“Oh, child, call me Verity,” she instructs, “and don’t flatter me.” Then she grins. ‘I’m kidding, obviously. Flatter me all you want.”
“Where do I even start?” I ask with a laugh. I glance at Liam, who’s sitting to my left—and, judging by the look on his face, seriously considering going to dive headfirst off the roof of Verity’s mansion. “Verity is the author of basically all of the most iconic moments in romance in the last forty years. She’s a legend.” I turn back to her, unable to control my gushing. “The big reveal in Captivated by the Captain! The beach scene in Love’s Insatiable Hunger!”
“I wrote that scene at a writer’s retreat in Tulum,” Verity tells me, her husky voice dropping confidentially. “I was having a tryst with a pool boy at our villa there. He was very… inspiring, if you catch my drift.”
Oh, I catch it, all right. I’m about to press her for details—not that I think it will take very much on my part—when Liam finally breaks in.
“So, this new novel,” he says, raising his eyebrows. “The one you promised to Harry all those years ago.”
“Oh, Harry.” Verity sits back heavily in her chair, dabbing at her eyes with a cloth napkin embroidered with the same scrolling pink logo that’s emblazoned on the covers of all her books. “You look just like him, you know. Has anyone ever told you that before?”
“I—” Liam clears his throat. “Ah, no.”
Verity shrugs, unbothered. “Well, you do,” she reports, “And, with all due respect to your stepmother, he was a very handsome man.” She winks. “I don’t think he’d mind me telling you that we always had a very… special relationship. Nothing sexual, mind you—get your mind out of the gutter, peaches—but creatively, there was just no one else like him.”
“We all miss him,” Liam says stiffly. “Now, if I can direct our attention back to—”
“Of course,” Verity says, and then turns back to me. “He and I once went to a book festival down in the Florida Keys. And the whole time we’re there I keep telling him, Harry, you’ve got to wear sunscreen, your skin is fair as a virgin’s rear end. But you know how Harry was, and sure enough—”
“Ms. Lange!” Liam bursts out.
Both Verity and I look at him in surprise.
“I’m sorry,” Liam says, his cheeks turning just the faintest bit pink, “but I really must demand, as the new CEO of Sterling Publishers, to know exactly what’s going on with the novel outstanding on your contract.”
“Oh, that?” Verity waves a hand. “Don’t worry your head about it, peaches. Harry and I had an agreement.”
“That may be so,” Liam allows. I can practically see the vein throbbing in his forehead. “However, Harry’s no longer with us. And the company’s financial situation is such that I must be clear: If we don’t receive the finished manuscript in thirty days, we’ll be forced to sue for the return of the advance.”
“What?” I almost choke on my champagne. “I’m sorry, Verity,” I say immediately, shooting Liam a look that could peel the cover right off a book. I can’t believe he’s got the nerve to speak this way to any of our authors, let alone the Verity Lange. “Liam, I’m sure there’s no reason to—”
But Verity holds up a hand to stop me. “Now, hold on just a minute. Why didn’t you say that’s why you came all the way out here, handsome? Here I am, jabbering away, thinking this is just a social call.” She nibbles a prawn, looking supremely unconcerned. “The book is done.”
I sit up a little straighter. Liam blinks. “It is?” he asks.
“It is?” I echo, my heart lifting.
“Well, just about,” she says calmly, running a painted fingertip around the rim of her glass. “Lord knows I’ve long enough to finish the damn thing. I’m simply… tweaking it a bit, that’s all. I’ll send it your way before you know it.”
“Oh.” Liam looks almost flustered, like a general who marched his troops into battle with tanks and guns only to find the field empty. “Well, that’s great. Excellent. I look forward to seeing it on my desk.”
“I’m sure you do.” Verity arches her eyebrows, smiling a Mona Lisa smile before reaching for the bottle of Dom Perignon on the table. “Now that we’ve got that out of the way,” she says, splashing some into Liam’s glass before he can protest, “how about some more champagne?”
* * *
Liam’s mood is way lighter as we say our goodbyes to Verity and get into his car to head back toward the city. “She’s a character,” he chuckles, as we’re pulling down the long, winding driveway, his headlights shining brightly in the dusky blue night. “I’ll give her that much.”
“She’s incredible,” I say, still feeling star-struck. “You know, if there’s one thing I’ve learned in this business it’s that in real life authors are hardly ever how you expect them to be based on their books. But with Verity… It’s almost like she’s better? I mean, that house alone was worth the price of admission.”
“It’s… memorable,” Liam agrees. “What would you even call that decorating aesthetic, exactly?”
“The Playboy Mansion gets feminism?” I suggest, and Liam laughs. It’s a good laugh, deep and rumbly and relaxed. I glance over at him in surprise, wanting to hear it again, but Liam isn’t paying attention. He glances over his shoulder before changing lanes as we merge onto the highway. I take a moment to admire his profile, then look away.
We cruise east toward the city, the night sky pressing in all around us, and the smell of the ocean thick in the summer air. I can’t help but notice that even the silence feels easier than it did on the drive out here—comfortable, even. And when I connect my phone to the sound system and queue up the latest Taylor Swift, all Liam does is sigh.
We’re about an hour from home when the gas light goes on, so Liam pulls off the highway to fuel up at a small rural station—which, I realize delightedly, also has a walk-up ice cream window on one side. “Ooh!” I say, reaching for my wallet and opening the passenger side door. “Don’t mind if I do.”
Liam makes a face. “Seriously?” he asks.
“As a heart attack,” I assure him. “You know how I feel about ice cream.”
“Yes,” he says, and I’m not sure if I’m imagining that he looks at me just a second too long for it to be entirely platonic. “I suppose I do.”
I order two cones while Liam pumps gas, trying not to stare at him too openly across the parking lot. The sleeves of his shirt are rolled up to reveal the muscles in his forearms, his face half in shadow in the neon glow of the gas station marquee…
Down girl.
Just because we’ve spent the afternoon with Verity, it doesn’t mean this is about to turn into a steamy scene from one of her books, I remind myself sternly.
I head over to Liam. “I didn’t know what you like, so I got you Rocky Road. It’s the best of everything,” I tell him, holding out his cone.