“I wasn’t lookin’ at his eyes,” growled the stout woman, who had yet to leave.
“Me neither,” interjected a woman in Wallis’s line.
“Mmm, what it must be like to live your life, Khela,” Wallis sighed. “A thriving career and a handsome man to cater to your needs. You’re living the life we all write about.”
Khela cringed, clamping her jaw with such violence that she heard a sharp crack near its hinge.
“Do you think he’s as good in bed as Ken and Cale?” the tall woman asked the stout one as the two moved along.
“I suppose we’ll find out in her next book,” laughed the stout woman.
The two women passed Carter on their way out as he was returning with a tall sweating glass covered with plastic wrap. They parted, allowing him to move between them. Still moving forward, they looked back, their blue and brown eyes scanning Carter from head to toe.
Oblivious to his latest admirers, he returned to Khela.
“As I said,” Wallis practically purred as Carter set Khela’s tea before her. “You live the life we write about.”
“No more than you do,” Khela managed through the stiff smile she offered her next fan.
“Stunningly handsome men don’t deliver cold beverages to me,” Wallis said.
As her final, over-enunciated word fell from her lips, a cute young man with bright eyes and dimples slipped through two fans and set a tall iced tea in front of her.
The strait-laced, buttoned-down Brit’s jaw fell as the young man and another waiter, moving in opposite directions, placed glasses of iced tea adorned with lemon circles and mint before each of the authors.
“I thought you all might be a little thirsty,” Carter told Wallis. Leaving her speechless, he turned to Khela. “If you need anything else, just give a yell.”
“Where did you find that one, Khela?” Wallis asked once Carter was out of earshot. “Studs R Us?”
“Just about,” she mumbled under her breath. She glanced over her shoulder, tracking Carter’s movement to the wall of windows. A trio of unpubs gravitated toward him, orbiting his heavenly body like moons.
The slender, long-haired blonde in a form-fitting wrap dress under-combed her hair with her fingers and tilted her head, to better display her décolletage. A blonde with an edgy, asymmetrical bob kept flipping her hair and stroking her throat as she guffawed at whatever was being said by her companions. The zaftig brunette, perched on four-inch ostrich Ferragamos, couldn’t keep her hands off Carter. She straightened his already neat collar, plucked at his belt and even grabbed him by his chin to turn his face toward hers.
At which point Khela realized that, until the brunette literally stole his attention, Carter’s eyes had been fixed on her.
* * *
A gang of overzealous readers spoiled Khela’s hopes for a quick getaway. They surrounded her the moment she stepped into the hotel corridor, peppering her with questions about her characters and storylines and stinging her with complaints about the same.
A persistent few thrust spiral-bound copies of their own self-published books at her, begging her to read their work or forward it to her publisher. Still others waved business cards and brochures in her face, hoping that she could donate time, books or money to their book clubs, schools or churches. January Rose, Wallis Finchley-Locke and Carmen Almeida were similarly engulfed by fans, but Khela was the only author who seemed to be withering under the attention.
One of the few men in Khela’s crowd pushed an eight by ten-inch black-and-white head shot on her, backing her against the wall. “I’ve seen your book covers, baby,” he started, a perfect smile gleaming within his flawless mocha complexion. “You need to drop the zeros and get with a real hero.”
“I don’t hire cover mod—” Khela began before a pair of skinny twins with matching whip-thin twisties pushed him aside.
“We’re your—” started one twin, “biggest fans,” finished the other.
“We write cybertechno—” said the first one.
“—paranormal romance—” continued the second.
“—under the name Echo Dawn,” they giggled simultaneously. “We drove for an hour—”
“Two hours!” bellowed the first twin.
“—to come ask you if you would read our book—” said number two.
“And give us a blurb so we can sell it to a big publishing house!” they said together.
“M-My schedule is full for the next few months, so I-I—” Khela stammered before a woman carrying a stack of Watchtower Magazines pushed her way forward. God, help me, she pleaded, squinting her eyes shut in silent prayer.
“Forgive me for interrupting, kitten, but we’ve got to get going.” Carter’s arm fastened around her shoulders, drawing her into the safety of his embrace. “I’m sorry to spoil the party, folks, but Ms. Halliday has a very full schedule today. Please excuse her.”
And with that, Carter practically lifted her off her feet, steered her through the crowd, and guided her to the bay of elevators. He took her convention tote bag from her, slinging it over his shoulder. Unwilling to give up so easily, some of Khela’s fans, led by the twins, followed them.
Quick on the draw, Carter swiped his cardkey through the power box activating the vip elevator. The doors opened, and he drew Khela inside the mirrored box. He pushed the button accessing the suites on the restricted floors, and the doors closed just as the grasping twins lunged forward.
Shaking, Khela and her reflection began to pace the tiny space. “H-HoHos,” she mumbled. “I need some HoHos. Or Doritos. Cool ranch. No, nacho cheese. When I was a kid in St. Louis, they used to make these really hot barbeque potato chips. Old Vienna, or Old Susannah or something. I—”
“—have a death wish, clearly.” Carter stopped her frenetic movement by cupping her face. “Why are you so rattled? This isn’t the first time you’ve had to deal with aggressive fans.”
“It’s not them.” Her voice broke, and she looked up at the floor indicator to avoid meeting Carter’s eyes.
“You were the most popular author at the signing,” he told her.
“January Rose was the most popular,” Khela corrected.
“Well, maybe her line was longer than yours, but you had a wider variety of fans. There were men in your line.”
“Gay men.” She reached for his shoulder and reclaimed her bag. “Gay men love my books.”
“Is that bad?”
“It’s good. It’s called crossover appeal.”
“You won an award, your keynote address brought down the house, hundreds of readers and writers lined up to have you sign their books this afternoon, and you’ve got crossover appeal.”
The elevator came to a stop, the doors whispered apart, and Carter held out his arm to usher Khela forward. As she passed him, he added, “I don’t understand why you’re so upset.”
“You don’t have to understand,” she muttered, shoving her cardkey into the power pad mounted on one of the penthouse’s heavy double doors. When the security light flashed green, she pushed the doors open and walked through them, allowing them to swing back in Carter’s face.
“I’d like to,” he insisted. “This is the closest I’ve ever been to the life of a celebrity, and—”
“I’m no celebrity.” She dropped her tote bag on the cocktail table on her way to the bar. “My books are well known. Not me.”
“You wrote them,” Carter persisted, watching her slam a crystal tumbler on the lacquered bar. “You can’t separate yourself from them.”
Breathing hard, she grabbed a bottle from under the bar and uncapped it. She sloshed a dram of pale liquid into the tumbler, plunked the bottle on the bar, and raised the tumbler. She tossed back her beverage in one gulp. Carter doubted that it had a chance to warm in her stomach before she hunched over, clutching at her throat and gut.
“Water!” she coughed, the cords in her neck protruding. “Help!”
Carter slowly strolled over to her and picked up t
he bottle. “Wow,” he said, reading the label. “Knappogue Castle Irish Whiskey. Nothing but the best for the VIPs, huh?” He raised his voice to better hear himself over Khela’s strangled coughing and the sound of her fist pounding the bar. He poured himself a swallow and sipped it.
“This is really good, Khela. Crisp, clean…slightly sweet, actually. It has a really smooth finish, unlike the peat-aged Irish whiskeys.”
“Water,” she hissed. “Please…”
Carter rounded the bar and took a bottle of Waiwera Infinity water from the minifridge. He’d barely removed the cap when Khela grabbed it from him and began chugging it. “Overpriced New Zealand water is more agreeable to you than overpriced Irish whiskey, I see.”
Her esophagus no longer on fire, Khela took several deep breaths and several more sips of water. “That’s the problem,” she shouted at him.
“Not if you cut the whiskey with a little water,” he suggested with a little laugh.
“You think this is funny? Gimme a pen and I’ll really crack you up by gouging out one of my eyes. I’m not talking about the damn drinks, anyway! I can’t separate myself from my work anymore, and I don’t believe in my work!”
He crossed his arms over his chest. “So the logical conclusion would be that you don’t believe in yourself.”
She slammed her palms flat on the bar. “Don’t you dare try to use logic on me, Carter Radcliffe! Logic has nothing to do with how I feel!”
He snickered. “That doesn’t surprise me.”
Khela left the bar and headed for the Chippendale desk in the office section of the suite, kicking off her dressy jute slide sandals as she went. She untucked her white linen blouse and unfastened the top button of her tobacco-washed silk pants before sitting down and opening her laptop. She held her head in her hands until her desktop appeared.
“What are you doing?” Carter asked from a safe distance.
“Writing a letter to my editor.”
“Shouldn’t you be getting ready for dinner and the ball?”
“I’m not going to dinner, and I’m especially not going to that dopey ball.” She opened a blank document and began typing.
“Your letter is so important that you have to miss out on the social event of the weekend?”
“I think announcing my retirement is much more important than a bunch of middle-aged headcases running around in bed sheets.”
“You make it sound like a clan ral—hey!” He went to stand behind her, to read over her shoulder. “You’re retiring? Seriously?”
“I wanted to announce it at the luncheon, but I couldn’t.” Her fingers whizzed over the keyboard, committing to paper all the things she wished she’d said in her keynote address.
“Wait a minute here, just hold on,” Carter said. “I don’t understand this at all. Those people down there respect you. I met a few of them in the hotel restaurant this morning when I got back from my run.”
Her fingers paused over the keyboard. “Is that where you were when I woke up?”
Her tender inquiry drew him closer.
“I agreed to spend this weekend with you, and I’m a man of my word. Besides, I wouldn’t have missed your keynote address for anything.”
She propped her elbows on the desk and buried her face in her hands. “I’m sorry, Carter. I’m letting this weekend get the better of me.”
“I’m sure it happens to the best of them.” He scrubbed a hand over her head as though she were his little brother. “The irony is that you are the best of them.”
“Carter?”
His grin faded once he spotted the tears sparkling on her lower lashes. “Jeez, Khela, what is it?” He kneeled next to her chair, spinning it so that she faced him.
“Everyone down there, especially Daphne, would hate me if I’d given the keynote I’d originally planned.” Her tears spilled over her lower lids, dotting her blouse with dark spots.
Ordinarily, a woman’s tears had the power to send Carter scurrying for cover. Khela’s had the opposite effect. They kept him rooted to the spot and determined to erase their cause. “You weren’t going to tell everyone that romance sucks, were you?” he joked.
She chuckled in spite of her misery. “Sort of. For me, it does.”
The quiet, delicate tears that heightened the rich chocolate of her eyes were the preamble to a flood that turned her into a weeping, drooling mess in Carter’s arms. He stroked her hair and her back, soothing her with gentle words that made her feel doubly guilty about having been so cross with him the night before.
When she calmed enough to speak, she did so, her mouth moving against the side of his neck. “I started writing romance because I lucked into it. As I was hammering out that first book, I fell in love with it. It became something I really believed in. I don’t anymore.”
“You’re not just talking about the Disney-distilled Brothers Grimm type stuff, are you?”
She pulled away a bit, but remained in his embrace. “I’m talking about the ‘stuff,’ as you call it, that my Grandma Belle and Grandpa Neal had. They weren’t really my grandparents, but they adopted me when I was six. They were together for fifty-two years. They were the happiest couple I’ve ever seen, and it was genuine. It was everything. They understood each other. They knew each other. They had a trust and a love that I’ve never been able to find for myself.” She laughed sadly, then revealed the deepest, most painful secret in her heart. “I make it up. I write books that let me dream about what I want because I’m scared I’ll never find it in real life.”
* * *
Khela assumed that her melancholy was contagious as she and Carter sat in a pensive yet comfortable silence in the limousine taking them back to Khela’s brownstone. In no mood for further festivities, she had decided to go home, a decision fully supported by Carter, who had called the car for them.
The view of downtown Boston through the dark tinted windows seemed far more interesting to Carter than more conversation, and Khela respected his silence by keeping her own. His new quiet filled the luxurious cabin, making it seem even larger. He stared out as if watching the inventory of his own secret heart tumbling down the sidewalk.
When they arrived at the brownstone, Khela spent a moment in the car with Carter while the driver unloaded her bags.
“The driver will take you home,” she said. “Thank you, for…helping me out this weekend. I owe you one.”
He finally looked at her. “What you owe me is a real date.”
She blinked, undecided as to which surprised her more—his calm, blunt delivery or the fact that he wanted to see her again at all. She hid her discomfiture behind lukewarm indignation. “First of all, when I said I owed you one, I meant a favor, not a future.”
“Spoken like a true sourpuss.” Carter slid across the seat and exited the limo. He offered his hand and waited for her to take it.
She crossed her legs and arms and stubbornly waited for him to drop the chivalrous act. Carter grinned at the impatient tap of her right foot in her fancy sandal, but then his heart surged when her hand slipped into his and she allowed him to help her onto the sidewalk. He held onto her hand and drew her close. “I had fun, Khela, and I think you did, too, at least with me. I want to do this again, only for real.”
“I’m a sourpuss, remember?”
“I shouldn’t have said that.” He dropped his eyes and his voice, forcing Khela to move in closer to hear him. “I actually found you rather sweet.”
Khela suddenly felt feverish. “I was hoping you wouldn’t mention that. Ever.”
“Okay, I won’t mention it anymore. When can we do it again?”
She looked at her feet to hide a smile.
“C’mon, Khela,” he cajoled. “What d’ya say? Let me take you out. Think of it as a favor to me. We could grab some dinner right now. We’ve got the car for the rest of the evening.”
She had a dozen good reasons to not accept his offer. Trouble was, the number one reason was that she really wanted to accept it. Tha
t fact alone convinced her that she would be better off saying goodbye to him right there on the sidewalk.
“I’m flattered, Carter, I really am, but…” She swallowed, but the tiny lump in her throat only wedged itself more firmly. “I’m not interested in a relationship.”
“Not interested or scared?”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?” She pulled her hand from his and put some space between them. “The bottom line is that I can’t go out with you again.”
He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked on his heels. Khela waited for him to respond—to argue or plead, insult or tease.
The noises of a busy Boston summer evening filled the empty silence between them as Khela tipped and thanked the driver, politely refusing his offer to carry her bags up to her apartment.
“Thank you for everything,” she told Carter before grabbing her bags and lugging them up the steep stone stairs to the front door. She turned back before closing the door behind her. Carter still stood at the wide open limo door, seeing her into the building.
Only a fool would turn down a man like him, Khela thought, her heart as heavy as her footsteps as she bypassed the stairs to take the elevator. Then again, that’s me. Your typical romantic fool…
* * *
“Where am I taking you, Mr…?”
The driver waited for Carter to respond, which took awhile, since he was surfing the Internet on his cell phone. “Radcliffe,” Carter finally said.
“Where do you live, Mr. Radcliffe?” the driver said pleasantly.
“Uh, across the street,” he said tersely. “But I think I need to make a stop first.”
“Yes, sir. Where to, sir?”
Carter Googled Khela Halliday, then selected the site most likely to give him the information he wanted.
“I really need to get this boat moving, Mr. Radcliffe,” the driver said. “There’s a meter maid incoming at a pretty good clip.”
“Sorry,” Carter said absently. “Just drive.”
“Not a problem, sir.”
Carter scanned the information he’d selected, then logged off and slipped his phone back into his pocket. The driver smoothly pulled the car into traffic, and Carter turned around in his seat to look back at the brownstone. High above Commonwealth Avenue, Khela was probably climbing into her loft and unpacking. Having spent time with her, Carter now realized that her top-story condo was no more than a luxury prison, and that she would never let down her hair and give a prince a fair chance.
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