A/N: Jumping a bit in time with this, hopefully, it will all make sense even if things start out a bit gloomy and angsty. This first scene is partly something that I have wanted to put in an original idea someday. Now I'm tinkering away with a few of the plot ideas and using them in this fic.
I often forget to thank all my readers, who give kudos and reviews and subscribe to my stories. You guys are what drives me to write, and for my own entertainment, AND to satisfy my little hyperactive muse. *LOL* So I might not be one who leaves replies to all my reviewers, but let me tell you here, THANK YOU.
Many thanks go to my beta for helping me out with this, always a pleasure getting feedback from you, Jonesfandomfanatic.
Chapter 1"Seriously!" Emma exclaimed, repeatedly tapping the backspace button. "What utter crap comes out of my brain today." She groaned and combed her fingers through her long hair.
"Ah, one of those days for our resident writer." Belle's voice sounded from the counter.
"Sorry, I'll get back to work and set up the new kid's book display," Emma said, pushing away from her little corner table before walking over to her boss.
"Don't worry, I know you want that fantasy book finished this month." Belle opened the box the delivery service had dropped off this morning. "Oh, look at this." She picked up a book with a very familiar cover; a sequin-dressed woman wrapped in the arms of a musician, his guitar hanging from his back, dark figures looming in the background. Bold letters declared the title to be: "The mob princess and her singer," and smaller letters at the bottom told everyone that Emma Swan was the author. She'd opted to use a somewhat partly pseudo-author name, yet everyone in town knew it was her, all because of the massive campaign Belle launched when her fourth romantic suspense novel came out six months ago.
"Did we really sell out already?" Emma asked and plucked her book from Belle's hands. It was always a thrill holding your own written words in your hands.
"Yep, sure did." Belle grinned and unloaded the rest of the ordered books. "We're doing a 'Suspense Spring' campaign so I found a few more books to add to our shelves.
Emma looked over the books being placed on the counter. She recognized several big authors among them, and it was weird seeing her book among such high-ranking authors. But she had to admit that her own mafia book seemed to gain more readers and, as a result, her first three books had also upped their sales numbers. In all fairness, it was giving her high hopes for the future. If only her brain would cooperate with her new book idea. She glanced over at her laptop still perched on the table, the little corner made just for her. Belle had offered her the use of it in some of the downtimes during her work hours to write.
"You'll figure out how to solve that magic system you're working on," Belle soothed. hen Emma looked at her in surprise Belle added, "I saw you looking at your laptop and have felt your frustration all morning."
"Sorry." Emma smiled sheepishly at her boss.
"Let me know if we should do a brainstorm session."
"Thanks, I might take you up on that." Emma had sparred with Belle a few times in the past. Belle was an avid reader so she knew a few things about books and how it was received by a reader.
The two women began sorting out the new books when the doorbell announced a new customer. Emma attempted to hide her groan by clearing her throat when she saw who it was. Walsh, the man who owned the furniture shop next door.
"Good morning, ladies." Walsh's beady monkey eyes zoomed in on Emma and strode towards the counter. "How's the business doing?"
Emma's skin prickled with repulsion at his blatant stares and obvious perusal of her form. The man was a creep and she had, on many occasions, evaded all his not-so-subtle attempts to ask her out.
"Good morning, Mr. Walsh," Belle chirped, in a falsely cheerful tone. "We can't complain, how's the furniture sales going?"
Emma bit back a chuckle as it was widely known that Walsh was on the edge of going bankrupt, but the guy just wouldn't let it go.
"Hmm." Walsh tried to not look offended as he glanced around their little shop and then his eyes landed on Emma again. "How are you doing Emma?"
"Fabulous," Emma mumbled and shifted nervously on her feet. She didn't enjoy engaging in small talk with the monkey man.
"Emma, please can you go to the storage and pick out those kids' books we talked about?" Belle suggested with a sympathetic look in her eyes. She knew how much Emma hated their shop neighbor.
"Yeah, sure, right away." She whirled around and scampered to the storage room at the back. Emma just about heard Walsh chuckle something about her being a little busy working bee he hoped she'd have less of a sting than an actual bee. God that man was lame and creepy on so many levels. Emma shut out the continued mumbled talk from the shop and took her time picking out the books needed for the new display.
Only when she heard the doorbell chime did she enter the shop again, her arms filled with children's books. She was relieved to have her suspicions confirmed corrected and, glanced over at Belle who was on her phone taking a few snaps of the new delivery.
"Updating Instagram?" Emma asked with a knowing smile. Her boss went all in with the social media wave when it came to promoting the little bookshop. It seemed to make for better sales as they had customers who would drive the few extra miles off the main roads to shop for books in "Belle's Books" in Storybrooke, Maine.
"Yeah, just making a teaser of our upcoming 'Suspense Spring' event." Belle finished with the pictures and tapped out the text to go with it.
Emma walked over to the counter and rested her elbows on the surface watching Belle finish uploading the pictures.
Belle swiped a few times down the feed and gasped when she scrolled past a picture of a dark-haired guy holding a guitar over his back. "Isn't that Killian Jones?"
Emma's heart clenched at the mention of the name, she knew of his fame and partly how he'd soared to the big music scenes in the past five years. She didn't live under a rock, but she kept herself away from all things regarding the new British music darling everyone spoke about. Emma slumped her head down on her arms and groaned.
"Shit, I'm sorry Emma, I forgot," Belle said, placing a gentle hand on Emma's shoulder.
"It's okay. I guess I'll have to get used to seeing his face on billboards over here," Emma mumbled against her arms, silently wishing he'd just stayed on his side of the Pond. "What did he do now?" Why did she have to torture herself like this?
"Just a new single release, a song called "My Forever Girl." Belle's voice suddenly sounded like she was underwater. Forever Girl.
Emma pressed her forehead to the cool surface of the counter as she wrapped her arms around her head, trying to squash out the sound of his voice singing those same words to her twelve years ago.
"Emma?" Belle gently shook Emma's shoulder. "What's wrong?"
Emma inhaled deeply, "I can't believe…" She gave out a strangled sob, and she was sure that she had tears dropping to the counter by now.
"Hey, you can talk to me." Belle urged.
Emma heard the sincerity in her voice. "I just can't, he broke me," Emma sobbed. She'd partly told her boss the heartbroken tale of her past with Killian a few years ago when his face had shown up in a music magazine they'd gotten in the mail. A magazine that wanted them to sell it in their store.
"I know, but you can't keep pretending that he doesn't exist," Belle reasoned,
Emma turned her head and looked up at her boss, not really caring that her eyes most likely were puffy and red from tears. "I know," Emma groaned, lifting herself from the counter. "I have to move on, I was a sorry excuse of a teenager falling far too hard for my friend. He clearly didn't care about me as much as that song…" she pointed at Belle's phone, "...claimed he did."
"He wrote that song back then?"
"I guess it's the same song." Emma shrugged. "For all I know, he changed it and moved on, now singing it to some brainless bimbo."
"Shall we hear?"
"And torture me even more?!" Emma scoffed. "Please I'm not sure I can handle it."
"Well, perhaps it's what you need to finally move on," Belle mused. "Sort of like ripping off a bandage."
"Yeah, right." Emma rolled her eyes, then she softened. "Hit it, bring the pain."
Belle slowly opened her music app and searched for the song, and soon a very familiar tune filled the room. It was basically the same she'd listened to on his front porch those twelve years ago, yet it had clearly been polished off and added volume with a band and backing singers.
What hit her the most was the fact that the lyrics had barely changed, only one added verse that shattered her heart:
Daft mistakes pulled us apart,
I was a fool to never find you.
My forever girl
be mine, forever and ever.
"So?" Belle's voice sounded so far away.
"Basically the same," Emma mumbled trying to keep her emotions at bay, she shrugged. "But who cares, it was ages ago, water under the bridge and all that." She waved her hand in the air, trying to show some sort of indifference to it all. But with one look at Belle Emma knew that her boss saw right through her.
"So move one, find love elsewhere," Belle mused and gave a small smirk. "There's plenty of fish out there."
"Yeah." Emma wasn't so sure that she would be ready to jump into the dating game again. She tried it once after Killian left but Neal had been an arrogant asshole who tried to talk down her dreams of writing. He'd made jokes of her fantasy worlds she already had tried to get down on paper. When she finally got rid of him her heart was barricaded behind sky-high walls and was sure that no one would ever scale those. But in the aftermath of the break-up her inner writer had bloomed and out came her first romantic suspense book. Seven years later she had four books on her resume, and one fantasy book in the making, what more could she want?
A week later Emma was re-organizing the area around the counter when Belle came out of the office with her phone and a curious look on her face.
"What's up?" Emma asked warily.
"It's for you." Belle gave Emma the phone.
"Who…"
"Mills Movies," Belle whispered in awe.
Emma gasped, "As in…?"
"Hmm," Belle nodded, waving her hand. "You'd better answer it."
"Oh, yeah." Emma lifted the phone. "This is Emma."
"Emma Swan?" A female voice sounded from the other end.
"Yes, that's me."
"Fantastic, my name is Regina Mills, I have my sister Zelena on speaker."
"Hi." Emma managed to say and realized she did a small wave despite the two famous movie making sisters not being able to see her.
"Hello dear," The other woman, Zelena, said. "We're very excited to reach out to you."
"Oh… why?"
"Our script writer, Ruby Lucas, came with a pitch idea for our next movie project." Regina explained.
"Yeah, what's that got to do with me?" Emma had to lean against the counter and she was sure her legs wouldn't hold her when she heard the next words.
"Well, your newest books, of course. 'The Mob Princess and her Singer', is a promising plot idea for a smashing suspense romance movie. The market is primed for such a movie."
Emma suddenly felt very dizzy and she vaguely noticed that Belle had guided her to sit by her little corner table where she usually wrote on her books.
"Miss Swan?" Zelena asked. "Are you still with us?"
"Oh, yeah, I'm here." Emma blinked a few times, looking up at her boss who looked curiously at her, silently asking what?
Placing her hand over the phone Emma whispered, "They want to make my book into a movie."
"For real?" Belle nearly squealed, and Belle rarely squealed like this so that was enough to pull Emma out of her stupor.
"Miss Swan?"
"Oh yeah, I'm sorry, my boss, Belle French just wanted to know what was going on," Emma explained in a hurry, hoping that she wasn't blowing her big chance with her less-than-stellar approach to this.
"Belle French was listed as your PA so that was why we reached out to her," Regina explained. "Now let's talk a bit more details and what we want to do with this."
Emma mumbled a small "okay." And the next half hour her mind was swimming with details and new information that she knew would take some time to process.
When she finally hung up, Belle slipped into the seat opposite of her, two steaming mugs of hot cocoa with whipped cream, Emma's with a sprinkle of cinnamon on top.
"Thanks."
"So is this for real?" Belle stirred her cocoa. "Do Mills Movies want to make your book into a movie. What book?"
"'The Mob Princess and her Singer'." Emma shook her head, still not understanding what this could possibly mean for her.
"That is the best of your books," Belle mused. "So how, what, why?"
"Their script writer Ruby Lucas read my book, she wants to write the script and in that process want to collaborate with me, and get my thoughts and ideas for this," Emma explained.
"Ruby Lucas, the Ruby Lucas, the Academy Award nominee this year?" Belle exclaimed in surprise.
"One and same."
"God her retelling of Little Red Riding Hood was spectacular, so bummed it never got that Oscar. You know the way she weaved in the Huntsman from Snow White into the Red Riding Hood story, and who can forget the shocker for us all when in the end we learned Red herself was a freaking wolf shifter." Belle shook her head in amazement.
Emma nodded in agreement. She'd seen the movie last year in the theaters, and the way she wrote it all it was just perfect. Now the same woman wanted to work with her to convert her book into a script. She rubbed her face trying to clear her mind, this was insane.
"I can't believe they want to make my book into a movie." Emma breathed out. "How the hell did that happen?"
"Well, you have gained quite the growth in followers and readers on social media," Belle mused.
"And I can't thank you enough for helping me with all that stuff. I wouldn't know where to start with it all." Emma smiled.
"You're welcome. What happens now?"
"Ruby Lucas will reach out to me, and I'll have to show up in L.A. in a few weeks to get the final contracts sorted out." Emma looked down at the notepad she'd been jotting down information on as she'd spoken with the Mills sisters.
"I'll help you find a lawyer to help with the contract." Belle found her phone and typed away.
"Why?"
"Oh, you'll make sure they don't screw you over." Belle lifted her eyes from the screen and eased. "Believe me, you wouldn't want to know how many writers who'd been scammed into something that sounded too good to be true."
"Seriously?"
"Hmm." Belle only nodded and continued to work on her phone, leaving Emma alone with her thoughts.
She still couldn't believe that this was happening to her. One of the country's biggest movie companies wanted to make her book into another blockbuster movie. It had always been a secret dream of hers ever since she started to write her stories, now it seemed to be happening. Not knowing what all this would do for her career as a writer she just hoped that whatever they wanted to do with her story it would still hold that special spark and passion she'd tried to put into her book.