“Nothing.”
“Liar. It looked very cozy. And you put on a pretty dress for him.”
“I did not put on—” She broke off. She kinda had put on a pretty dress for him, but not the way Maggie meant it.
“Uh huh.” Maggie’s tone was knowing.
“We were talking about his book.”
“It’s good, right?”
“Yes. And I want to finish reading it, so bye.” And then she hustled into her room and opened up her tablet to take the white-knuckle ride through the end of the book.
“Is that how it really went down?”
Aidan looked up from his steak at her question. He’d tried to order chicken, but Emma had insisted she owed him a steak-level apology. Their meals were mostly done, and they’d been having an excellent discussion about Star Trek—about which Aidan was mostly wrong—and then moved on to discussing the afternoon keynote again.
“Is that how what really went down?” he asked.
“I finished your book this afternoon.”
He considered that for a minute. “Okay.”
She understood the lack of response. It was pretty much what she said when readers told her the same thing. What else could she say? There was no more vulnerable feeling in the world than asking, “Did you like it?” It was the kind of question that could put herself and the reader in an excruciatingly uncomfortable position with just four words. She hurried to clarify. “I really liked it.”
“But?”
“But nothing. I really liked it.”
“Thank you, but I feel like there’s something underneath your words somehow.”
“You think I’m being insincere?” It startled her because she’d absolutely meant it.
“No. I think you liked it . . . but.”
“No buts. I did wonder if that’s how it all went down, that’s all. Did it happen the way it wrapped up in your book? You base them on real cases, right?”
“Not exactly. I do, but I also have to be careful that I don’t leave myself open for libel lawsuits. For example, if someone is found not guilty, I can’t write them as guilty unless I change enough details to make it hard to argue that it’s their case I’m referencing. But yes, the novels are all based on cases I’ve actually worked or that came through our office, but I only pick the ones where I think the outcome should have been different. Then I give it the outcome it should have had.”
“What’s a bad outcome to you?”
“Any time a bad guy gets a lesser sentence than he deserved. Any time a bad guy got a harsher sentence than he should have. The books are a chance to make it right.”
She nodded but didn’t answer, instead taking another bite of her dinner.
He set down his fork and sighed. “What?”
It was unnerving that he could read in her face all the things she wouldn’t say. But it had been a good dinner so far. A great one. And she didn’t want to ruin it with a criticism of his work. “Nothing.” Then she winced. She knew how that sounded. “It’s just that it all wrapped up so well.”
“That’s a problem?”
She shrugged. “It’s a creative choice. To write the world as you wish it was. But I guess . . . I think it’s important for fiction to tell the truth. It was all a little too . . .” She broke off, trying to find the least offensive way possible to finish the sentence. His look clearly challenged her to finish. “Neat,” she concluded.
He didn’t look upset. “In real life, Gerald Jones got the minimum sentence. He’ll be back on the streets in twelve years.”
“What? That can’t be right.”
“Of course it’s not right. But it is what happened. That feeling you have right now? What does it feel like?”
She searched for the words. “Like the world suddenly filled with shadows that are invisible but malignant, and now I can feel them on my skin even though I can’t see them.” She flushed. It was a weird thing to say, but Aidan only nodded.
“Yeah. Good metaphor. I felt so helpless when we had to cut deals like that, or when a defendant didn’t get the sentencing they should have. If we couldn’t do anything about it in the district attorney’s office, what hope was there?” He picked up his beer glass and drained the rest of it before he could continue. “So that’s when I started writing books and fixing the outcomes the way I thought they should be fixed. You heard my keynote; we have to write the truth in fiction too, and the truth is that Gerald Jones should have had the consequences I gave him in my novel. It was cathartic.”
She understood the impulse. She did. But in his book, the rest of the events had been so hard and dark, a community living in terror for a full month, a girl stripped of her family by one man’s unfathomable evil, and then to be handed an ending tied up with a bow? It didn’t feel right. It didn’t feel true.
“You’re looking like you still aren’t buying it,” he said. His tone was casual, as if he had only a passing curiosity in her response, but he didn’t look at her, instead fiddling with his now empty glass, tracing the rivulets of condensation down its sides. His focus on following each drop told her more than he’d probably meant to say about how much her answer meant. She understood that too, waiting for someone to deliver a verdict on work that you’d poured everything into.
“I think you have a powerful gift for story.” She reached out to touch his hand. She meant it as a gesture of reassurance, but he turned his palm up and slid his fingers between hers as if it were the kind of thing they’d done a thousand times. The wave of sensation it sent through her palm and up to her scalp was entirely new for her, and she had to pause before she could continue. “I guess I don’t think life resolves that way. Sometimes justice isn’t served. Sometimes life is unfair. There isn’t always balance in the universe. Life is more ambiguous than that. I’m drawn to the tension in that ambiguity.”
“Tension,” he repeated, but not as if he were really hearing the word. He was feathering his thumb along her finger and a wave of goosebumps rose along her arm at the touch. He smiled and kept up the light stroke as a second wave of goosebumps followed the first. “Your book did that well.”
“You read my book?”
“Finished it this morning.”
Suddenly she wanted to withdraw her hand from his, bury both of her hands in her lap, and then curl in a little. Become a smaller target. It was her usual reaction to feeling exposed, and the way she wished she could spend every author event: in the fetal position without making any eye contact with the audience.
That was the behavior of a crazy person, but she did start to draw her hand away to push her hair back, an excuse to become self-contained again. Aidan tightened his fingers around hers just for a second, and she knew it was a request to stay, not a demand. So she left her hand in his.
“You have a powerful gift with words,” he paraphrased back to her, his voice quiet, the sincerity clear.
She was shocked to discover she couldn’t speak for a moment around the thick knot that formed in her throat. Her mother had read her book and said it was a “creditable first effort.” David had read her work and spoken of her “potential,” and she could hear clearly in the subtext that she had fallen short of his bar for quality. But here was Aidan, telling her she had a powerful gift.
She squeezed her eyes shut. “I can hear a ‘but’ in your voice too. I guess it’s only fair to listen to yours since I made you listen to mine.”
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m not trying to make you feel bad.”
She set her fork down. “Now you have to tell me. Just say it. I can handle it.”
Aidan shifted in his chair. “I hear you saying that, but your body language reminds me more of the victims I put on the witness stand, waiting for the defense attorney’s cross-examination.”
“Just say it. Really. I tell my students all the time that the only way they’ll grow as writers is by learning to accept criticism, but only when it’s right. Maybe I’ll hear what you have to say and decide you’re ri
ght and get better. But maybe you won’t know what you’re talking about at all.”
“How am I supposed to back down from a challenge like that?”
“You’re not.”
“Fine.” He paused, perhaps gathering his thoughts. “You have an extraordinary ability to paint a picture with words. I could see perfectly each scene you described, and I had distinct emotional reactions to being there. Like this mood would come over me? I don’t know how to explain it, and I’m hoping you can tell me how you do it because that’s a tool I need for my own writing. But . . .” A faint smile flickered over her lips at the word and disappeared. “Those were my feelings, how I would feel as Aidan in that scene. I wasn’t always sure how Miranda felt about it.” Miranda was the main character in that book. “There’s always a distance from her.”
She didn’t answer, only slid her hand from his and picked up her fork to poke at her food a few times. Finally, she looked up. “Say that first part again. The part about how I have an extraordinary gift with words.”
The corner of his mouth turned up. “And you’re going to ignore the rest?”
“Basically.”
“Fair enough, since I think you’re dead wrong about my endings. Gotta give people what they want and all that.”
“And real life isn’t like that.”
He studied her, smiling. “I think we should get out of here. Go for a walk. Talk about this some more. What do you say? Walk down by the lake with me?”
“I’d like that.”
He signaled for the server to bring the check. When she tried to pay, he smiled and drew the bill away from her. “You can crucify me as a sexist if you want, but I don’t think I’ll ever feel okay with letting a woman do that on a date.”
“A date?” she repeated.
“That’s what this feels like to me.”
She liked that he said it so plainly, without any undertones of fishing for reassurance. “Me too.”
“Besides, my overly neat endings make me a lot of money. It’s my pleasure to cover the bill.” He grinned at her as he threw down some cash before rising and holding out his hand to help her to her feet. She was halfway up when an older woman approached and said, “Excuse me” to Aidan. Emma, not sure what to do, sat down again.
“You’re Aidan Maxwell, aren’t you?” The woman looked to be in her sixties, her clothes so simple and well-cut that Emma suspected they were probably very expensive. “I recognized you from your book cover. I wanted to tell you how much Street Justice meant to me. Melissa Ramirez was my granddaughter.”
Up to that point, Aidan’s expression had been attentive but polite. Now his eyes darkened, and he turned his full attention on the woman. “I’m sorry.”
She nodded, struggling to speak for a moment. “I wish it had gone the way you wrote it. Thank you for giving me a better version to believe. Could I . . .” she trailed off but held up her arms and Aidan stepped into them, accepting the woman’s embrace. She held onto him for a long moment before stepping away with a quiet thank you. As she turned to leave, Emma spotted the glint of tears in the woman’s eyes as she hurried back to her table.
When Aidan offered his hand again, she accepted it and rose, tugging it lightly to hold him in place when he moved to step back and give her space. They were only a few inches apart, and she had to tilt her head slightly to meet his eyes. “What was that about?” she asked quietly.
“My second book. It was based on her granddaughter’s case. In real life, the murderer got twenty-five years. In my book, he was killed in an alley by one of the clients he’d wronged. It was an ugly death. I’m not sorry I wrapped it up with a bow.”
She let go of his hand to rest hers lightly against his chest instead. “I’m not either.” How could she be after seeing that woman’s face? She started to withdraw her hand, feeling suddenly self-conscious about touching him, aware of the intimacy of resting her hand so near his heart, but he captured it in his again and turned his head slightly to press a kiss into her palm.
“Let’s get out of here.” It was a low murmur but a clear request. She nodded, speech failing her, a hot bolt of attraction shooting up from the spot his lips had brushed. Then he slid his hand around hers once more and guided her out of the restaurant.
Chapter Ten
She was killing him with those big eyes and soft-looking lips.
He led them through the lobby toward the hotel’s back exit, the one that led down to the lake. Soft lights lined the path and made it easy to navigate without dimming the half moon above them, or the stars peeking through the cloud cover.
The lights ended where the path met the beach and Emma’s grip tightened around his as they stepped onto the sand. He had meant for them to continue their discussion without the clinking forks or watchful eyes. He was often recognized in public, and he didn’t know if Emma had noticed that it was far more than the woman who’d spoken to them who’d been watching them. Emma had been so open and honest with him that he was afraid she would shut down if she realized how many glances kept drifting their way.
Now that they were alone with only the glow of the hotel lights in the distance, he found he’d forgotten whatever it was they’d been discussing. He could only feel the heat where she had rested her hands against his chest in the restaurant, and he drew her to him, lost to anything else.
She stepped into his arms willingly, and he took a moment to savor the way she fit there as he pressed a kiss against her forehead. “I didn’t have any ulterior motives when I suggested this walk, but I think I do now.”
Her answer was to slide her arms up his chest and tug at the open edges of his collar, gently, but with the clear intent of bringing his lips closer to hers. He closed the distance, brushing a kiss over her lips, which opened sweetly beneath his. He reached up to cradle her face in his hands, intent on deepening their connection, when the soft buzz of his wristwatch thrummed and startled her into breaking away and stepping back.
He muttered a soft curse and held it up for her to see. “Stupid Apple watch,” he said. “It’s just an email alert.”
“Is that the time?” she asked. She sounded worried, and now he wanted to rip the watch from his arm and toss it in the lake.
“Do you need to be somewhere?”
“I . . .” She glanced toward the hotel, and in the soft fall of the moonlight he could see how torn she felt. No matter how much he wanted to disappear into another kiss with her, a part of her was already gone, brought back to earth by his stupid, stupid watch.
“I want to be here,” she said, barely more than a whisper.
“But you need to be somewhere else,” he finished.
She hesitated then nodded.
“No problem. I’ll walk you back.” Their return was quiet, the spell broken. In the lobby, he smiled and said, “Thanks for dinner.”
“Thanks for accepting my apology.”
“Sure.” He slid his hands into his pockets, trying to remember the last time he’d felt this awkward. He jerked his head vaguely in the direction of the elevators. “I should go now. Night, Emerson.”
As he walked off, she called his name. He turned, and she smiled. “My friends call me Emma. And thanks for the conversation. Your brain is pretty all right.”
He laughed and continued to the elevator. Of course that would be the compliment she paid him. And somehow he liked her understated way of saying it more than he’d ever liked any of the cooing he’d gotten from other women.
He kicked around his room for an hour, flipping through the cable channels but finding no games on. He tried a documentary that failed to hold his interest. He grabbed his laptop and tried reading through the words he’d written earlier, but his mind kept wandering to Emerson.
Emma.
She’d said to call her Emma. He didn’t think everyone got that privilege. And that’s exactly what it felt like. A privilege.
He growled and set the laptop aside. There was no use trying to work or even relax when his he
ad was full of her. Of the smart things she said. Of the way she’d felt pressed against him, and the way he could sense an underlying hunger that might have infused their kiss had it gone any longer.
It was probably for the best his stupid watch had gone off.
It buzzed lightly against his wrist again as a text came in. He frowned and unstrapped it, still mad at it, and tossed it on the coffee table. Then he scooped it up to check the text. It might be one of the boys, and he made a point of always being available to them.
The message was from one of them, but nothing urgent, just Jarred telling him that Jamal Ingram’s book was “lit.” He smiled. He’d have to see if Jamal wanted to grab a beer sometime and pick his brain about other ways he could reach these boys. Aidan had a good rapport with them, but he definitely didn’t have his finger on the pulse of what teenagers were into these days.
A cold beer sounded good right now, he realized. He climbed off the sofa and wandered down to the hotel bar, scanning the room to see if he recognized anyone. Writers were notorious for haunting bars. He stopped cold when he spotted Emma sitting at a table for two with the tall blond man from earlier. So that was her other obligation.
He was about to retreat, not wanting to look like he was checking up on her, when Gary waved at him and rose from his table to walk over and greet him.
“Buy you a beer?” Gary asked.
“Maybe not. I might’ve changed my mind. It’s more crowded in here than I expected.”
Gary gave him the universal smirk for you’ve-got-to-be-kidding-me. “You thought you’d find an empty hotel bar at a conference full of writers? They’re all downing shots like it’s the cure for writer’s block.”
Aidan grinned. “Good point.” Casually, he nodded his head toward the corner where Emma and her friend sat. “That’s a face I don’t know.”
Gary followed his gaze, a knowing smile coming over his face. “Emerson Lindsor. Arianna Lindsor’s daughter and a good writer herself. Got a bright future ahead of her if she can ever finish her second book. Does drinking whiskey actually help you writers produce? Maybe I should send over a bottle of whiskey.”
Always & Forever: A Sweet Romantic Comedy (ABCs of Love Collection, Books 1 - 4) Page 9