A Funny Thing About Love

by Karice Bolton

  She had no idea how her agent was managing all of this, but she was undoubtedly grateful, if not wholly petrified. Emilia scrolled down to the newest text that was waiting for a reply.

  We just got a preempt. The publisher is demanding an answer in two hours. I’ve shot an email over to you with the numbers involved. Reply ASAP.

  Emilia wasn’t entirely sure what a preempt was, but it sounded important, urgent, and kind of significant. But Emilia had come here to talk about everything with her grandparents, and that was precisely what she intended to do. She got out of the car and pulled the map out of her purse to make sure she went in the right direction. She slowly wandered along the grass until she found the large oak tree and two gravestones right beneath it where Papa Jack and Mama Cam were laid to rest. It was probably better she didn’t bring flowers since the ground was still frozen and she wouldn’t have been able to undo the built-in vases.

  She drew a deep breath and let it out slowly as she stared at Mama Cam’s epitaph,

  Whisper my name, and I’ll always hear your call.

  Tears welled up in Emilia’s eyes as she sniffled, feeling nearly two decades’ worth of guilt pummeling her for not visiting the grave of the woman who’d loved her more than life itself. She sobbed a little more and looked at Papa Jack’s gravestone and had to laugh.

  He’d probably been in heaven, impatiently waiting for Emilia to finally visit his gravesite and get one last chuckle with him. She sniffled, and the tears traded for laughter as she read Papa Jacks’s epitaph,

  Damn, it’s dark down here. Grab me a flashlight, will ya?

  “I’m sorry it took me so long to get that joke, Papa Jack. But it’s precisely what I needed.” Emilia bent over and used her hands to dust off the frozen pine needles from both her grandparents’ gravestones.

  “A lot has been going on, but you know most of it since I talk to you both nearly every day.” She let out a sigh. “I got an offer on my book proposal. It’s a preempt, which I think means one publisher wants it so bad, they offered a huge chunk to stop the bidding war that was about to take place. I’d like to say it’s because my writing is so good, but the truth is that I haven’t written a page of it yet, so I must have a good agent. It seems like an awful lot of money to write about relationships and answer more questions from readers, but I’d be foolish to turn it down, right?”

  Emilia stared at the ground and felt oddly comforted until her phone interrupted her.

  There’s a catch to the deal.

  There always was, wasn’t there? Emilia quickly typed back.

  What’s the catch?

  Her agent replied just as quickly.

  The publishing house doesn’t want us to concentrate on what our proposal outlined.

  Emilia’s brows furrowed and she replied.

  What do they want me to focus on? It’s supposed to be all about the readers, with more questions and answers and fun little anecdotes.

  He wrote back.

  Yeah. That’s not what the publisher wants.

  Emilia let out a grunt and typed back.

  Then what do they want?

  She could see it took her agent two or three times before finally phrasing his next text just right.

  The editor wants you to write about your transitional years.

  A bit of panic rose in Emilia.

  What do you mean, my transitional years?

  Her agent was quick to reply.

  The time that shaped your views on dating. They want you to concentrate on high school and maybe some college. They want to hear about your relationships that have most affected who you’ve become today and why you give the advice you do.

  That didn’t make sense.

  Why?

  Her agent was ready with the answer.

  They think it will be more exciting and will touch more readers. The publishing house thinks they need to offer the public something that your blog doesn’t, which is more of an insight as to who you, Emilia Hudson, are.

  Very few people knew about how Emilia Hudson came to be, but her agent was one of them.

  Are you saying they want me to write about me before Emilia Hudson?

  Emilia impatiently waited for her agent’s reply.

  You mean Hailee Howard? Yes. That is precisely what I’m saying. I happened to mention you had a high school boyfriend you hadn’t really gotten over and they loved that idea.

  Emilia’s stomach clenched, and she texted back.

  I’m sure they did, but that wasn’t something for world consumption.

  He wrote back, knowing he was losing Emilia.

  But there is a good story there.

  His answer only annoyed Emilia.

  My life isn’t a story.

  His retort was nothing short of what Emilia expected.

  But it could be, especially for seven figures.

  Emilia texted back a self-righteous message.

  Life isn’t about money.

  She looked at her screen, satisfied.

  No, but happiness is.

  Emilia let out a disgruntled sigh.

  That’s not true.

  She saw he was up for the fight, and she couldn’t blame him. A lot of money was on the line, but it would involve the reliving of things that she’d tried to lock away.

  How do you know if you don’t have any? You really ought to give it a try.

  “What do you think I ought to do, Mama Cam?” Just as Emilia asked the question, a misplaced white-tailed grouse flew to the grass and pecked at the frozen ground before flying off. She took it as a sign and sent a message off to her agent.

  Alright. I’ll do it.

  A few seconds went by before she got a two-word reply. She could sense her agent’s disbelief.

  You will?

  Emilia couldn’t believe she’d just agreed to a seven-figure deal with a major publishing house, and it was all done over text.

  I will.

  Another text came over.

  One more thing.

  An unsettled feeling washed over Emilia with her agent’s last text. She hoped she hadn’t just signed a deal with the devil.

  It wasn’t me who mentioned your previous persona. That was the proposal the publisher came to me with. All I said was your high school boyfriend. Just thought you’d like to know you can trust your shifty little agent, but they somehow knew about your other life.

  Emilia chuckled and shook her head. He was always trying to cover his own butt.

  But it did make Emilia wonder how these people would know anything about her. Unless they read every single blog post she’d ever written and had somehow pieced together bits and pieces from her past, they really wouldn’t know about Hailee. But that wasn’t what concerned her the most. What worried her the most was that whatever she came up to write about wasn’t going to be nearly as interesting to them as they might think it ought to be for that much money.

  One last text came over from her agent, and it finally felt real.

  I’ll email the contract over once I receive it and look it over. Now, go enjoy your vacation. Remember, it’s not a deal until the ink dries.

  Emilia’s hands trembled as she realized the enormity of this moment. Even with the ground as frozen as an ice rink, she knelt down and touched Papa Jack’s gravestone and let out one last sob of pain for all the years she’d spent far away, pretending to be someone she wasn’t.

  Chapter Eight

  Josh was playing dirty, but it was the only way to get what he wanted. He needed to hear why Hailee left all those years ago, and he knew she would never tell him.

  At least not the whole truth.

  But dangling the possibility of being a millionaire changes even the most closed of hearts.

  Josh’s senior editors loved the pitch he’d hung out in front of them. A love-life-relationship expert who couldn’t handle her own love, life, or relationships. So she does what any reasonable person would do. She flees the place she grew up, changes her name, and begins to
dole out advice on a topic she clearly knows little about.

  Love.

  Josh was extremely proud of himself. He could see the press release now.

  Relationship expert isn’t who she’s claimed to be. Has famed Emilia Hudson—author of Emilia’s Love Pursuits—misled millions of readers? What led her to flee her small-town life and begin again as a new woman? See why readers are calling this latest memoir “a salacious read they couldn’t put down.” Find out how a woman duped millions of readers into believing her advice column as she laughed herself all the way to the bank.

  Josh cringed at the last sentence and wondered if he was too harsh. Possibly, but he hadn’t crushed the publishing industry by being considerate of others.

  Nope. He built a world that wasn’t fair and didn’t depend on other people’s luck. He created his own, and he intended to do the very same thing once he got hold of Hailee Howard’s rights to her story.

  The story she didn’t know she was about to tell. But with a few clever editors, she’d be guided right where Josh wanted her, a place where she’d have no choice but to tell the truth and answer all the questions Josh had pent up over the years.

  Josh rocked back on his heels and stared out the window to see the empty streets. The snowstorm came in as a blizzard and buckled down on the residents. The city was just beginning to come out of the aftermath, and all he could think about was how nice the brief break from the NYC insanity could be.

  Josh wanted to feel guilty about tricking Hailee, but he didn’t. He should feel guilty, but he wouldn’t.

  And that kind of disturbed him. It said a lot about the man he’d become.

  After all, he was voted the guy most likely to save a puppy from a burning building back in high school. But that was the problem. He’d still save the puppy. He just wasn’t sure about anyone else calling for help.

  What really drove Josh Turner mad was the fact that he still had feelings for Hailee after nearly two decades. It made him feel weak and pathetic. He was almost forty, never married, without kids that he knew of, and he didn’t even have a pet. What he did have was a fancy penthouse apartment, a publishing house that always turned out bestsellers, parties to attend on a Friday night, and nothing of any substance in between.

  Josh turned into the very man he’d despised while growing up. There was nothing more irritating to Josh than reading The Great Gatsby in junior high.

  He, of course, read it before the book was assigned in high school, and he quickly decided that wealth like the Norths—his own cousins—had created more problems than solutions.

  After all, he’d fallen in love with Hailee Howard, and she was the happiest girl he’d ever met. And she had nearly nothing, if you thought in terms of materialistic items. It was that happiness that Josh had embraced for the next several years based solely on high school bliss.

  Or as his parents told him, puppy love.

  Sure, his views might have been romantic and idealistic, but that was what he’d embraced about Hailee Howard. She brought the best out of him, and once she left, the real Josh Turner came out of nowhere. He sank his teeth like a piranha into the book world, finding new talent and exploiting stories for more than they were worth.

  But the public bought into the hype.

  The real Josh enjoyed money, having the finer things in life, and living in the lap of luxury. It only helped that he was good at what he did.

  Josh quickly realized his simple dream of owning a bookstore in his small town wasn’t enough. Why shoot for something so comfortable and mundane when he could change the world by finding new voices and bringing them to the masses?

  And that was precisely what Josh Turner did. He worked behind the scenes in a somewhat thankless position to help his people scout out stories that he knew would make his company millions.

  It just so happened that his high school girlfriend’s story might be the most interesting of them all, and he couldn’t wait to hear the details. He often liked to think he was helping people by bringing these books into the world. Maybe someone would relate, or perhaps they’d just get a good laugh, but either way, he wanted to believe he made a difference.

  Even though the truth of the matter was that he knew he didn’t. In fact, his press was often referred to as the literary gossip rag of the book world, but he figured the other publishing houses were just jealous because they couldn’t sniff out the good books like his people could. That in itself was an art.

  But he’d heard the whispers as he walked down the halls. He knew what most of Manhattan really thought of him.

  Heartless.

  And maybe that was the case, but it wasn’t his fault that the woman who broke his heart never came back to put it together again.

  Josh wandered over to his laptop and turned it on. The machine instantly flashed Hailee’s photo on his screen. He wasn’t stalking her. It just so happened that the last website he was on happened to be her blog. However, to say he was annoyed with himself was putting it mildly. He absolutely hated the fact that he couldn’t get enough of Hailee’s story.

  Her views on life were so opposite of anything he’d ever experienced with her. It was as if almost every single thought was implanted by some alien force because whoever was writing as Hailee Howard was extremely jaded, and while she attempted to hold out hope for the dating world, it really seemed to be an intricate ruse to keep readers writing to her.

  For instance, he saw this post from a year ago.

  Dear Emilia-

  I don’t understand why all the men who reach out to me on the dating app want me to be their mother? All I want is a capable man who maybe opens the door once in a while or takes out the trash if we get serious. Is that too much to ask? Why is it that I only get the men who want to make sure I get the meal on the table by six and his clothes washed by eight? Attached is my dating profile.

  ~Desperate in Denver

  And Emilia wrote back,

  Dear Desperate in Denver,

  The reason you’re finding the men who need to be taken care of instead of wanting to take care of you is happening for several reasons. The first one is simple. Most men are big babies. They want to pound their chest when it suits them, but underneath it all, they whine at the drop of a hat and run for cover if their day isn’t going so great. They want to be babies because that’s what they are.

  The second reason is that your dating profile sounds like an advertisement to be their mother. Don’t broadcast that you love to cook and bake because it sounds like you’ve been waiting your whole life to cook and bake for them. And don’t list that you’re handy around the house because it pulls in the men who are looking for a handyman for themselves—and yes, there are disappointingly many of them. I’ll still never forget a date I went on where the guy (a lawyer) revealed to me that he had to hire someone to change his own lightbulbs. Seriously, dude? Grab a ladder and a set of... well, you get my point. Basically, what I’m telling you is don’t advertise about yourself the very thing you’re looking for. And finally, never believe the hype! If a guy writes to you, explaining how he fits the bill perfectly, run in the opposite direction immediately. No male is perfect. Females might be close, but males are far from it. Hope that helps!

  Josh couldn’t help but laugh at some of Hailee’s observations. Since he lived in the city, he now knew several of those men who couldn’t change a light bulb to save their lives, but it didn’t make her post any less jaded. He really wanted to know what went wrong in the last eighteen years to make her hate men so much.

  That was what he could surmise, at least, that she hated men. Or at least, she didn’t think of them very fondly, and he was sure he would soon be in that bucket.

  As Josh scrolled through more posts, his fingers became itchy with anticipation. She hadn’t signed the contract yet, but once she did, he knew she’d get the surprise of her life, mainly since he wrote in the fine print that the president of the publishing house had the right to accompany her on all press tours
, signings, and the like.

  He could only imagine the look on her face when he showed up at one of her television appearances. If he could keep a secret for that long.

  Chapter Nine

  This was the deal. Life was all about luck and trying to play fair. That had always been Emilia’s motto. She wasn’t so much worried about getting ahead as she was concerned about surviving, and sometimes, the survival mentality led to some unexpected places.

  Sure, it would have been easier to have stayed in Silver Ridge and live in her grandparents’ place and find a job close to there, but she knew her days would be filled with sorrow and regret. She needed to break free from the ties of mourning and soar to a new beginning. It was what Mama Cam and Papa Jack would have wanted.

  Wasn’t it?

  Emilia drew a deep, slow breath as she waited at the stop sign before turning down the street to her grandparents’ home. She’d reached out to the Olsens and found out what day would be the best to drop by. They were more than willing to let Emilia come visit her childhood home one last time. Now, she only needed to get up enough nerve to turn down the road. Really, once this visit was over with, she didn’t need to stay in Silver Ridge any longer. Emilia could cut her trip short and fly back to the safety of Oregon.