Or maybe it did make sense, because they definitely would be leaving. And they’d given no thought—and certainly no voice—to what would happen on Sunday, but they’d have to soon.
Squeak.
She imagined Rafael upstairs, hearing that telltale sound, his fingers poised over the keyboard—and for no apparent reason she heard Scarlett’s voice in her head telling her to read his damn books.
“I can’t read Stomp until I read the others,” she whispered, as though her sister was standing right next to her on the stairs and they were trying not to be overheard.
And then she rolled her eyes—she was losing her mind, obviously!—and trod purposely down the last three steps, then into the living room, then out into the garden.
The garden was beautiful. A drench of color and scent. Beds crammed with geraniums, black-eyed Susans, dahlias, fuchsias at the front, and at the back, scented stock, lavender, hollyhocks in every imaginable shade, delphiniums in variegated blues, sweet peas, lupine, phlox, red-hot pokers.
Veronica sat on the stone bench picturesquely situated beneath an arched trellis dripping with jasmine. It was an ideal spot for reflecting on life...and books you may or may not be in...and love.
Love—because it was time to accept that she would always love Rafael. If only she’d accepted it seven years, three months and one week ago, she would have saved herself an awful lot of heartache.
She shivered suddenly, even though it wasn’t cold. Damn it, she was so over these premonition-style chills down the spine.
Read his damn books.
“It’s going to be my job to read Stomp, so stop it,” she told an imaginary Scarlett.
At least, it was probably going to be her job. She’d know when Rafael came back from his meeting with Bryan in Harrogate tomorrow if the deal was really going to happen. And if it didn’t happen...
Well, so what?
Another shiver had her banging a fist on her thigh.
Okay, okay, so she didn’t want to read it. And she didn’t want to finish Catch, Tag, Release, and she didn’t want to read Liar, Liar, either.
Rafael’s voice in her head this time. You used to be braver than this, Veronica.
Great! All she needed was to hear her mother’s voice suggesting she ask herself why she kept marrying men she didn’t love when the man she did love was single and available—as she’d done so calmly over cocktails after Veronica had signed her second divorce settlement agreement—and she’d know it was time to check into a health resort!
Or Teague telling her there had to be a reason for buying that motorcycle.
“Oh for God’s sake!” she muttered, and went back into the house to scribble a note to Rafael to tell him she was going to the mausoleum—where she might actually get some peace and quiet. “I’ll read his damn books if you’ll all shut up!”
* * *
Rafael hit Send on his email to Bryan, to which he’d attached the detailed synopsis he’d written—and rewritten—and rewritten—for Stomp II, and felt as though a humongous weight had been lifted from his shoulders.
He emerged from the second bedroom, calling out, “Veronica? Time for your cooking lesson!”
Silence greeted him.
He came downstairs and found her note—typically minus any mention of the time she’d left or the time she’d be back. It was a mark of how comfortable their relationship had become that those important omissions from that note made him smile instead of panic that she wasn’t coming back. Even the thought of having only two more days with her, once you deducted his day in Harrogate, didn’t alarm him. He was just so certain that what was between them wouldn’t actually stop.
It wasn’t until 6:45 p.m. that he heard her come into the cottage. Although he’d known she’d be back, he nevertheless breathed a quiet sigh of relief and relaxed.
He waited expectantly for the dinner routine to get under way. Her popping into the kitchen to ask if she could help, flustered because she was late. Him suggesting she pour them each a glass of wine. Her sitting at the dining table while he finished cooking. The two of them talking, laughing, serving, eating...
But when he heard the creak of the fourth step, which told him she was going up to their bedroom instead of coming into the kitchen, his smile dropped off his face. Something was clearly wrong.
He thought about downing tools and following her upstairs, but he was making risotto—one of Veronica’s favorite meals, so of course it was fucking hard work—which made leaving the stove undesirable. Not that they couldn’t go the village for a pub dinner if he ruined it...but no. Two days left to have her all to himself; he wasn’t subjecting their precious new relationship to the outside world a second before he had to. So he was stuck, at the stove, stirring the pot like a Shakespearean witch, waiting for her to come to him and tell him what the fuck had happened. And she would come. She would. She would. She had to.
At seven o’clock he heard the squeaky step and breathed another sigh of relief. But when she came into the kitchen and he saw that her face was pale and shuttered, he knew they were in for a rocky night.
As she poured their wine, he brought their bowls over and sat in his usual place opposite her, trying not to make it obvious that he was watching her. But when she raised her left hand to lay it across her forehead as though checking her temperature and he saw she was wearing one of her engagement rings, his eyes pierced her like a hawk’s. He’d thought they were past that defensive crap, but apparently not.
She lowered her hand and looked at her fork as though gathering her energy reserves to lift it—and they might as well have been back at that first night, choking down chili as they waited for eight o’clock to roll around when they could touch. He knew, instinctively, she wasn’t going to welcome any touch from him until she’d settled whatever it was that was troubling her.
What the fuck had happened? Had her sister called? Her mother? Her father? Melissa? One of her fucking ex-husbands?
He forced himself to make inconsequential remarks as his mind raced around possibilities. The Harrogate Crime Writing Festival, the intricacies of making risotto, the change in the weather that was expected to bring thunderstorms tomorrow night. She offered nothing—all she did was eat and nod and smile, and worry the life out of him.
When she did finally say something, as he put their bowls into the dishwasher, it came as announcement. And it was way out of left field. “I’ve decided to leave Johnson/Charles.”
He froze, then straightened. “What?”
“I’ve decided to leave Johnson/Charles.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s time to step outside my comfort zone.”
“So...what will you do?”
“I’m going to speak to Phillip Castle about a position at Smythe & Lowe as publishing director of their new romance imprint.”
“London?”
“Yes.”
“I...see.”
“I’m not grafted onto New York you know.”
“Nooo.”
“I’m not! And...and I’m, not a fixture at Johnson/Charles, either. In fact, it will be good—great—to get a promotion without everyone assuming I got it because of my father.”
“Who’d assume that?”
“You.”
He drew in a slow breath. Okaaay, they were about to get to the crux of the problem. “Once, maybe,” he said. “Not now.”
She waved a listless hand. “It doesn’t matter.”
“Yes, Veronica, it does.”
“If you’re worried about Stomp—”
“I’m not!”
“—don’t be. I guarantee it’ll be cherished like a baby. And I...I’ve been thinking there’s going to be a conflict of interest with...with me and...and Stomp, anyway, so it’d be for the best if another editor took it on.”
He let the silen
ce settle and then said, “Do you want to read Stomp, Veronica? Because you can read it now, right now, if you like.”
“No!” she said, sounding like he’d suggested going on a shooting rampage.
“Then tomorrow, when I’m in Harrogate.”
“Maybe,” she said and pushed back her chair as though she’d flee on the instant.
“Dessert,” he said, changing tack to keep her there. “Not chocolate mousse, obviously.”
“Sorry, I...” She cleared her throat. “Sorry.”
“It’s okay. I’m pretty sure my chocolate would have had a seizure anyway.”
She smiled—a dredged-up effort. “So what are we having?”
“Zabaglione.”
“Oh! I love that.”
“I know. That’s why I asked Romy to teach me.”
Silence. During which he found it hard to suppress a sigh. This really felt like he was back at square one. Had she not joined even two dots? He’d laid out such a generous scattering of the things for her to work with, surely she had to at least suspect he was in love with her!
And then she said, “I guess that would have been about the time you were writing Liar, Liar.”
Uh-oh. “Ye-ees,” he said cautiously.
“Martin makes it for Emma.”
He pretended to be preoccupied with separating egg yolks as he weighed answers, but he knew all he could do was give her the bald truth. “Yes, he does. And yes, I learned how to make it when I was writing Liar, Liar. I was in New York for a meeting with Bryan, and Romy was there for your wedding.” He added Marsala and sugar to the egg yolks. “I thought you were going to finish reading Catch, Tag, Release first.”
“I did finish it, and then I read Liar, Liar.”
Adding a dash of vanilla, a sprinkle of cinnamon. “You had a big day.”
“I’m a fast reader.”
He grated some lemon peel and added it to the metal bowl, bracing himself for the discussion ahead. “Did Catch, Tag, Release finish as you expected?”
“Well, let’s see... Eric enjoying humiliating Julie when she threw herself at him once he hit the right socioeconomic bracket, sending her back to her old life where she unhappily married the right man while Eric soldiered bravely on alone. I’d say it finished as you expected.”
He rested the metal bowl over the pot on the stove and picked up a whisk. “Of course it finished as I expected. I’m the author. But it’s a work of fiction, Veronica.”
“But Julie—”
“Yes, yes, we both know Julie is based on you, but she isn’t you. And I don’t know Piers at all, so if you’re saying Piers is Niles...” He started whisking, nice and easy, positioning himself so Veronica wouldn’t see his unsteady hands. “That’s probably some kind of projection of your own feelings about him.”
“And Simeon?” she asked.
“What about Simeon?”
“I know that’s him in Liar, Liar. Martin—the passionless man Emma marries but doesn’t want.”
Whisking, whisking, whisking. “Did someone force you to marry Simeon?”
“I... I... No.”
The whisk stopped. “So let me get this straight. You’re telling me your husbands, neither of whom I’ve ever met, remind you of the most pathetic, insipid characters in my books, but that nobody forced you to marry them.”
“They’re not pathetic.”
“They are in my books.”
“I’m the one who chose them, so what your books are really saying is I’m the pathetic one.”
“Do you think you were pathetic to choose them?” he asked.
“I did what I had to do.”
He released the whisk and faced her, his temper starting to build. “You didn’t have to do a damn thing, Veronica. You weren’t broke or pregnant or beholden to them in any way. So I have to wonder why you did marry them.” He waited...waited. Prompted, “Going to tell me?”
“You wrote them into your books very cleverly without me having to say a word!”
“As I said, I’m an author,” he said, carefully tamping down his anger. “I make stuff up. But by all means tell me about them so I’ll know if I got them right.”
She glared at him, but he didn’t back down. He’d invented those husbands based on the type of men he assumed she’d marry, and the fact that she recognized them so easily pissed him off for exactly that reason! If they were going to have this discussion—and God knew it was probably time for them to get everything out so they could move the fuck on—he was through pretending she hadn’t cut his heart out with those two marriages. She wanted answers? Well, so did he. She’d wanted Eric to fight for Julie? Then he would fucking fight for her. He wasn’t letting her send him back to limbo without a fight.
“No,” she said.
“Why not?”
“Because it would be...disloyal.”
He sucked in a rage-fueled breath. “Disloyal? What about your loyalty to me?”
“I owed you nothing!”
“So did they know about me?”
She swallowed but said nothing—and he had his answer.
“Did you let them stick pins in me?” he asked, and knew this was a fight that had been brewing not for the eleven days they’d been here but for all the years and months and weeks and days and hours and minutes and fucking seconds they’d been apart—unstoppable. “In my head, maybe, to torture me with thoughts of them with you?”
She jumped to her feet. “Stop!”
“Or maybe in my heart? Because it’s been hurting for a hell of a long time. Or what about in my dick? Because the first time I tried to touch a woman after you was the night you got engaged to Piers and I couldn’t get it up. I finally managed it the night of your wedding. She was five feet eight in her six-inch heels, and she had pale blond hair. She was wearing turquoise contact lenses and a pink dress, drinking Kir Royale.” Bitter, bitter laugh. “Something for Scarlett to mull over. Especially since I still didn’t want her. I didn’t want her, but I did it anyway, and I’ve done it countless times since. And every fucking time it was like I was being unfaithful to you, and I hated every one of those women for not being you. Now that’s pathetic.”
“What do you want me to say? That I hated my husbands because they weren’t you? Because I didn’t hate them and I won’t hate them. And I don’t hate you for looking for companionship.”
“But you do hate me? Still?”
“No! I just don’t want you to...to blame me for getting married.”
“Well, I do blame you!”
“Two men. Only two! When you confess to countless women?”
“It’s not about how many men you’ve had sex with, Veronica! You could have slept with a million men and it wouldn’t have stopped me from wanting you, from loving you. But you married them! And marriage took you out of my reach, even when finally I was within reach!”
“You took yourself out of reach—all the way back to LA!”
“You were supposed to wait for me! I was coming back for you!”
“When? When were you coming back for me?”
“When I sold my book!”
“And if you didn’t sell your book? If you were like 99.99 percent of aspiring writers out there and never sold a book, or like 99.99 percent of authors who do sell a book and make enough for a sandwich and a cup of coffee? How long did you expect me to wait?”
“I wrote you a letter spelling it all out!”
“And sent it to Matt.”
“I knew you wouldn’t open it if it came straight from me!”
“Well, I sure as fuck wasn’t opening it when it came via Matt! Did you really think I would? You had to know I’d be too furious to read it! That I’d tear it up and burn it. I didn’t want a letter, Rafael, I wanted you!”
He recoiled, stunned. “You burned it?”
“You didn’t wait long enough to knit me a scarf!”
“Why should I have waited? You had three and a half years to marry me and you didn’t!”
“I couldn’t!”
“Why not?”
“Because of this!” he said, digging his fingers into the coin pocket of his jeans and wrenching out the old engagement ring. He held it aloft so she could see it. “You bought me a motorcycle, and this is what I got you! You can see the problem, can’t you? Or maybe you can’t see it, because you’d need a magnifying glass to make out there’s a diamond in this ring, but that fucking bike was pretty damn obvious.”
She started to stretch her hand out for the ring but then that strange dry sob tore out of her and she covered her mouth instead as though to force it back. Her other hand came up then—clearly one wasn’t enough to check the outpouring.
God it hurt to see that massive diamond on her ring finger. It ricocheted him right back to the day she’d given him the motorcycle, setting her apart from him. Only it was worse today, because he was holding out his pathetic ring, which looked like it cost only half as much as her manicure.
“Don’t want it? Don’t blame you,” he said. And without waiting for her to confirm or deny, he tossed it onto the kitchen island, watched it spin, spin like a children’s toy, then settle. Anticlimax—he should have thrown it across the room.
She kept her eyes on his as she slowly lowered her hands. “Why have you kept it all these years?”
“As a reminder that I was right to think you could do better. Because, lo and behold, you did do better. Two rich, society husbands.”
“It wasn’t like that.”
“Then what was it like?”
“Punishment. One to punish you. One to punish myself.”
“That is not enlightening.”
“What I’m saying is neither of them was a real marriage.”
Getting Even Page 15