Anyone but You (18 page)

"Started a secure life. Nina deserves it."

"Have you discussed this with her?" Max said. "She may not give a damn about the money."

Alex set his jaw. "I give a damn. She's going to have everything she had before." He clapped Max on the shoulder. "Thanks for the advice, by the way. You were right."

"I'm always right," Max said. "Which advice?" When Alex laughed and began to walk away, Max added, "Well, here's some more. I think you should talk to Nina about this cardiology thing. You know, she left the guy with the money the last time."

"I know what I'm doing, Max," Alex said over his shoulder. "She's going to have everything."

"Whether she wants it or not?" Max called after him, and Alex ignored him.

He had enough qualms about what he was doing. He didn't need Max adding more.

* * *

"Late night?" Jessica said brightly when Nina staggered into the office two hours late.

Nina nodded. "I was, uh, up with a friend."

"Lucky you," Jessica said, and Nina started, not quite sure she'd heard such a non-beige comment from her boss. "How's Charity's book coming along?" Jessica added, and Nina caught an underlying note of tension in her voice.

"She's in rewrite," Nina said. "I should have it edited within a couple of weeks." She swallowed.

"I can show it to you then. There are a few things—"

"No." Jessica held up her hand. "You don't need to discuss it with me. I trust you. In fact, I don't even need to read it at all."

Nina gaped at her. Jessica read everything that went out from Howard Press, not because she didn't trust her editors but because she loved the Press and its books. Something was wrong here.

"You did say you thought it was going to be popular, didn't you?" Jessica asked, and this time her intensity was unmistakable.

The wolf must be at the door. And judging from her intense interest, Jessica must be hoping that she could throw Charity's book at it and scare it away.

"I think it's going to be very popular," Nina said.

Jessica nodded. "Well, then. Not that popularity matters, of course."

Nina nodded. "Of course not."

When Jessica had gone back to her office, Nina collapsed into her chair and thought about the situation.

Jessica knew there were going to be things in Charity's book that she wasn't going to like.

Jessica needed a bestseller.

So Jessica was going to ignore the book until it was pub-ished, and then tell people, "Well, I hadn't actually seen the book before it went to press so I was surprised, of course, but it's doing very well for us, so..."

But Jessica didn't know that the book had turned into fiction. Howard Press didn't print fiction.

Nina thought about the problem from all the angles. What it came down to was that Jessica had stuck her head in the sand, so it was Nina's decision. And Nina's decision ivas that it was time for Howard Press to print fiction.

She took a deep breath and called Charity. "When can you have that book done?"

"The end of the week," Charity said. "It's going like wildfire now that it's fiction."

"Shhhhhh!" Nina hissed. "Good. Get it to me this weekend. This is going to be the fastest edit any book ever had. We want this out fast."

"Why?"

"Because you're going to save our butts, babe," Nina told her. "Write good."

"I am," Charity said. "What's wrong with you? You sound like you're on speed."

"My life has been very exciting lately," Nina said.

"It'd be a lot more exciting if you'd go downstairs and jump Alex," Charity said.

"I did."

"What? Oh, for joy, for joy, for joy!" The phone bumped and Nina pictured Charity doing a modified bunny hop around the boutique, Charity's time-honored method of showing happiness beyond expression. Charity came back on the line. "This is so great! This is beyond great!" Then her voice grew cautious.

"It was great, wasn't it?"

"The earth moved, the stars wept and the sun turned cartwheels 'cross the sky," Nina said.

"The greatest sex since time began."

Charity moaned. "Oh, terrific, now I'm jealous."

"He has a brother," Nina suggested. "Looks just like him except with dark hair."

Charity snorted. "Max. Him I've met. No thanks."

"Well, you can't have Alex," Nina said. "He's mine." Then she realized what she'd just said and stopped.

"Oh," Charity said. "Like that, is it?"

"Probably not," Nina said, but when Alex came home that night, it was exactly like that.

"This is not just a two-night stand," he told her sternly when they were lying exhausted on her hall floor, having made love inside her door because they couldn't wait to get to her bedroom. "We have a future."

"A future," Nina echoed, still trying to regroup her senses after orgasm. "Futures are good."

"You, me and Fred," Alex said. "Forever. Except from now on we find something softer to do this on or my knees will be shot."

"Okay," Nina said. "A future, huh?"

"I know what you're thinking." Alex sat up, and Nina watched the muscles in his back flex and thought, If you knew what I was thinking, you 'd be back down here with me. "You're thinking I'm not responsible enough for you," Alex went on. "That I can't give you the life Guy gave you."

Nina sat up. "I don't want—"

Alex put his hand over her mouth. "I know you'd never say anything about the money, but it's important to me. I want you to have everything.''

Nina peeled his hand away. "I have everything."

Alex ignored her. "So I told Dad I'd take the cardiology position."

Nina blinked. "I thought you didn't want it. I thought you wanted the ER. I thought—"

"This is what I want," Alex said, and Nina shut up.

Great. He was going to be a cardiologist. A lifetime of cocktail parties and conventions stretched before her. Fund-raising for the cardiac unit. Opening nights. All the garbage she thought she'd escaped when she left Guy. All starting all over again.

And that was the worst part. It was starting all over again. She'd helped Guy build a career, and now she got to build another one. If she'd stayed with Guy, at least she wouldn't have had to do this garbage all over again.

Then she looked at Alex and felt terrible. It wasn't his fault she was a retread. If she'd been in her twenties instead of her forties, she'd be champing at the bit to help him out. If this was the price she had to pay for loving Alex, it was worth it. Alex was worth anything.

Even wearing that damn Incredibra for the rest of her life.

"Great," she told him. "This is great."

* * *

"Charity, this book is really great," she said two weeks later when she and Charity were sitting on the living-room floor drinking Amaretto milk shakes, celebrating this time. "I had to do practically no editing.

It's wonderful. It's tight and it flows and it's funny and the sex scenes are incredible. I read one to Alex last night, and he jumped me."

"You could read the phone book to Alex and he'd jump you," Charity told her.

"Not necessarily," Nina said, and Charity stopped with her milk shake halfway to her mouth.

"Uh-oh," she said. "Trouble in paradise?"

"He's working with his father," Nina said. "Getting ready for this cardiology thing. Long hours. He's a little tired." Actually, he'd fallen asleep in front of the TV before Harrison Ford had found the Holy Grail. She'd tried to be understanding, but it was definitely a bad sign.

Charity nodded. "Kenneth."

Nina closed her eyes and groaned. "Don't say that. I want this to work."

"It will." Charity slurped some of her milk shake. "That's what I found out writing this book. I gave up on him too fast. We might have made it work. I mean, he was a great guy, he was just trying to start a big career."

Nina thought about Alex. "I'm sure you're right." Then she realized what Charity had said. "Are you sorry you divorced Kenneth?"

Charity shook her head. "Nope. That was years ago now. I'm going forward. But I've learned from it.

The next guy I hook up with is going to be my last. My Raoul."

Nina's thoughts went back to Alex. "It's not just the sleeping. He's drinking too much."

"Alex? He doesn't seem like the drunk type."

"He's not." Nina bit her lip. "His brother shows up four or five nights a week with a six-pack and they split it. And then they both look at the empty cans the way Fred looks at an empty Oreo wrapper."

Charity scowled. "Well, there's your explanation. It's his brother."

Nina shook her head. "No, it's not. Max is a good guy. In fact, Max is a great guy. The rest of Alex's family is sort of cold, but Max has been great from the start."

"Sort of cold? You didn't tell me you met his family."

"We had dinner." Nina's face twisted as she remembered. "His father looked at me and said,

'We were hoping Alex would have children.'"

Charity winced. "Ouch. What did Alex say?"

"He said, 'No, we weren't,' and Max said, 'Can I get you a drink, Nina?' and Max's mom did something to his dad and he sort of flinched and shut up. But it was ugly. And then there was the dinner with my family."

"Oh, boy. How is your mother? Still flash-frozen?"

"She was very polite to Alex," Nina said. "And then after dessert, she pulled me to one side and said,

'What are you going to do when he leaves you for a younger woman?'"

Charity rolled her eyes and picked up her milk shake to finish it off. "So I guess you and Alex won't be spending the holidays with the families."

Nina laughed shortly. "Just with Max. I like him a lot. We'll make our own family with you and Max and Fred."

"Well, if you're planning on marrying me off, I'll take Fred before I take Max." Charity stood up.

"Listen, I've got to go. Thanks for the milk shake."

"Wait a minute." Nina scrambled to her feet. "Don't you want to talk about the book?"

"No. The book is finished. I wrote it and rewrote it and rewrote it and now I want to forget it for a while. Do I need to rewrite it again?"

"No," Nina said. "I'll do the final edit and send it to you to check over, and then we'll send it to the printer. Jessica put a hurry-up on it, so we should have bound ARCs in a month."

Charity stopped stretching. "ARCs?"

"Advance Reader Copies. They go out to reviewers so we can get some good review quotes for the jacket."

Charity's arms dropped to her sides. "Lots of reviewers?"

"For your book, yes." Nina bent to pick up their milk shake glasses. "I'm sending this one to every reviewer on the planet. It's going to be great."

"I hope so." Charity's voice sounded hollow. "I really want this to be good, Neen. I've never done anything with my brains before."

Nina blinked at her. "Of course you have. You run that store beautifully.''

Charity swallowed. "I mean creative brains. I already have an idea for another book. I really want this to work."

Nina hugged Charity, wrapping her arms around her so that the glasses in her hands clanked as she clutched her. "It's going to work," she promised her, while she said a silent, fervent prayer that it would, not only for Charity's sake, but for her own and Jessica's, too.

* * *

"So hows it going with Nina?" Max asked Alex at lunch the next week in the hospital cafeteria.

"Nina's great." Alex tried to sound happy but a yawn overwhelmed him. "Life's great."

Max raised an eyebrow at him . "Well, don't let the enthusiasm make you lose your grip."

"No." Alex shook his head and then regretted it. It felt as if his brains were rattling in his skull like mushy marbles. "I mean it. She's great."

Max leaned back. "And how's cardiology?"

Alex tried to focus on him. "Cardiology? Cardiology sucks."

Max shook his head. "Why don't you knock this off and go back to the ER and make everybody happy?"

Alex glared at him. "People are happy I'm in cardiology. Dad's ecstatic."

Max looked at him with disbelief. "How can you tell?"

Alex ignored him. "And Nina's going to be happy once I get this work schedule ironed out. Pretty soon I'll be out of the ER, and then—"

"And then you will be miserable," Max finished. "I can't believe you're doing this to yourself. And for what? Nina will love you no matter what you do. She's great, the best thing that ever happened to you.

And you're missing it because you have some dumb idea that she needs to be rich."

"I'll tell you what's a dumb idea," Alex told him. "The Incredibra. That's a dumb idea."

Max nodded. "Yes, I can see how we got from cardiology to bras. Makes perfect sense. A word of advice—get some sleep before you kill a patient."

"I may kill myself first," Alex said, and then blinked. "Forget I said that. I don't know what I'm saying."

"You're saying you're unhappy." Max stood up and shoved his chair back, and the screech it made on the floor made Alex wince. "Stop this, Alex. You're going to end up like Dad. And me."

Alex blinked up at him. "You? What's wrong with you?"

Max looked down at him, and for the first time, Alex saw his brother as an older man, not just a guy to pal around with. "I'm thirty-six, I've poured my whole life into my career, I'm burned-out and I'm alone," Max said, and his voice was like lead. "I'm tired, and I've got nowhere to go. And no one to go to. You have Nina. Hell, if I had Nina, I'd grab her and go to a beach somewhere and just watch the sun come up and go down forever. You've got it all, and you're throwing it away. Don't screw this up, Alex."

Alex swallowed. "You're exaggerating."

Max nodded, defeated. "Probably. I'll be by with a six-pack tonight, and we can forget I said that together.''

"Good," Alex said. "Make it a twelve-pack. I've got some other stuff to forget, too."

* * *

"Some of the advance reviews are back, Charity," Nina said to her a month later on the office phone while she stared at the letters before her. "We're just getting them."

"Well, how are they?" Charity demanded.

"They're good," Nina said. "They're really good. They're just not what I expected.''