"And why exactly—?"
"Because I have a book contract, Jane. And in the process I need to find out everything there is to know about Winston Bartlett's biggest undertaking ever. He has bankrolled something that could change the face of medicine."
"You're doing a book about Bartlett?" Her astonishment continued growing and appeared to be genuine. "Jesus, you didn't tell—"
"Hello. That's because who or what I write about on my own dime is nobody's effing business around here."
Now he was thinking about Winston Bartlett and wondering why he'd never told her the most important piece of information in his life. It was how he was connected to the man. He often wondered if maybe that was why he was doing this book on stem cells, knowing that half of it would end up being about Bartlett's self‑serving, take‑no‑prisoners business career. His infinite cruelty. Was the book actually revenge?
"You know you'll have to get permission to reprint anything you've published in the Sentinel. The paper owns the rights to—"
"Didn't you hear me?" He smiled. "It's a book. My book. There's no editorial overlap."
"Who's the publisher?"
"They exist, trust me."
His small publisher wasn't exactly Random House, but they were letting him do whatever he wanted.