A Novel Seduction (28 page)

Foolish man!
she had cried.
If I wanted you to die for me, I’d have killed you myself.

This to the man who had saved her life? Inexplicable.

Axel laid down the phone and paced to the window. He could hear Ellery tapping at her keyboard in the next room. Writing? After all her protestations, was he
to believe she was now sitting in a bed-and-breakfast in Bathgate, Scotland, writing an article on romance novels? Doubtful. She was probably finishing the piece on John Irving.

Did women ever make sense?

His phone buzzed. He reached for it and groaned.

“Hey, Brendan. What’s up?”

“Look, the guy who made the counteroffer? He’s raised the bid another six grand. I don’t want to be a jerk, Axel. I’m going to sell the brewery to you, but I really need to know if you’re going to buy it, because if you’re not, I don’t want to miss this.”

Axel took a deep breath. It was hard letting go. “Take the offer. I won’t have the money.”

“Seriously?”

“Yep. I took a bet on something that’s not going to pay off. I was going to call you today anyway.”

“Aw, man. That sucks. You would have been great.”

Yeah, I would have.
“Thanks. The stars weren’t aligned, I guess.” The phone beeped in his ear. “Hang on, will you?” Axel checked the display. It was Jill, whose name hadn’t appeared there in years, a fact that fanned a spark of curiosity in him as well as one of concern.

“Listen, I’ll call you back,” he said to Brendan. “I gotta take this.”

“No need. I’ll tell the guy we’re a go.”

Axel switched lines. “Jill, hey.” He couldn’t remember the last time Jill had called him. She had reached out a few times after he and Ellery had broken up, and he’d always been glad to hear from her; but he knew it wouldn’t have been proper to maintain a friendship with her without
Ellery’s involvement, and in any case Ellery had made it clear she didn’t want him in their lives, even on the periphery.

“You busy?”

There was something in her voice that made him straighten. “Nope. What’s up?”

“I’m in trouble.”

By “in trouble” she meant just that. Facing a slate of upcoming finals and ruing a boyfriend who wasn’t returning her calls, she was between two positive at-home pregnancy tests yesterday and an appointment to talk about next steps at the college clinic on Monday. Axel would have liked to get his hands on the so-called boyfriend, but he knew that wasn’t the relevant point at the moment. She was angry, upset, buckling under the pressure of her senior year and terrified of telling her sister.

She only cried once during the call, and he knew that only because she was silent for a full minute before answering when he asked her what she wanted to do.

The amazing self-control of the Sharpe sisters. Sometimes he wished he could grab them by the shoulders and shake some honest-to-God emotion out of them. But that, he thought with a sigh, wasn’t the point, either.

Knowing he was completely out of his depth and fearful of giving advice that would lead her astray, he begged her to call Ellery. Ellery, he said, would never be disappointed with anything she did. But Jill would not relent. Further, she made him swear he wouldn’t mention a word to her.

He hung up and stared at the bare limbs of the tree outside
for a good twenty minutes before moving. He’d never been a woman, obviously, and despite having grown up around four of them and spent a good part of his adult life in relationships of one sort or another with many more, he couldn’t help Jill navigate this with any degree of ability. No matter what she had made him promise, he knew he was going to tell Ellery. She was Jill’s guardian. Moreover, she loved Jill deeply and had stepped in without a second thought to care for her when their mother had died.

But he also knew breaking his word to Jill would mark the end of the easy friendship they had just renewed. He wasn’t her father, but in the perennial “me versus them” battle every child goes through, his betrayal would brand him with that stain of parental them-ness, permanently changing their relationship.

But there was another complication, one that was perhaps even more responsible for keeping him motionless since the end of the call. He did not want to have any sort of conversation with Ellery about pregnancy.

Even five years later, the unanswered questions still pained him. No matter how he approached the subject of Jill’s situation, if he told Ellery, he would be entering a battleground defenseless.

Ellery, Ellery, Ellery.

He rubbed his aching neck and considered what Jemmie might do. He wished his sister had told him which Jemmie the women adored. Was it the wise Jemmie, the courageous Jemmie, the reckless Jemmie? He thought of his sister’s words.

Don’t they understand they could get any woman into bed they wanted if they just acted like Jemmie in Kiltlander?

Of course, Axel was no longer trying to get Ellery in bed. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to bed her; he did—and in a way that made his belly contract when he looked at her. But he had finally realized what he needed from her was something more important: her trust. And if she couldn’t give it to him, he couldn’t be with her.

He doubted the conversation he was about to have with her would earn that trust, and he dreaded the ground they would have to cover, littered as it was with landmines big enough to destroy both of them. No one would come out unscathed. The one lesson he’d gotten from Jemmie was this: If you love a woman, you have to do what’s right for her. The only trouble is you’d better be damn well sure you know what’s right.

Axel slipped his phone in his pocket, stepped into the hall and knocked reluctantly on Ellery’s door.

“Plugged In: The Future of Publishing” Conference, Dorchester Hotel, London

Barry Steinberg let his eyes wander from the intern at Condé Nast, whose breasts didn’t quite make up for her long and exceedingly dull story about her sister’s wedding in High Line Park, to the face of Bettina Moore, head of Pierrot Publishing, at the far end of the bar.

His head was still muzzy from the night with Axel, but not so muzzy that it blunted the zing that went through Steinberg’s heart whenever he saw a mover and shaker. A year ago Bettina would never have made the cut for a summit like this. But having a book that had spent thirty-seven weeks at the number one spot on the best-seller list tended to shake up one’s social calendar.

The intern’s voice fell to a faint hum, like the buzz of a mosquito, and despite the message his balls were furiously telegraphing to his mouth to make sure he said something to score himself a place somewhere later in her evening, he found himself being drawn to the light of Bettina Moore.

“And the reception afterward was awesome. Everyone got Rollerblades and—”

“You know what?” Steinberg said, tossing a ten-pound note on the bar. “What time are you leaving? I would love to pick this up then.”

“I dunno.” The intern flipped her hair, smiling. “Maybe midnight?”

“Perfect. Your last drink’s on me. I can tell you about the time Norman Mailer and I were thrown out of Farrell’s Bar in Brooklyn.”

“Really? Wait, who’s Norman Mailer?”

He threaded his way down to Moore, who was sipping something pink and girly, and signaled the bartender to make two more.

“Bettina, you look lovely tonight.”

He’d heard she was in the midst of an ugly divorce, but she was well over forty, so too old for serious consideration.

“Hello, Barry. You look like shite.”

He laughed. “Hell of a night last night. Ran into an old buddy. Axel Mackenzie, actually. You might know him.”

It was her turn to laugh. “I sure do. He’s here? He’s working on an article on romance novels.”

“Are you sure? He told me he was doing something for
Vanity Place
?”

“That’s the article.”

Steinberg laughed.

She gave him a chilly look.

“You find that odd?” “The magazine that likened J. K. Rowling to the Reverend Jim Jones? Yeah, actually. I do.”

The bartender put down the drinks. Barry slipped him a twenty and picked up his.

“Yeah, well, it’s going to be the cover story,” Moore said. “Maybe they’re changing.”

“Sure. And maybe my Prius will take first place at Le Mans.” Strange of Axel to hide the fact he was working on a cover story. He was not one for modesty. He took a sip of the drink. Jesus, it was
gin
. “So it’s a photo essay?”

“Hell, no. An in-depth into the enduring power of romance novels.
Vamp
’s going to be front and center.”

Stranger still.

“And what have
you
been up to? Nothing good, I’m sure.” She smiled.

“Actually, I’m up for that new publisher’s spot at Lark & Ives.”

“Well, well, well. Congrats.”

“I don’t have it yet. It’s down to me and the critic at
Vanity Place,
actually. Ellery Sharpe.”

“Ellery Sharpe?” Moore’s lip curled over the rim of her glass. “Axel’s working on the piece with her.”

Steinberg put his drink on the bar. “Ellery Sharpe? Writing a story on romance novels?”

Moore tossed back her drink and picked up the second. “Yep.”

He looked at his watch. One o’clock in New York. Carlton Purdy should be at his desk. “Well, congratulations on the cover story. I’m going to have to tell you: That’s the greatest fucking thing I’ve ever heard.”

Thistle Bed & Breakfast, Bathgate, Scotland

Ellery cracked the door. It was Axel. There was a look of unease on his face, and despite a brief smile, she could tell he’d rather be somewhere else. She wished she wasn’t still wearing his shirt. “Come in.”

He stepped in carefully, hands stuffed in his pockets, like he was walking between rickety shelves stacked with glass.

She wasn’t sure whether to leave the door open or closed. “What’s up?”

He took a spot by the desk and gestured to her laptop. “I heard you working.”

“Yep. I’ve got a rough draft.”

His brow peaked and a bit of the stiffness disappeared. “Of what? Not the romance article?”

“Yep.”

“Really?”

She shrugged and let the door swing closed. “I debated for a long time. Finally decided to meet Black halfway.”

Axel tilted his head. “‘Halfway’?” He bent to look at her screen.

“‘The Postmodern Reader: Feminism and the Transformational World of Romance,’ ” he read. “What the hell is this?”

“That’s my take on it. Dr. Albrecht gave me a lot of stuff on the sociological aspects of romance novels in the second half of the twentieth century. It’s tight. It gives romance novels their due. And it satisfies Black’s requirements.”

He hit
PAGE DOWN
and scanned the screen. “‘By subverting a woman’s desire for fulfillment into easily consumable chunks,’” he read, “‘romance novels serve as a psychological break from the trials of everyday life’?” He looked up, horrified. “This doesn’t satisfy Black’s requirements. Where’s the joy? Where’s the excitement? Where’s the buzz coming from those Rosemary Readers? Christ, for this, I should have been taking pictures of you at a podium.”

“Oh, of course,” she said hotly, “I forgot. It’s all about you and your pictures.”

“I think you’ve been in the magazine biz long enough to know it’s nice when the copy matches the photos.”

“Well, in this case, the requirement will have to slide. That’s the story I’m writing.”

“Jesus, Ellery, I’ve never seen you cut a story off at the knees like this. For God’s sake, screw Carlton Purdy. You know you could make this subject sing. If he doesn’t like what a respected journalist writes about how women really feel, then he needs to find a new line of work.”

“I can’t, Axel,” she said, each word a tight burst of scorching steam. “I want this job.”

“I felt better when I thought you weren’t going to write it at all. At least then you were standing on some principles.”