“I’m in love with him?” I started laughing. “Kellyjean, what on earth would make you think I’m in love with Will Price?”
“I’ve got eyes in my head, don’t I? I’ve seen the way you look at him. When you two were talking when I came up to you on the beach before dinner, you could have cut the sexual tension with a knife.”
“That was hatred, Kellyjean. That was pure, unadulterated hatred.”
Kellyjean shook her head. “I don’t think so. I’m a romance writer, Jo, don’t forget. I’m an expert in these things.”
Astonished, I looked over at Bernadette for help. “Are you hearing this?”
“Uh, Kellyjean,” Bernadette said. “I have to agree with Jo here. This isn’t one of your paranormal romances. No one is going to shape-shift into a wolf. I can assure you, Jo hates Will’s guts.”
I did hate his guts. I absolutely did.
Although I had to admit that some of the parts outside his guts were pretty appealing. Sitting next to him all night, I’d been all too conscious of his hands—big, strong-looking hands for a man who apparently did nothing all day but type.
And those wide shoulders I’d first admired back in that green room hadn’t gotten any less irresistible, either. Neither had his night-dark eyes.
Ew, yuck, what was I doing, describing Will Price’s eyes as night-dark? That was like something straight out of a Will Price book … both a cliché and not true. Will’s eyes were brown. Just plain brown.
Not that I didn’t think of those eyes, and often. Occasionally, when I came across photographs of Will in airline magazines (he was forever getting interviewed in them, and I was forever coming across those interviews as I flew to and from book events), I blacked out those brown eyes and even his teeth with whatever pen I had handy, then left the periodical for the next passenger to discover. Who hated bestselling author Will Price so much that they’d do something like this? I often imagined the passenger wondering to themselves when they came across the defaced photo of him. What did he ever do to them?
Ha! Plenty!
Ugh, I needed to drink some water. But Baileys tasted so much better.
“I think it’s good for Jo to find out what Will’s hiding,” Frannie was saying when I tuned back into the conversation. “Supposing it turns out he secretly ran over her husband?”
“Happens.” Jerome shook his head. “Happens all the time. White people are crazy.”
Kellyjean looked confused. “Jo, are you married?”
I grinned. “No, Kellyjean. They’re talking about Will’s new book, The Moment.”
“Oh. Well, I don’t think this is a joking matter,” Kellyjean said. “If Will doesn’t want you to know what happened to him and his sister, you shouldn’t be trying to look it up. It’s an invasion of his privacy, and it’s wrong.”
Frannie sighed. “Loathe as I am to admit it, Kellyjean is right, but not for the reasons she thinks. It’s wrong because it’s futile. I see Will Price’s name in the news every week, practically, for donating to charity or coming out with a new movie or being nominated as one of People magazine’s sexiest men alive. If something bad had happened to him, we’d know already.”
“Hey,” Jerome said. “People magazine nominated me as one of the sexiest men alive, and all of you missed it.”
“Funny, Jerome,” I said. “Very funny.”
Bernadette had her cell phone out. “The only negative thing I can find online that happened to Will is the plagiarism thing.”
“If he’s so protective of his privacy,” I said, “it wouldn’t necessarily be something the press would know.”
“I’m protective of my privacy, too,” Jerome said. “So protective that when People magazine tried to name me one of their sexiest men alive, I turned them down.”
Frannie laughed. “That’s because your wife wouldn’t share you, Jer.”
“Well, yes, that is true.”
Kellyjean looked confused. “Wait, I can’t tell if y’all are serious or playing with me.”
Bernadette was still scrolling through her phone. “They’re playing with you, Kellyjean. Jerome wasn’t named one of People magazine’s sexiest men alive. And I can’t find a single piece of dirt on Will Price aside from the Nicole Woods thing, Jo. He’s never dated anyone, never had a job outside of publishing. It’s like he graduated from college and went straight into bestseller-dom. His very first book, published when he was twenty-three, was a smash hit. A lot like yours, Jo.”
“Uh, not at all like mine. Kitty Katz got rejected a hundred times before she became a smash hit.” I leaned back and gazed up through the palm fronds swaying in the breeze. I didn’t see any meteors, but frogs croaked all around us, the only sound, besides that of the waterfall over by the Jacuzzi and our own voices, in the hotel courtyard. “Never mind, it’s okay. I have a message in to my agent. You know agents get all the best dirt. I’m sure she’ll have something for me by morning.”
“I still don’t understand why you have to go poking into that poor man’s business,” Kellyjean said. “What all happened over at the Hemingway table tonight, anyway?”
“Nothing,” I said.
I meant it, too. My evening had been completely uneventful once Will had asked me to drop what had happened at Novel Con. The conversation at the table had been light—Saul sharing hilarious stories from the horror-writing business, Molly and Sheriff Hartwell sharing how they’d met, and Dorothy Tifton sharing a bizarre but entertaining story about how she’d helped catch a local thief.
Aside from his welcome speech, Will had hardly uttered a sound, except to laugh in all the right places at the others’ stories, and ask if I liked my food, or if I needed anything. It had been almost like sitting next to a very attentive butler. A very good-looking butler from England, who’d spent a good deal of his time worriedly watching his younger sister every time she flitted past with a tray or dish.
But when Chloe hadn’t dropped a single thing or otherwise embarrassed herself in any way, I’d noticed him relax a little. He’d even taken off his shoes beneath the table, and rubbed his feet in the sand. I don’t think he thought anyone would notice, but then, he probably didn’t think anyone was paying that much attention to him.
But I was. I couldn’t help it, much as I might have wished differently. Any more than I could help noticing that he had very sexy feet. God, what was wrong with me?
“I don’t understand any of this,” Kellyjean declared. “I think y’all are being very mean to poor Will, especially considering the fact that he’s invited us to his house and this festival and offered us those very generous stipends.”
I snorted. “Oh, please. If Will thinks he can make me forget what he did to me by paying me off with a ten-thousand-dollar stipend, you’re crazy.”
There was silence around the pool. The frogs suddenly sounded extremely loud, as did the splashing of the waterfall over by the Jacuzzi.
I realized then that I’d said something very, very wrong.
“Wait a minute.” Bernadette’s voice sounded unlike her usual flippantly casual tone. “You’re getting a ten-thousand-dollar stipend to be here?”