Work For It

WORK FOR IT NAIAD NOVELS SERIES BOOK 1 LEILA BURNES Copyright © 2023 by Leila Burnes. All rights reserved. Published by Said What Press, LLC. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Cover Image © Igor Vetushko Edited by VB Edits • vbeditsromance.com For Flamingo House. Who’s going to stop us? CONTENTS Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Epilogue Acknowledgments About the Author Also by Leila Burnes CHAPTER 1 NOVEMBER “The next time I see him in person, I’m going to physically fight him.” On the laptop screen in front of me, Marianne throws her head back and cackles at my comment. Despite her laughter, she knows I’m not joking. She’s well aware of just how much I hate Daniel Santiago and every problem he’s caused me. She should be. I’ve only threatened to kill him about a thousand times over the last two years. Our delightful coworker is the reason I’ve been screwed out of money, why I’m continuously kept in the dark about projects, and why I consider taking blood pressure medication every morning. Because when I see his face in that little box on Zoom during our daily team meeting and I’m forced to listen to his condescending voice, I’m convinced I’ll have a rage-induced stroke. He’s also part of the reason I have my job in the first place, but that’s not as important. “He fucked me over again,” I huff, still fuming from the Zoom meeting with the acquisitions team that just finished. “What did he do this time?” Marianne asks. I take a breath, gearing up for another Daniel-inspired rant. “He told me the continuation of Kimmy Petes’ Burned by the Billionaire that I’ve been working on for months would be released on the app last week. So, of course, I got her all hyped up about the release of the new chapters we wrote for her. And I told her she could start posting all the marketing material and dive into all the fun author stuff on social media to promote it. Sounds good, right?” “Right…” “Well, it’s not good.” I scowl. “Because the release date comes and goes, and then Kimmy emails me demanding to know why the new chapters aren’t posted, telling me she’s promised her readers something that wasn’t delivered. And she’s pissed.” “Oh shit.” “Uh, yeah. And guess who’s taking the brunt of that anger since she’s the production lead for the new chapters and has become Kimmy’s punching bag at Naiad Novels?” I point to myself. “This stupid bitch.” Recounting the story only makes me angrier. As a fellow author and one who has had her own books continued by Naiad Novels, I get it more than most. I’d be livid if my publisher didn’t release the super-hyped, much-anticipated continuation of my best-selling book when they promised. And as an employee of Naiad Novels—the hottest serialized fiction platform on the market, currently revolutionizing the publishing game—I know a fuck-up like this is colossally unprofessional. It doesn’t matter that Daniel and his team are in charge of posting chapters on the platform. I’m running point on her project, so I’m the one Kimmy is furious with. Normally, I’d chalk something like this up to miscommunication inside the company and move on, but this isn’t the first time Daniel has made my professional life hell. I swear he’s determined to ruin all the projects I’m assigned to. And I hate him for it. This feels like a personal attack. I put my blood, sweat, and tears into ghostwriting these new chapters of Burned by the Billionaire on Kimmy’s behalf, working tirelessly on a project she would be happy to put her name to. Kimmy may have written the original story—the first thirty chapters—but after that, the work is all mine. I’m talking hundreds of chapters. At Naiad Novels, our slogan is What if your favorite story never had to end? And these things really do not fucking end. Until they stop bringing in money, that is. We buy, or acquire, as Daniel would remind me to say, romance novels from top-selling self-published authors and continue them. We post a new chapter each day on our app, creating never-ending tales. Like soap operas or telenovelas in written form, with a lot more steam. So yeah, I spend most of my day writing smut. And it takes a hell of a lot of skill. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, Selene,” Marianne gently scolds. “It’s not like this is your fault.” She’s right. Daniel changed the release date without telling me. And, in the meeting we wrapped up ten minutes ago, he implied it was my fault for not checking our internal calendar for changes. I could have accepted the blame if that had been true, but I’d checked the calendar almost obsessively, only to see the release date change an hour before the first ten chapters of the continuation were scheduled to go live on the app. By then, it was too late. I could do nothing but brace myself to pacify a livid author. And while I had to rein it in when I spoke