It wasn’t fair. He had the home-court advantage and knew it.
But I wasn’t going to let him win, any more than Kitty Katz ever let her mortal enemy, Raul Wolf, win when they competed against each other during school debates and spelling bees.
“I’m so glad you were able to come,” Will said to me in that deep voice that fans of his audiobooks loved so much.
“Thanks for inviting me. You have a lovely home.” How I longed to throw stones through those glass windows of his. “I met your sister, Chloe, just now.”
Will’s dark eyebrows lifted, registering surprise. But before he could say anything, Molly cried, “Oh, Chloe! Isn’t she sweet? She and my stepdaughter, Katie, have become inseparable since Will and Chloe moved here. We’re so lucky to have them both on the island. Will’s become such an asset to the literary community, and Chloe is—well, Chloe is Chloe!”
I couldn’t help it: I smirked. Will Price, an asset to the literary community? More like an ass.
I know. Real mature. But I can’t help it, I write for kids.
Unfortunately, Will seemed to notice my little smirk, since I saw those dark eyes narrow at me.
“Sure,” I said, wiping the smile off my face. I should never have touched the wine. “I can imagine.”
“Anyway, if you’ll both excuse me,” Molly said, “I have to go help everyone find their seats. Ms. Wright, you’re at the Hemingway table over—”
“Oh, yes, I know. And I told you, it’s Jo, please.”
“Right! Jo!” Molly twinkled at us, then waddled over to where Kellyjean was causing a huge clog in the flow of traffic, not because she didn’t know where her seat was, but because her sandals had finally become too much for her, and she’d sat down in the middle of the beach and begun undoing them.
That left Will Price and me alone with each other for the first time since we’d been in that green room together at Novel Con a year and a half ago.
Well, as alone as two people could be at a dinner party with over fifty other people milling around them.
We hadn’t really been alone in that green room, either. People had kept coming in and out.
But I, at least, had thought we’d gotten along so well. Besides bonding over the terrible coffee, we’d chatted about how difficult it was, getting up so early to give a speech to so many people. (Novel Con was one of the largest annual fan conventions in the publishing industry, and there was no greater honor than giving the breakfast speech on day one of the convention, but it wasn’t glamorous. It required being in the green room by six A.M., while the audience of five thousand filed in to find their seats at their tables in the auditorium by eight.)
Will had even complimented my dress. I’d splurged for once and hired a stylist who’d assured me that the “springtime green” designer wrap dress she’d chosen and I’d purchased (for an exorbitant amount of money, or at least what seemed like it to a girl who was used to picking up bargains at factory outlets) would bring out the blue of my eyes and what were then the honey-blond highlights in my hair.
It seemed to have worked, too. I’d caught Will surreptitiously checking me out.
And I hadn’t minded, because I’d been admiring the broadness of his shoulders in his dark blue sports coat, the way the corners of his mouth turned up at the sides, and, yes, God help me, the slight but perfectly noticeable bulge in the front of his oh-so-perfectly form-fitting jeans.
But why shouldn’t we have checked each other out? We were around the same age, and in the same line of work. And of course we’d both been plagiarized by the same person. We’d even bonded over that (or so I’d thought) as we’d waited to be called to give our speeches, describing how each of us had found out (he’d been told by his publisher, I’d been tweeted by a fan) and what a weirdo Nicole was for thinking she’d get away with it.
I’d honestly thought that despite his terrible books (simply not my taste, given that I’d experienced the death of a loved one firsthand, and didn’t care to relive that trauma through fiction), Will Price seemed like a nice person.
What a pity, I’d thought at the time, that I’m saddled with Justin, who claims to be a writer but never actually writes anything and then complains that we never go out because I’m too busy writing all the time. I could maybe see myself with a guy like Will. Or maybe even Will himself.
It wasn’t until the next week, when the Times story hit, that I learned what a mistake that line of thinking had been.
I sipped my wine—the server had come around again to refill my glass—and decided Will should be the one to speak next. Also that what he said had better be an apology or I wasn’t going to say another word to him all night, which would be awkward, considering I was sitting beside him.
He did speak next, but he didn’t apologize. Instead, he said, “Chloe told you, didn’t she?”
This was so unexpected that I forgot all about not speaking to him until he apologized. “Told me what?”
He studied my face for a moment, his brown eyes—as dark as the shadows beyond the festively lit tables—seeming to rake my face, looking for some clue that I knew … what?
Then, apparently deciding I didn’t know whatever it was, and that he was in the clear, he reached in relief for one of the wineglasses that had been poured on the table nearest us, even though it wasn’t his assigned seat, and took a hearty swig.
“Never mind,” he said.
Now I forgot all about not speaking until I got an apology. He thought I didn’t know what his lovely sister had told me—that she was a fan of my books! After all the nasty things he’d said about me and my writing (well, all right, it was only one nasty thing, but one was enough), it turned out that his own kin adored me and my creation!
“As a matter of fact, she did tell me,” I said, feeling a rush of exultation. “She told me everything.”
This couldn’t have had a more satisfying effect. Those deliciously dark eyes of his widened, and the normally upturned corners of that pouty mouth—what was such a small mouth doing on so large a man, anyway?—sloped downward.
“She did?”
“Oh, yes.” I was loving this. My mother’s ancestors were so right. Revenge delayed was the very best kind. “Absolutely. And I can’t say I’m surprised.”
He seemed to have forgotten the wineglass in his hand. It sank so low that the little remaining liquid in it was spilling out, splashing onto the sand.
“You’re … you’re not?”
“Of course not.” I was really impressed with how assertive I was being. Bernadette would have been proud. “I have fans her age all over the world … some from much farther away than England. And your sister is hardly the first to tell me that my books got her through a difficult time—the worst time in her entire life, I think, is how she put it. Which makes me wonder if things got a little awkward for you around your house after she found out how you threw me under the bus to the Times the last time we met.”
The wineglass in his hand righted itself, and his head came up. It had been sinking, along with his shoulders, the entire time I’d been talking, until he’d begun to resemble one of those saints paying penance in all those paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—a totally hot saint. But a saint nonetheless.