“Romance.” Emily smiles. She gets this faraway look. “Dashing heroes and heroines. Fierce love and, well …” She winks. “You can guess the rest.”
She’s beaming. I gotta admit, her enthusiasm and confidence are contagious.
“I self-publish them,” she goes on. “Carlo pays for everything: cover, editing, marketing, the whole deal. But it all starts with good writing. Mom told me you were nice. She’s right.”
I’m guessing she’s not yet twenty-one. She has that giddy, infectious energy, sort of like Lucille.
“I publish under a pen name, Bella Bloom, because, well—”
“Publishing under the De Maggio name wouldn’t be smart?”
She wags her finger at me. Her bracelets tsk-tsk. “You’re perceptive. Or maybe Carlo’s more of a sharer than I guessed.”
“Carlo is definitely not a sharer,” I laugh.
“He’s
