Mr. Love: A Romantic Comedy (20 page)

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8

She’s balked and bolted, Gordon decides as he pushes aside his untouched poached egg, staring, as he has for the past hour, at the doorway to La Caprice restaurant at The Pierre.

He last saw Jane Cooper just before midnight, when he dropped her off at her apartment after the cab ride from LaGuardia.

“Do you want me to come up?” he
’d asked. “Just to see you’re okay?”

Pretending chivalry, but—why hide it?—he felt the pleasurable stirrings of lust beneath his just-too-tight Saks leather belt.

Jane had said, “Thanks, Gordon, but no. I’m exhausted. I’m going to hit the shower and then my bed and I’ll meet you for breakfast at The Pierre at eight.”

It’s now after nine and she’s a no-show.

And when he tries her call her—as he has countless times over the last hour—he goes straight to voice mail.

What had he been thinking?

Jetting off to the Midwest.

Coercing her to return with him to
Manhattan.

That’s what you get when you take Hugh Grant as a role model
, he tells himself.

He’s busy trying to attract the attention of a waiter when Jane appears and drops into the chair opposite him.

“God, I’m sorry, Gordon. I overslept.”

“That’s okay,” he says. “I tried calling.”

“I switched my phone off. All these calls are terrifying me.”

“Good. You’re keeping their appetites whetted.”

“I’ve also had a barrage of emails. I haven’t opened them all, but it seems the Big Five are hunting me down. One I did open was from Argyle, the publisher who bought the book when Bitsy was posing as the author. Amazingly, they’re still keen. They’re speaking of adjusting their offer northward.”

“That’s excellent.”

“And I got a message from Bree Danforth’s agent.”

He stares at her blankly.

“Gordon, which planet are you visiting us from?”

Jan
e shakes her head.

“The gorgeous young actress who famously put her career on hold while she went off to get a first class degree at Yale?”

“I may have heard of her . . .” Gordon says.

Jane snorts.

“I suppose you’re genetically programmed to watch only movies with subtitles?”

“Very funny.”

“Anyway, Bree Danforth has decided that she wants to make her comeback playing Suzie.”

“She sounds perfect.”

“She is. As different from Raynebeau Jones as anybody could be.”

“I
somehow never saw Suzie played by an airhead with a PhD in Valley Girl.”

Jane tries a smile that doesn’t take.

“What’s wrong, Jane?” Gordon asks. “Everything is sounding great? All these offers?”

“Great for you, Gordon, but there’s no place for me.”

He reaches across the table and takes her hand.

“What are you talking about, Jane? I told you, you’ll represent me.”

She shakes her head.

“It’s impossible.
Yesterday I was so lost in booze and grief and general messed-upness I forget one vital detail.”

“Which is?”

“I signed a non-compete clause with Blunt. For five years I’m legally bound not to work in the publishing industry, in any capacity.” She shrugs. “I wanted to tell you this to your face, Gordon.”

She stands.

“Sit, Jane.”

“Why?”

“That non-compete clause is meaningless.”

“Why?”

“Please, sit down.”

She sits.

He opens the copy of
The
Wall Street Journal
that lies beside his untouched breakfast, finds the report headlined
CHAPTER
11
FOR PUBLISHING MAVERICK
and slides it across to her.

“The Blunt Agency is no more. Jonas Blunt declared bankruptcy yesterday.”

She reads for a few seconds then looks up at him.

“My God. The
Ivy
thing took him down. I feel terrible.”

“Don’t. Jonas has been overextending himself in every direction for years.
Ivy
was merely the pin that burst the bubble.”

He takes her hand again.

“So, I see no problem here. I’m not trying to tell you your job, but I suspect you need to announce another auction of
Ivy
.”

Jane shakes her head.

“I feel as though I’m on a rollercoaster.”

“Would a Bloody Mary steady your nerves?”

“No!”

She closes her eyes and pinches the bridge of her nose.

Then she blinks and looks at him with wide eyes.

“You’re asking me to swing one of the biggest publishing deals of the last decade from the bedroom of my apartment?”

“No, I’m not.”

She stares at him blankly.

Gordon stands.

“Come with me. We’re going for a walk.”

“Where to?”

“Don’t ask questions. It’s a lovely Fall morning. Let’s enjoy it.”

He makes for the door and Jane has no choice but to follow him.

“Mr. Rushworth? I’m Ann Bascomb.”

The woman in the dark business suit stands up from a seat near the elevator of a Midtown office tower.

“Pleased to meet you,” Gordon says, shaking her hand. “This is my agent, Jane Cooper.”

The two women shake hands and Ann Bascomb presses for an elevator.

As they step in
side she smiles up at Gordon.

“I hope you don’t mind me saying so, but I’m a huge fan.”

“Thank you,” he says as they ascend.

“I just wish you could sign my Kindle.”

He laughs as the elevator chimes and they walk out into a corridor on the tenth floor.

The property broker unlocks a door and Gordon watches Jane’s face as they
enter a suite of offices with views over the city.

“Well, what do you think?” he asks.

“It’s beautiful,” Jane says. “But I can’t. No. This is crazy.”

Gordon turns to Ann Bascomb.

“Would you give us a moment, please?”

He takes Jane’s arm and walks her over to window that offers a spectacular vista of
Central Park.

“You can do this, Jane.”

“I’m broke.”

“You won’t be for long. You do know that over the next few months your commissions on
Ivy
will total at least seven figures?”

She nods.

“Then what are you waiting for?” Gordon asks.

Jane shakes her head.

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Just say
yes
, Jane.”

Gordon takes her hand
.

“Just say
yes
.”

59

“Yes,” Jane says. “Yes, yes,
yes
!”

She slams
the phone down and swivels her chair to look out over the park, a view that always calms her.

The door to her office opens and her assistant, Belinda, sticks her head in.

“Everything okay?”

“
It’s just those damned press people from the studio in L.A. wanting to know if Gordon will be available for interviews before the premiere on Friday. I’ve given them his schedule at least ten times.”

“Why don’t you go home?” Belinda asks.

Jane shakes her head.

“There’s too much for me to do.
The perils of being bicoastal.”

“
Nothing that won’t keep until tomorrow. I’ve got it. Scram.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“You’re an angel, Belinda.”

“Yeah, yeah,” her assistant says, and as the girl exits the office to attend to a ringing telephone Jane has a flash of her with her middle finger raised as the elevator doors closed on her in the lobby of the building where the Blunt Agency had once had its offices.

How things have changed in the last eighteen months.

Sometimes Jane still feels she needs to pinch herself to make sure it’s all real.

She gets her purse and blows Belinda a kiss as she passes her desk, her assistant blithely lying that Jane is in a meeting for the rest of the day.

She exits the office and closes the door, still getting a kick when she sees the neatly lettered sign:
THE JANE COOPER AGENCY.

She takes the elevator down to the lobby and steps out in the beauty of a
New York spring sunset, the first time she hasn’t worked late into the night in weeks.

Her good mood isn’t at all dampened when she hails a cab and hears the
lush intro of “Dream a Little Dream of Me” coming from the driver’s radio.

Whatever power the song once had is long gone.

And, for just a moment, when she thinks of what happened with her ex-fiancé, it is with relief, not regret.

Tom Bennett, finally stumbling in his frantic tap dance, has swapped his button-down Brooks Brothers for an orange jumpsuit—doing five years in Upstate New York for dealing cocaine.

Then all thoughts of the past are washed away by the glorious light and the pleasurable expectation of arriving home.

Home
which is no longer in the Meat Packing District but on the Upper East Side.

In a
n apartment paid for by
Ivy
.

Jane
tips the cab driver and walks into the lobby, the doorman holding the door open for her.

“
Evening, Mrs. Rushworth.”

“
Evening, Tony,” she says, heading for the elevator.

She has slipped easily into this happily schizophrenic state: Ms. Cooper at work, Mrs. Rushworth at home.

Dare she say it?

The
best of both worlds . . .

Jan
e lets herself into the apartment and pauses to let the elegance of the rooms and the spectacular view wash over her.

She hears her father’s voice:
It’s a long way from Hicksville, baby.

“
Sure is Daddy,” she says out loud. “Sure is.”

“Jane?”

Gordon calls to her and she crosses the living room, walks a little way down the corridor and pushes open the door to his office.

He looks up at her from his computer.

“You’re early.”

“Perks of being the boss.”

She bends to give him a kiss.

“How are you doing?”

“Steady as she goes,” he says.

Gordon is woefully late on delivering the third episode of the Suzie Ballinger saga.

The sequel to
Ivy
—
Hometown
—was a massive success when it was released six months ago and the publishers were keen to coincide the release of the third book with the premiere of the movie.

That is not to be.

Not that anybody is going to risk upsetting their cash cow by being overly judgmental or demanding.

“Come on, Gordy,” Jane says, “be honest. You haven’t written a thing today have you?’

“Well . . .”

“You’ve been yakking endlessly with Suzie. Admit it
.”

“She has been
particularly
verbal today.”

He stands, laughing, and takes Jane’s hand, leading her down the corridor into the gaily decorated nursery where their six-month-old daughter, Suzie Jane Cooper Rushworth, sits in her playpen, under the watchful gaze of her nanny.

“Hi, Mariel. How has she been?”

“Oh, gorgeous of course, Jane.”

As she lifts her daughter from her playpen a shaft of golden light from the sinking sun sets fire to her soft curls and Jane is left breathless at the sheer beauty of their child.

Standing at the window holding
Suzie she looks up into Gordon’s eyes.

“Happy?” he asks.

“Egregiously. Excessively. Ludicrously.”

He laughs and bends and kisses her as the
light fades behind the skyscrapers and the moon, full and ripe with promise, rises over the Manhattan skyline.

THE END

Also by Sally Mason

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