Bob pointed at his mouth, making a show of chewing. The true answer was the book was barely begun, but that clearly wasn’t a good answer.

The waiter whisked away the remains of the bread. Seconds later, he was back with two scallop shells. “Scallop crudo served alongside its roe, smoked both on wood and over wood.”

Bob didn’t know what most of that meant, except he was pretty sure crudo meant raw. He picked up the fork the waiter had brought and slowly put a piece in his mouth. It was rubbery. The roe popped between his teeth.

Bob forced himself to swallow. While his characters ate pies with real animal claws poking out of the crust, or roasted peacocks re-dressed in their own feathers, he himself was not an adventurous eater.

He still hadn’t answered Jamie.

The other man broke the silence. “We need this book, Bob. I don’t think you understand how much. The last time the house was solidly in the black was the year Mountains of the Moon published.”

That was well over three years ago. The publisher had kept the book in hardcover for more than two years, milking every last drop of profit, before finally releasing a trade paper edition. At one point, both the paperback and the hardcover had been on the bestseller lists. They had also issued a collector’s edition bound in lambskin, and floated the idea of an “even more unique” edition printed with ink mixed with some of Bob’s blood (“Just one tube, Bob.”).

He’d rejected the idea. But tonight he’d come prepared to say yes if it would get Jamie off his back.

After taking away the shells, the waiter returned with two plates. “House-made pasta with local mushrooms collected by our on-staff forager, topped with an egg cooked in a spoon.”

An on-staff forager? An egg cooked in a spoon? Bob shot Jamie an amused glance, but it was not returned. His editor would not be deterred.

The books weren’t just Bob alone in a room with his thoughts anymore. Now hundreds of people depended on him. Thousands. Not just for entertainment, but for work. His agent, his publisher, all the foreign publishers, the bookstores. The TV show was just finishing up filming Mountains of the Moon, which they had broken into two seasons. But after that, there was no more source material. Then all those people—from the showrunner to Serena and on down to the stuntmen and caterers—would be out of a job.

It was too much pressure. Bob had never asked for it. He just wanted to tell stories that interested him. Stories that surprised him. Where the characters refused to do what he’d planned and instead did something so unexpected all he could do was move his fingers over the keys and describe what he saw with his mind’s eye.