Summers' Love, A Cute and Funny Cinderella Love Story (LPC Romantic Comedy Series) (22 page)

“And now you want to become a dealer?”

“I called the number on the brochure you gave us and asked if there was still time to register. It’s like you said at the party, these puppies sell themselves. And not that you care what I think, but you need to get over yourself. You’re crazy if you don’t call Stu Summers right now and beg him to take you back. The guy writes best-selling books, for Pete’s sake, and he wrote
you
a love letter.”

“I’ll think about it,” said Kate, pulling her luggage into the room and slowly pushing the door shut, hoping Red would get the hint.

“Malcolm out there told me the hotel’s restaurant starts serving breakfast at six. Want to join me, say, around seven?”

“Better make it seven-thirty. I plan to sleep as long as I can.”

“Seven-thirty it is.”

Red turned, took a few steps toward the elevator, and looked back. “I mean it; call him. Push your pride aside and let him off the hook. ‘Forgiveness is the divine miracle of grace.’”

“Let me guess,” said Kate. “From one of Stu’s books?”

Red shook her head. “Nope. Oswald Chambers.” She pointed toward one eye, then pointed at Kate. “See you at breakfast.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Stu knocked on the door of Blair Dalyrimple’s office and waited. He heard murmuring on the other side of the door. An editor’s assistant strolled past, one he’d known for years. Stu nodded. Her stone-hard gaze confirmed Stu’s fears: word had already leaked out about the call to Dalyrimple and his refusal to submit a manuscript. He could only imagine what the editor’s assistant was thinking. “There’s Summers, the problem author who insists on titling his book, designing its cover, assigning his own editor, and now, choosing if and when he meets his deadlines.”

Stu attempted to act casual, as if it was no big deal: him standing outside the senior editor’s office waiting to get canned. But he was a ball of nerves and knotted tighter than a jib sheet with an overwrap. The door opened. Jeff Clark, President of Little Brown Pelican, emerged. Clark made eye contact but stepped past Stu without speaking.

“Nice to see you, too,” Stu muttered.

Blair Dalyrimple spoke from the other side of her desk, “Come in, Stu.”

Stu entered the small office and waited for an invitation to sit. Dalyrimple’s gaze traveled from Stu’s teal sport shirt and khaki slacks, down to his bare ankles and Topsiders, then back up. The senior editor’s expression was like that of a woman who has discovered her husband cheating—taut, controlled, and prepared to unload hell’s fury.

“Sit.”

Stu eased into the vacant chair next to the large desk strewn with papers and stacked with manuscripts. For a few moments they stared at each other as though they were both specimens under a glass slide. Stu cocked a brow toward her; she did the same, hers a deep, natural red to his dark brown.

Blair Dalyrimple, Stu had often said, had a “kind” face—the “kind of face” that, on most occasions, was all business, its expression as sure as the red highlights in her auburn hair. Yet, as Stu knew personally from their many after-hours cocktails and dinners at the cafes only New Yorkers knew about, when she let loose … when she was just being “Blair” … she had the “kind of face” that could light up the darkest night. Her smile came easily. Her blue eyes, more times than not hidden behind quirky specs, twinkled. Literally. They twinkled.

At that moment, however, those blue eyes appeared anything but jovial. Dalyrimple pivoted her laptop standing open in the middle of the chaos. She tapped the screen, pointing to the email Stu had sent. “What’s
this
about?”

“It’s not going to work out, Blair. I thought it would, but I’m spent.”

“But the writing is great. Better than anything you’ve written in years, probably ever.” She popped the top off a tube of ChapStick Stu hadn’t noticed before, ran the balm over her unpainted lips, snapped the top back on and then flung the tube on top of a pile of papers. “Again, what’s this about?”

“I’ll return the advance.”

“Of course. That’s in your contract. But if you follow through with this nonsense, you’ll do more than that. We are prepared for legal action. You know that, right?” She leaned forward, all five-foot-nothing of her, and linked her fingers, resting her chin on knuckles. “What’s this
really
about, Stu? Is another house courting you? Are you using this as leverage to get another three-book deal? Because if you are …”

“No, that’s not it at all. Like I said, the ink well is dry. It happens.”

“Uh-huh.” Dalyrimple blinked, picked up the tube of ChapStick and threw it back down again. “What’s her name?”

He felt himself blushing. “Who?”

“The woman you fell in love with. Look, I haven’t known you for a long time, but I do believe I can read you pretty well. For someone who works as hard as you do to project and protect your image, pulling a bone-head stunt like this smacks of insanity. And you aren’t crazy. Not even remotely certifiable. The only reason I can think of for you tossing away your career like this is love. So … who is she?”

“I’d rather not say. I’ve already burned that bridge and I would rather not stomp the embers.”

Blair drummed her fingers on the tiny sliver of wood exposed on her desk. “If it’s over then why not finish the manuscript?”

Stu looked out the picture window behind his editor, across the sea of rooftops and the clusters of buildings. “I made a promise.”

“To us or to her?”

Stu considered the question. He was contracted with Little Brown Pelican but he was in love with Kate. There would be other books … maybe. But there was only one Kate.

“Okay, look …” Blair shifted in her chair as if she were about to get down to some serious business. “We can fix this.” She pointed to her chest. “
I
can fix this.” His editor actually looked as if she felt sorry for him.

As much as he appreciated her sympathy, Stu had never been completely comfortable with this kinder, gentler side of Dalyrimple. It left him feeling somewhat disturbed in much the way a rancher in New Mexico might feel uneasy when he suspected for the first time that his bonnet-wearing, Amish neighbor might actually be a space alien. For a few seconds, Stu struggled to recall why that mental analogy seemed familiar. Then he remembered; Hattie had written something like that in the first chapter of that disastrous manuscript that had started all this.

“Fix it how?” he asked. It never hurt to explore all the options.

“I march you down the hall to Clark’s office, and we tell him there’s been a mistake. You were drunk, high, something.”

“But I wasn’t.”

“I’ll explain to him that you’re back on board. Leak it to the media that you’re under a lot of stress to live up to your fans’ expectations.”

Stu took a moment to allow the implications to sink in. “You mean, like I’m suffering from a nervous breakdown?”

“We’ll let the PR Department spin it however they think best. Point is,” she said, removing the brown, cat eye retro glasses, “I can fix this. And you need to let me.”

Stu looked from Blair to her laptop screen and then back to his editor. “It’s really that good?”

“If they gave the Pulitzer for romance, this would win, hands down.”

Seriously …
his
story
? Tempting, but … “Like I said, I made a promise. I can’t go back on my word.”

“I am not going to beg, Summers. You want to ruin your career, that’s your business. Mine is to do all I can to help Little Brown Pelican Publishing pad their bottom line and as much as I loathe romance novels, they do pay the bills. This, this right here,” she picked up and waved the first four chapters of
Man’s Best Friend,
“is pure gold. Tell you what—sleep on it. Give me your answer tomorrow. I’ll let Clark know you’re reconsidering your position.”

Stu’s phone vibrated from the recesses of his pants pocket. He dug in, pulled it out, and looked at the screen. A text message from Kate. “Excuse me,” he said to Dalyrimple, already touching the screen to read what she had to say.

If you meant what you said in the airport about wanting a second chance, I’m willing to meet and try to work things out. Come to Charleston. Let’s talk about this … about us.

Stu stood, his heart beating so rapidly he wondered if Blair could hear it. “I don’t need to sleep on it. You have my decision. You were right.”

“About?”

“This being about love. And if I have to choose between love stories and love, I pick love. Now if you’ll excuse me …”

Chapter Twenty-seven

Kate stretched between the luxurious linens of the Vendue Inn’s guest bed, staring at the face of her cell phone, waiting for a response.

She’d give him to the count of ten. If he didn’t text her back by then … she’d know. He’d not been serious. He’d played her for a fool. Like before … with her husband. Her first one. Her
only
one.

Kate squeezed her eyes shut and counted. “One … nine, ten.”

The movie she’d been watching,
Kate and Leopold
, returned from commercial break at the point in the movie where Kate and the two-hundred-year-old Leopold take a tour around Manhattan.

“Ugh,” Kate said from her bed, straightening to sit. She glared at the cell phone. “Answer, for crying out loud.” She tossed the phone to her feet and put her attention back to the movie.

“I miss its rhythm,” Hugh Jackman (playing Leopold, the Duke of Albany, a man displaced in time) was saying when asked if he missed the New York he knew before finding himself in 2001.

New York. Where Stu was now. Where Stu was now,
not
reading his text message from her.

“I’m an idiot,” she said, reaching for the phone. She poked on some of the buttons. “Isn’t there a way to retract messages sent? There should be a way—”

Her screen indicated a message from Stu:
I’m out of here as soon as I can book a flight.

She felt tempted to wait as long as he had to answer, but changed her mind.

Okay,
she pecked out with her index finger. Then, before hitting send, she typed:
I love you.
Her thumb hovered over the “send” button until she thought better of it. Quickly, she erased the last three words before sending the text on its way.

“From Charleston to New York City in two-point-two seconds,” she said, then threw her head back against the squishy pillows.

She sat up again. Sent another text:
Let me know the details once you do.

Within seconds, he texted back:
I will.

Kate laid back again, this time more carefully, and turned her head to watch a little more of the movie, one she’d seen so many times she could practically quote the dialogue.

“I don’t want it to be Sunday,” she mouthed with Meg Ryan. “I want more of this, more 1876.”

Her phone indicated another message had come through. She lifted it to just inches above her face to read:
I love you.

Her breath caught in her throat and she sat up again. “Don’t mess with me again, Stu Summers,” she said as though he could hear her. “I can’t take it. Do you hear me?”

Of course he didn’t. He was—what—twelve hours away by car? Two by plane. Her stomach knotted. Did he mean it? Or was this more of his fiction drivel? Another chapter to his next runaway best-seller?

She glanced at the television. Hugh Jackman—Leopold—was putting Meg Ryan—Kate—to bed, tucking the covers around her, calling her “Your Grace.”

Could love be that simple? That tender?

The movie went to commercial, and she went to the bathroom to find some water and a couple of Tylenol. She placed her palms down on the cold bathroom countertop and allowed her head to drop between her shoulders. “Lord,” she whispered. “If you’re up there … I’ve lost my home … got a dead-end job at a mall … and now … I can’t …” She shook her head, felt her hair tickle the sides of her face. “I can’t take another disappointment. I
can’t
get hurt, again.” Kate heard her words as if for the first time and wondered if her prayer—and she realized now that’s what she was doing, praying—would make any difference. Feeling a little self-conscious she continued. “I know I come out like the tough guy most days, but you know …
you
know. I’m not so tough. I’m scared to death that …” She paused. Listened to a soft voice whisper to her heart.
Of what, Kate? What are you so scared of?

“Pain,” she whispered back, tears stinging her eyes. “Of being made a fool of again.”
Because
, she thought,
this isn’t me looking stupid in front of family and friends. It’s me looking stupid in front of the whole romance-reading world.

* * *

Stu Summers exited Louis Vuitton on 57
^th
Street carrying two shopping bags. The one in his right hand held a burgundy silk and wool monogrammed shawl. The bag in his left hand held a sleek calfskin clutch he thought would be perfect for Kate to carry on the romantic dinners he planned to woo her with. Between the two, he’d dropped over $4,000 and he didn’t care. He was
about
to be broke; he wasn’t destitute yet.