You don’t sound very happy for her.”

“They’re twenty -- much too young to be getting married.”

Spike shrugged, “They found each other and want to start their life together sooner rather than later. What’s so wrong with that?”

“They can’t even legally drink to their own toast,” Buffy merely grumbled in response.

“Well, good,” Spike remarked, “You can get some well-needed relaxation and fax me those chapters by the end of the week.”

Buffy’s jaw dropped, “I can’t do that!” She shook her head, “No, way.” She whipped out her cell, “I’ll just call my mother back and tell her I can’t make it. There’s just no way . . .”

Seeing she was serious, Spike grabbed the phone out of her reaching fingers, “You will do no such thing. You are going to your sister’s wedding,” he told her sternly. “You’re just going to have to suck it up about those chapters of yours because I will not be there to hold your hand.” She didn’t pitch the fit he thought she would, and instead cocked her head to look at him strangely. “What?”

“I have a proposition.”

TBC





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