Love Between the Pages: 8 Romances for Booklovers Page 11
“I may have indicated something of that nature. Perhaps hinted at the other publishers who’ve been sniffing around you for a while.”
“You lied to him?”
“Nope. I didn’t have to lie. There have been other publishers sniffing around you, or at least asking questions about whether you’re happy where you are. I merely let Tom know of their existence.”
“Well, whatever you did, thank you. I’m thrilled. Four books! What’s the timeline?”
“Two a year, like always. You’ll have plenty of time to get them done.”
“You are the best, Mary Lynn.”
“Yes, I know. Now, let’s get to the airport. Alaska Airlines waits for no man. Or woman—not even the Queen of Steam.”
• • •
If Romancing the Writer had turned the St. Francis Hotel into a beehive, the Romance Writers of America convention made the conference hotel in Denver look like all the remaining bees in the world had gathered in one place where they buzzed around, generating noise and energy at a level Claudia had never heard before. In the lobby, women—again, almost all the attendees were female—greeted each other like long-lost sisters, shrieks of pleasure, yelps of surprise, and cries of recognition blending into a cacophony of sound. Not usually intimidated by crowds, Claudia was cowed into silence by the sheer number of people around her. Mary Lynn had gone to get their room and convention registrations, leaving her client to sit on a large overstuffed couch, big-eyed, watching the chaos around her.
The size of the convention had never even occurred to her. It certainly did now. There were hundreds of people in the lobby. She’d have to be more on her toes here than she’d been in San Francisco. There were simply more people to worry about. More chances one of them might actually know her in her other life; recognize her in spite of her “disguise.” Why in the world had she thought she could keep pulling off this charade? She had so many details to keep straight about who she was supposed to be in various settings, she had to think hard to remember which person she was before she spoke to anyone. She’d even screwed up her registration for the convention, putting her return address as Mary Lynn’s in Seattle because she’d been obsessing about how she was going to deal with Brad at the conference while she filled out the form.
The longer she sat waiting for her agent to return with their room key, the more nervous she became. She was on the verge of making a run for the exit when a familiar male voice broke her concentration. Brad. She was now officially and completely freaked out.
“I can’t believe I found you in this crowd. It must be a sign.” Brad sat down next to her on the couch. “I’ve missed you, lovely.” She noticed he was careful not to sit too close or to touch her, for which she was grateful. It was hard enough maintaining her April Mayes persona when she was with Mary Lynn, let alone when he was in the mix. She quickly scanned the lobby hoping no one was watching—at least, no one who could identify either one of them.
“Brad. Nice to see you. Have you checked in yet?”
She knew from the way he pulled back he was disappointed by her response. He sounded confused when he responded. “Ah, yes, I have. I was … I mean … I saw you sitting here and … are you all settled?”
“Mary Lynn’s taking care of it now.” She stood and he did, too. “I better go find her. I’d like to freshen up.” She started toward the registration desk, but he touched her arm, stopping her.
“I came over to ask if we can have dinner tonight. Please?”
“I’ll have to check with Mary Lynn, but if she’s free, it might work.”
“I meant you and me. Without a chaperone.”
“Oh, well, I’m not sure.” She tried to pull away, but his hold tightened. “I hate to leave her stranded all by herself in a strange city.”
“She’s surrounded by hundreds of people, half of whom she knows, I’m sure, Claire.”
“Please, while we’re here, will you use my pen name? That’s what my name tag will say and what everyone thinks is my name.”
“All right, then, April.” He rubbed his hand over his face and sighed. “Look, I don’t know what happened between our last weekend in Seattle and now, but I have to find out. You can’t shut me out this way. Not after …”
She shook her head so hard she swore she could feel the extensions trying to escape. “I’m not shutting you out. I’m distracted by work and the crowd and …”
“Then have dinner with me. Mary Lynn will understand, won’t she?”
“Mary Lynn will understand about what, Brad?” Claudia hadn’t heard or seen her agent approach them. Not a good sign. She had to be on her toes the whole four days, and this was so not a good start.
Brad held out his hand, and Mary Lynn shook it. “I asked Claire … ah, April … to have dinner with me, and she put me off until she talked to you. You won’t mind if we sneak off someplace, will you?”
“Not if I have a chance to follow up with you on the phone conversation we had a couple weeks ago. You never got back to me. I may have an interesting opportunity for you.”
“Done. How about all three of us have coffee in the morning before the sessions start, assuming you don’t mind talking in front of April?”
“Not at all. And early morning is perfect. I have pitch appointments all day beginning at nine, but before then, I’m free.” She handed Claudia a key card. “We’re in room 1019. I’ll go on up, and you can …”
“I’m coming with you.” Claudia pulled the handle out of her suitcase and turned to follow her agent.
“About dinner tonight,” Brad said. “How about meeting here at six thirty? I’ll find a place for us to eat and arrange for transportation to get us there. That work?”
“Yes, sure. Fine.” Before he could make her life any more complicated, she made for the elevator as though her butt was on fire.
• • •
“What the hell was that all about? You acted like Brad was a perfect stranger. Grant you he is pretty perfect but not so much a stranger, if our conversations of the past six weeks are correct. Why are you acting so standoffish?”
Claudia hadn’t even shut the door to their shared room before Mary Lynn began her questions.
She shook her head and said nothing.
“If you think I’m going to give up asking, you don’t really know me. He has it bad for you. Any fool can see that. Why are you pushing him away?”
“I don’t know what you think you’re seeing but he can’t ‘have it bad’ for me. He doesn’t even know who I am. He thinks I’m some hot romance writer who hides behind a pen name to protect her career at Bellevue College. He thinks I live in Seattle. Hell, he even thinks I like those horrible cabbage rose slipcovers you have on your furniture.”
“And whose fault is that—not the slipcovers. I claim them. The other stuff.”
“Mine, of course. Although you helped. I’m beginning to feel guilty every time I look at him because the only true thing in the whole list of what I’ve told him is I hide behind a pen name. The rest is all lies, including—maybe especially—the fake name I gave him to avoid giving him my real name when he knew I used a pen name. Oh, hell, I can’t even keep it all straight anymore.” Her throat began to feel thick and choked, like she was going to cry. The last time she’d cried about a man was when her father died. It had been snotty and ugly, with red eyes and a swollen face, and she’d vowed never to repeat it.
“You don’t think in the past six weeks, he’s been able to see the truth of who you are, whatever name he thinks you go by?”
“How can he? I’ve lied about everything.”
“So you keep saying. But he’s a smart guy. I think he knows full well who he loves.”
“Loves? Are you crazy? We’re having a good time, nothing more.”
“Yeah, which explains why you’re on the verge of crying while you rip at your cuticles in the room you insisted we share so you wouldn’t have the temptation to spend the whole conference in his room.”
&nb
sp; Claudia stopped picking at her fingers, a bad habit she thought she’d lost years ago. Trust a man to bring it back to the surface. “I thought it would be fun to share a room with you. It had nothing to do with him. He’s just a … I don’t know … maybe just a friend. Or something.”
Mary Lynn put her arms around her client. “Girlfriend, he is so much more than a friend. You may not want to face it, but you’re in love with Brad Davis. Like he is with you. For God’s sake, something this good comes along so rarely, why would you even think about letting it pass you by?”
“How can love be built on lies?”
“It can’t. So you have to tell him the truth.”
Claudia dropped onto the sofa in the living area. “I want to, but it’s never been the right time.”
“When would the right time be, I wonder? When you’re applying for a marriage license and have to show ID? For God’s sake, tell him the truth about yourself. At dinner tonight, maybe. He’s a teacher. He’ll understand your need to protect your professional reputation, won’t he?”
“He’s said a couple of times how careful he is with his. Maybe you’re right. Maybe he would understand.”
“Then do it. Tell him. Tonight.”
• • •
Brad paced the confines of his room, trying to figure out what the hell had happened between the last weekend he’d spent with Claire and their recent encounter in the hotel lobby. It had been less than ten days between the two but a gap of monumental proportions seemed to have opened between them.
Ever since their second weekend together, when they’d worked so productively at the coast, bouncing ideas off each other, laughing at the weird things autocorrect did with slightly misspelled words in a love scene (Claire’s problem) and the archaic words in an historical novel (his problem), their compatibility had been obvious, not to mention their chemistry. It only took a couple more weekends for him to believe firmly and absolutely that she was the one he’d thought he’d never find. She was smart, talented, beautiful, and funny. She made him both laugh and think. She made his blood heat with only a glance, and when they were in bed, she burned up the sheets with her passion. She was a match for him everywhere.
They shared both a vocation and an avocation. They even had some similarity in their backgrounds. What more could a man want? The only problem was she seemed to be holding something back from him. He assumed it had something to do with her writing, since her academic career seemed an open book. Maybe it was how much money she made. Maybe she thought he wouldn’t like someone making more money than he did. He’d seen her books on the bestseller lists, so he knew she was more successful, commercially, than he was. It didn’t bother him in the least. He was proud to know someone who wrote as well and successfully as she did. He’d read another of her books recently and recognized the inspiration—Brains and Brawn was loosely based on Sense and Sensibility—and he’d loved both the story and the fact he knew the author. Intimately.
He was sure she’d be granted tenure when the committee met in a few weeks and hoped then she’d have the nerve to go public. Everyone, especially her colleagues, needed both to know how skillful a writer she was and to appreciate her talent as much as he did.
After a quick shower and shave, he dressed as carefully for their dinner date as he had for his job interview at St. Mary’s—black suit, white shirt with no tie, his favorite cuff links. He splashed on some aftershave she’d once said she liked, checked his nails to make sure they were clean and clipped, his teeth to make sure there was nothing weird hiding there. He was the picture of sartorial and well-groomed splendor.
And he was ready an hour before they were to meet. So he went down to the lobby to have a different space in which to pace and worry about how, if the evening didn’t work out, he’d have seen the end of the best relationship he’d had with a woman in years. Maybe in forever.
He’d made reservations at the Briarwood Inn, a restaurant a colleague of his had suggested as one of the best and most romantic in the area. He hoped it worked to make things easy between them. He needed all the help he could get.
Thoughts of Claire had been driving him crazy all afternoon. Now it was the sight of her walking across the lobby toward him that did it. She was in an electric blue, body-hugging dress, which seemed modest enough—everything was covered quite completely—but which clung to every single curve on her body. Her beautiful breasts were out of sight, not even a hint of cleavage showing, but he knew what lay beneath the fabric that seemed to lovingly hug them, as he’d like to do. Her hips, too, were encased in bright blue, and when she walked, he could see them shift as well as see the outline of her legs in April’s hooker heels press against the skirt, one at a time, as she made her way toward him. Jesus, he was getting a hard-on watching her.
And so, he was sure, were the few men who were in the lobby and who were doing everything but drooling as she took her time getting over to him. He couldn’t stand it any longer and strode to reach her before some other man made a claim on her.
Boldly, he kissed her cheek and inhaled the familiar scent of her. He had never asked her what the name of her perfume was; he was sure no woman he knew had worn it. He knew he’d forever think of her if he smelled it again.
“Hello, lovely. You look beautiful tonight.” When he pulled back from the kiss, he frowned a little. “How did you grow your hair back so fast? It hasn’t been long enough since I’ve seen you for it to get so much longer. And it’s redder than it was the last time, too.”
“You’ve apparently never heard of hair extensions. Mary Lynn thinks I need to have long, flowing hair to look like a sexy romance writer.” She flipped a strand or two back from her face. “And redheads are in right now so I have a henna rinse put on it.”
He took the coat she had over her arm and draped it over her shoulders. “You’d look sexy with your head shaved or dyed bright orange, I imagine, especially in the dress you’re wearing.” Taking her elbow, he continued. “In fact, I need to get you out of here before one of the other men standing around here who have been lusting after you challenges me to a duel at sunrise for you. I have a cab ordered. It should be outside waiting.”
She laughed. “You’re exaggerating, but thank you for the compliment.”
Good. She sounded like she was back to the Claire he knew from their weekends together. Maybe everything would turn out all right after all.
Chapter 13
Claudia was doing her best to be relaxed and comfortable with Brad. God knows, he was trying to make it easy for her. He’d complimented her profusely when they met in the lobby. He had picked a wonderful place for their dinner. He’d ordered champagne and made a lovely toast when it was poured for them. Knowing she had decided to tell him the truth about her name and her life, however, made her tense in spite of his efforts. She had hoped the wine would help, but it seemed to disappear fast without making her feel any looser. Much more of it, and she was afraid she’d go from tense to tipsy without passing relaxed.
After they ordered their dinner, Brad sat back in his chair and watched her for a few moments, long enough to make her uneasy about what he might be about to say. Finally, he said, “How are you doing? You’ve seemed maybe worried lately. Tense, certainly. I’m told I’m a good listener if you want to unload on me.”
She could feel the tension begin to curl around in her stomach again like some kind of angry snake. She took another sip of wine to see if she could send the beast back where it belonged. Then she had an idea of how to broach the subject of her lies. She eased into it with, “I’ve been frantic at work. There’s getting everything in order for the tenure committee, and a couple students I’ve been working with who’ve been giving me trouble.” She played with the tableware in front of her. “The worst part is my book is stalled. I can’t seem to get my hero and heroine on the same page. Or should I say, in the same chapter. They keep wandering off in different directions. They don’t seem to want to talk to each other.”
&nb
sp; He laughed. “I hate it when my characters won’t do what I want them to do. Although, I guess I should be grateful my subconscious usually knows them well enough to prod me in the direction their personalities would take them.”
“Is that what happens? I was beginning to believe characters were bitchy people who live to torment a writer until she gives in and lets them run amok.”
He leaned in, his forearms on the table. “Tell me what they’re doing—or not doing. Maybe I can help.”
Here goes. Let’s see how he takes this. “Well, the heroine has been keeping something from the hero about who she is. That’s why she’s avoiding him. Her father and his are old enemies, and she’s sure if the hero finds out, he won’t love her. I can’t find a way to get the truth told without having a huge confrontation before I’m ready for one.”
“Hmm. I see your problem. Sounds like this one is a take on Romeo and Juliet.”
“Yes, and with a happier ending. Do you think he’s more likely to be angry about who she is or about the fact she’s been hiding the truth?”
“Definitely the lying. That’s a deal-breaker for me, anyway. I had a relationship fall apart because the woman I was seeing lied to me. She failed to tell me she was married when we started seeing each other—separated but still married—to a husband who wanted her back. The time we ran into him in a restaurant wasn’t pleasant.” He hesitated as if there was more but said nothing else.
“Did it get ugly?”
“No, because I wouldn’t let it. We didn’t see each other after that evening. I never called her again. Didn’t much appreciate being in the dark about details like a husband. Then there was the divorced colleague who never told any of us she had three kids because she wanted to appear to be carefree. Who the hell would lie about their own kids? I think she was interested in getting to know me better, but I couldn’t see it.” He took a sip of his wine. “I mean, if she lied about her kids, what else would she lie about?”
Their entrees arrived, and they set about eating them, leaving Claudia to think way too much about what he’d said while she tried to swallow her steak without choking. Whether it was on the meat or on his stories, she wasn’t sure.