She was momentarily relieved to find that she hadn’t sent him a message. But, she realised with a start, she didn’t need to wait until the morning for things to be awkward. They already were. His kiss had been so unexpected, and while he clearly had snogging prowess, she simply didn’t understand why he had walked away from her just as she had started to respond to him.
She had done her very best to keep things professional all day. She had truly believed that she had and that he respected her as a fellow writer. They had achieved so much in the last few hours and now? Now, it was messy.
Her head was jumbled and a little hazy from the wine she’d had to drink and she was just tired of trying to work out why people behaved the way they did.
She didn’t even have the energy to call or message her friends. She stared at her phone and looked at their names, thought of how they all had it together, when again she seemed to have got mixed up in a weird situation.
Her eyes were drawn to the lengthy message Lorcan had sent her just before she had gone to the bar. She wished she felt she could call him because he would know what to say. His life was in a similar state of flux, but then would he only tell her ‘I told you so’ when she confessed that Ewan had kissed her?
Suddenly she was just very, very tired and more than a little drunk. While she tried to make sense of the evening, she drifted off.
When she woke to see sunlight peeping in through the curtains, she felt as if she had barely closed her eyes. It couldn’t possibly be morning. Her body yearned to just roll over, especially given the comfort of her bed, and go back to sleep.
However, when she looked at her phone it was already gone half past seven and she was supposed to meet Ewan for breakfast at eight.
With her phone unlocked, she saw that it was still open at the message from Lorcan. Reading it again, in the midst of her hangover, she felt the need to try and make things right with him. They didn’t have to be best friends. They didn’t even have to be friends at all, but she hated that she had fallen out with him and she wanted so much to fix that. She tapped a quick reply.
I’m back in Derry later today. Maybe we can meet for coffee tomorrow?
She would leave it up to Lorcan, but she hoped they could start again. For now, she just had to get through one more day with Ewan and for some reason that prospect made her very nervous indeed. And she must admit she didn’t feel great this morning.
Thankfully, she felt marginally more human after she had washed and dressed in fresh clothes. With every stroke of her make-up brush, she transformed herself from hung-over zombie creature into Jo Campbell, aspiring writer and consummate professional, ready to go to her breakfast meeting and discuss pacing and plot twists like she absolutely knew what she was doing. And like she absolutely hadn’t been kissed by her co-writer the day before.
She made herself a cup of coffee and sipped from it, before she opened the curtains and balcony door and walked out into the fresh air. She reminded herself to breathe in and breathe out again. Looking out at Lough Eske, she centred herself. In fact, Jo was so calm that she jumped and swore when the beeping of her phone pulled her out of her contemplative relaxation.
Chances were, she thought, that it was Ewan telling her to hurry up. Or Lorcan letting her know that he would meet her for coffee. She absolutely did not expect it to be an email from someone with the exact same name as one of the biggest literary agents in the business. In fact, it was the same literary agent who represented Ewan McLachlan.
The subject matter read: ‘The Lies We Tell’.
A sound, almost but not quite a scream, erupted from her throat. ‘Shit!’ she exclaimed. ‘Shitting shit!’ Her hand flew to her mouth and she had to sit down for fear she would fall to the ground. What on earth was this about? Why was Graham Westbury emailing her and how in the hell did he know what her as-yet-to-be-submitted-to-anyone book was called?
With a shaking hand, she opened the email and willed her eyes to focus on the words in front of her.
Dear Jo,
First of all, I apologise for the early hour of this email. I have been up through the night reading your manuscript, The Lies We Tell, and I simply couldn’t go to sleep until I had made contact with you.
This is one of the strongest submissions I have received in recent times. You have written a taut and powerful thriller, which is perfect for the current market. While I do think it could benefit from some additional editing, I think the standard with which you write is exceptionally high.
I would love to chat with you regarding representation and how I envisage growing your career. I believe we could make a great team. Please let me know a time that would suit for a phone chat, and maybe we could arrange a face-to-face meeting in London, courtesy of the Westbury Agency.
I appreciate you may have interest from other agents, so I shall direct you to my website for details of my current client list. This will give you an idea of what I hope to achieve for you.
Warmest regards, in anticipation of hearing from you,
Graham Westbury
Jo read the email five times. Then she clicked on the sender’s email address in case it was someone pretending to be Graham Westbury. She half expected the email address to read [email protected], but instead it appeared entirely genuine and had been sent from [email protected].
But surely it couldn’t be genuine. Not least because Jo had not submitted her book to anyone. The only person she had sent it to was Libby, who had forwarded it on to Ewan, of course.
But surely Ewan wouldn’t have gone over her head and showed it to his agent without discussing it with her first. Especially when he had already suggested a plethora of changes and a tight edit.
But Libby Quinn, however… Libby Quinn was exactly the kind of person who would submit her book without telling her first. In that moment, as the words Graham had written were still sinking in, she didn’t know if she wanted to kill Libby or tell her she loved her with all her heart.
She’d settle for a phone call. Scrolling to Libby’s name in her phone, she hit the call button and listened as it rang. A rather groggy-sounding Libby answered after the fifth ring with a husky ‘Hello’.
‘Libby Quinn, I want you to tell the God’s honest truth here. Did you send my book to anyone other than Ewan? Please don’t lie, this is very important.’
There was a pause. ‘Please don’t hate me,’ Libby began. ‘I just thought you needed an extra push and so I sent it out, but only to a couple of people.’
‘A couple of people? What kind of people?’ Jo asked, her heart now thumping furiously at the realisation this email could actually be legitimate.
‘Well, some agents. You know…’ There was a distinct nervousness to Libby’s tone.
‘Graham Westbury? Did you send it to Graham Westbury?’ Jo pressed.
‘Yes,’ Libby said quietly. ‘I did. I’m sorry, Jo. I thought I was doing the right thing and I was going to tell you, but you were so mad about me sending your work on to Ewan, I didn’t want to rock the boat further. I can’t apologise enough.’
‘Libby,’ Jo said, feeling a little light-headed. ‘Don’t apologise. There’s no need. Libby, he wants to represent me.’