Meant for Me by Faith Sullivan Page B

closing my eyes and imagining her next to me. “Tell me what he said.”
    “To make a long story short, Lauren’s uncle, the one who’s a producer, found out that I made her the villain of the script and he’s threatening to sue or at the very least make sure the project doesn’t see the light of day. He knows who I am and how I’m living with you, and he’s out for blood. I guess he’s livid about the whole situation after seeing you make out with Lauren at the film festival. He read what I had written after Will started shopping the screenplay around, and he put two and two together when Will listed my name as the co-writer. Her uncle already thinks I upstaged Lauren once. There’s no way in hell he’s going to sit back and let me do it again.” Ivy sighs heavily as the full weight of what she’s telling me begins to sink in.
    This is bad. Very bad. Now I know why Ivy didn’t let me read any of her drafts. She knew I wouldn’t approve of what she was doing. And boy, was she right.
    “Ivy, what were you thinking, huh? How could you be so naïve?” I don’t mean to go off on her, but she quite possibly jeopardized our entire future doing what she did. If Lauren’s uncle goes on the attack, we certainly don’t have the means to fight him. We could lose everything—the house, the garden center, the little savings I have left. There’s no way we could mount a capable legal defense against some big, hotshot lawyer. We’d probably be run out of town on a rail if word got out that Ivy was writing about Lauren. People already feel sorry for Lauren after Ivy supposedly stole me away from her. Why give them any more ammunition?
    “I honestly believed that no one would find out. I never in a million years thought that Will would submit the project to Lauren’s uncle after everything that went down. He’s just so desperate for someone to pick up the script. If he can’t get a producer to green-light it, he has nothing else to fall back on. He’s screwed. And the producers who were supposed to take it developed a case of cold feet when they heard about the trouble Lauren’s uncle’s threatening to stir up. No one is going to want to touch this project with a ten-foot pole if it’s only going to drag them into court.” I can hear her roll over in bed as she tries to get comfortable. After such a long day, all of this added stress isn’t good for her. I want to be there to massage the tension out of her shoulders and rub her aching feet, but I’m not. I’m three thousand miles away on the other side of the country. Why did I ever agree to let her do this?
    “Ivy, you have to back out. Tell Will to take your name off the script and scrap it. There’s no way you can go forward now. It’s too risky.” I hope I’ll be able to talk some sense into her. I know Will is just going to be looking out for himself. Ivy can’t be blinded by the massive guilt trip he’s sure to unload on her. She has to worry about herself and not get caught up in his problems.
    “That’s why Will wanted me out here. The producers who were interested in the script before all this controversy are giving us one more chance to turn it around. We have five days to come up with a brand new screenplay that has no mention of Lauren in it. There’s no way we can come up with something so fast off the top of our heads. It took us months to write the first one. So Will pitched them another idea, and they went for it. Problem is, I don’t think you’re going to like it.” I hear her toss and turn again, obviously distraught. I feel a knot forming in the pit of my stomach. Oh no, what did Will do now?
    “Do I even want to hear this?” I groan, raking a hand through my newly trimmed hair.
    “Probably not,” she responds, her trepidation apparent. “I’m not sure I want to do it…let alone tell you about it.”
    “That bad, huh?” I ask jokingly, trying to ease the tension.
    “Eric, they want me to write the story of you and