Her voice was soft, almost sad, and he found himself wanting to apologize for breaking up with her. He’d had very good reasons for doing it back then. He’d seen the inevitable end of their relationship, years of arguments and resentments later, and had pulled the chute before she could. It had been the right decision, Trent reminded himself. Hadn’t it?
“That’s because I was climbing those hills, and you weren’t. We had two different personalities, Kate. We wanted two different things out of life.”
That old saying about opposites attracting had been true in every sense of his relationship with Kate. He’d thought she would balance him, or maybe complement him, but as his world had taken him farther from hers, it had become clear that the adventurer and homebody love story wasn’t going to end in a sunset and a kiss. She was “home by five, supper on the table at six.” He was “grab a backpack and head for parts unknown.”
Kate didn’t answer. She took a step closer, and it seemed as if her gaze saw inside his brain. “Everything about you now is a carefully crafted image. The picture-perfect poses on the water or in the woods. The long, searching gazes you give to the camera when you’re on a hike, as if you’re spying some horizon no one else can see. Where in all of that is the real you, Trent? The guy I knew in college?”
So she’d looked at his social media. That flattered him and made him wonder if she still thought about the past. Then he realized she was a professional and had probably only done it to research her client. Ouch. “I’m the same guy. Just because I’m not some touchy-feely, pour-out-my-feelings-on-a-psychologist’s-couch kind of person doesn’t mean—”
“This book is about honesty, Trent. If we’re going to write this book together, you have to be honest with me. I can’t work with another grandstander who thinks he doesn’t have a single fault.”
Maybe she didn’t know him that well. Or maybe she’d forgotten the person he’d been in college. “That isn’t me.”
“Oh, yeah?” She clicked her pen and held it out to him, above the blank nondisclosure agreement. “Then prove it.”
Four
Kate managed to walk out of Trent’s office building with her spine straight, but soon as the elevator hit the ground floor, her legs shook and the confidence evaporated. She’d held it together during the meeting and had managed to feign a self-assurance she didn’t feel. Everything about being around him again set her on edge, made her heart stutter and her thoughts jumble.
Why did he have to look so good, anyway?
Trent had been the boy in the back of their American Lit class in college, hardly paying attention, only there to fulfill his English requirements. She’d been the one up front, asking questions, turning in assignments early. He’d usually strolled into class a few minutes after it had started, which made Kate’s brain short-circuit for a minute or two. With his mop of light brown hair that had a stubborn habit of dusting across his eyebrows, and his irresistible grin, almost every girl in class had paid attention when Trent had walked by.
The day before the first big test, Trent had pulled her aside after class and asked her to help him study. Bookworm Kate had been shocked the handsome athlete had noticed her, much less talked to her. She’d stuttered out a yes, and he’d asked her to grab a bite while they cracked the books. They’d gone to Chick and Cheese, and she’d fallen in love with his humor, his smile, and the way he didn’t even pretend to have it all together.
Now he was all grown up and the owner of a multi-million-dollar company about to go public. She was still a bookworm, but now being paid for her love of words. And her heart still stopped every time he looked at her.
Geez. She really needed to wear a lead shield or something next time she was around him, because her brain still short-circuited at the sight of him. His hair was shorter now, sandy brown wayward waves above eyes as blue as the deepest regions of the Pacific Ocean. Instead of a suit, he’d worn a pair of GOA khakis and a T-shirt that had hugged his muscles in all the right places. She was surprised she’d managed to string together a bunch of coherent sentences this morning.
Writing a book with Trent would be cramming for a test all over again, and she knew deep down inside the little dregs of bittersweet regret about the ending of their relationship could open a door in her heart again. Because she was a weak woman who couldn’t resist a crooked grin and a pair of blue eyes.
Kate slipped into her car and dropped her head onto the steering wheel. “This is a mistake,” she told herself. “A huge, huge mistake.”
And one she couldn’t afford to turn down.
She pulled out of the lot, drove across town, then ducked into a coffee shop just as it started to rain—one of these days, she’d remember to grab her raincoat—and sat down at a table by the window. Even though it was miles away, her masochistic self stared in the direction of Trent’s building and wondered what he was doing, if he’d been as upended as she’d been by seeing each other again.
Kate jerked her attention back to the present. She needed to work, not daydream about the past. She ordered a cappuccino, sprinkled the drink with extra cinnamon, and opened her laptop. Trent had promised to email the handful of pages and the beginnings of his outline. The email popped into her inbox. No message, no words from him, just the attachment. Disappointment flickered inside her.
What did she expect? Some rambling love letter about missing her and wishing she was back in his life? That would only complicate things and add a level of awkwardness she didn’t need on a job. He was a mistake she’d put in her past, which was where her feelings for Trent would stay.
She sipped her coffee and took a closer look at the file. What he had could barely be called a chapter. Snippets of thoughts strung together— nothing concrete. The outline was a list of bullet points. Okay, so this was going to be a lot of work in a very short period of time.
Which meant spending a lot of time with Trent. When he’d stood so close to her today, it had taken everything she had not to lean forward and kiss him. Somehow, she needed to slot him into the Client section of her mind and get him out of The Man I Used to Love section. Doing that was going to take some chocolate. A lot of chocolate.
The bell over the coffee shop door jingled as a woman stepped inside, closing her umbrella, giving it a little shake, then setting it against the others on the wall. Loretta again, like a stray cat following Kate everywhere she went. “Kate! I’m so delighted to see you again!” Loretta pulled out the second chair and plopped into it. “We must have coffee together and catch up. We didn’t have time in the bookstore, and I’ve been dying to hear more about how you do that ghostwriting thing.”
Kate swore she saw Loretta shiver in revulsion when she said the word “ghostwriting.” “Actually, I’m kinda working right now.”