Finding Mr. Write, page 27
“What?” Chris said.
Daphne said slowly, “Are you suggesting paying off this influencer and continuing to pretend Chris wrote the book? That won’t work long-term. Suspicions have been raised.”
“Which is why we—all of us—need to take control of the story.”
Daphne visibly relaxed. “Thank you. Are you asking Chris to stay on as the face of Zane? Openly admit that the real author is a woman who would prefer to remain anonymous, but Chris will continue acting as Zane in public?”
“No,” Milner said. “The problem you’ve created, Daphne, is that the person they think wrote the book—this intelligent, articulate, photogenic man—did not. That’s going to be disappointing to readers in a way I don’t think you understand.”
“I don’t understand it, either,” Chris said. “And I think readers would find it insulting to imply that they care what Zane looks like.”
“They will be disappointed. However, I think we’ve come up with a way to fix this mess, which is why I’m running it past you before we involve agents and lawyers. I believe that if handled correctly, we might even be able to turn this fiasco into a publicity win.”
“That… would be good,” Daphne said as Chris silently seethed.
“And, to be clear, I have spoken to one of our lawyers, and he has no concerns with my proposed solution.”
“Good.”
“Chris, we’d like Daphne to step out from the shadows as your coauthor.”
“My… coauthor?” Chris said. “But I didn’t write this book. Any of it.”
“Handled correctly, that won’t matter. For this first book, you won’t discuss who did what. We’ll say that’s covered by an NDA. For future books, we’ll have talking points, and we’ll expect that Chris will legitimately play a role in the creation, whether it’s brainstorming or editing.”
Chris turned to gape incredulously at Daphne, but she was staring down, lost in her thoughts.
“That is my proposed solution,” Milner said. “Think it over, talk to your agent, and then we’ll have a conference call with everyone.”
He hung up before Chris or Daphne could say a word.
DAPHNE
After hanging up, Daphne was too numb to move. When Milner had made that suggestion, something in her had crumpled.
She had never wanted to be the public face of Edge. She’d been terrified that her self-consciousness and introversion would hurt her book’s chances of success. But when she’d decided she was stepping forward, she’d slowly made peace with the idea and found the confidence to say that she wouldn’t be the world’s worst spokesperson for her book. And now…
She knew what Milner really meant by “coauthor.” Oh, the publishing house would want to keep up the pretense that Chris contributed, but all they really expected was that he’d play Zane. He’d do the interviews and the signings. His photo and autograph would go in the books.
Why was that such a problem for her? Wasn’t it what they had already been doing?
Yes, and she hadn’t realized how relieved she’d been about ending the charade until Milner suggested they not.
She wanted to be angry. She reached deep inside herself to find that, knowing it must be there. Anger, even rage. But it was smothered under the fear of having this new dream crushed by her own mistake.
“It could work,” she said softly.
Chris was pacing along the end of the bed. “Hmm?” He pivoted to face her.
“His plan. It could work.”
He stared at her. Then he said, “We are not doing that, D.”
That crumpled bit inside her collapsed completely, and her voice didn’t even sound like her own when she said, “I’m sorry. You’re right, of course. I’d never ask you to make that kind of commitment—”
“It’s not the commitment. It’s the lie.”
Her cheeks heated. “I wouldn’t ask you to do that, either. If you did agree, we’d work something out so you could brainstorm or edit—and be paid for it, of course—and we’d be honest about the role you play.”
Chris stopped pacing and sat beside her, his hand going to her knee. “I’m not refusing because of the commitment or because of the misrepresentation. I don’t give a damn about that.”
But he was refusing. That’s the part she heard loud and clear, and the tops of her ears burned with humiliation. Milner was throwing her a lifeline. A chance to redeem herself and keep her career, and it relied on Chris, and he wanted no part of it.
Was this where she’d lose him? He’d said he was committed to supporting her writing, and yet, at the first sign of trouble, he wanted her to trample her new career underfoot.
We won’t put up with this treatment. That’ll show them.
He wanted to take an ethical stance, even if it cost Daphne her career. After all, he’d done something similar when he found out his partner was stealing from their clients.
But in that instance, Chris had done nothing wrong, and while he had taken a financial risk, his career was never in danger, and the tarnish on his reputation was easily buffed away.
And now he found himself in another ethical quandary, where he could be accused of fraud because his new business partner—Daphne—had done something that could be seen as unethical.
Except the “unethical” thing wasn’t stealing client money. It was using a male name because no one was paying any attention to her book and she wanted to see whether that made a difference. And it did, didn’t it?
She hadn’t stolen money to fund a drug habit. She’d played an unfair system to her advantage, and if she felt guilty about that, she also felt angry.
So goddamn angry.
Daphne walked to the window and looked out over the city.
Yes, she could be upset with the system, but she was overreacting by being upset with Chris before she’d given him a chance to prove she was wrong, that he wouldn’t throw her under the bus.
She turned to face him. “Can we talk about this?”
“No.”
That set her back, blinking. “What?”
His face hardened. “There’s nothing to talk about, Daphne. I won’t let them do this to you.”
Won’t let them do it to her? Or to him?
It’s easy to say you support my career… until supporting it affects you.
Like Anthony, who’d stayed up with her all night as she sobbed in his arms after her mother’s diagnosis. He’d vowed to be there for her through it all. Then came the day when the doctor admitted Mom’s chemo wasn’t working. The doctor wanted to speak to Daphne, and so she needed to reschedule her weekend getaway with Anthony.
Instead of hearing that her mother was dying, truly dying, he heard that he wasn’t getting his weekend away. She’d come home and found a letter in her apartment, telling her that he needed someone who made time for him in her life, as if she’d canceled for a damned manicure.
Chris wasn’t Anthony. She couldn’t let that old pain and anger sweep her away. Chris would be reasonable. She just needed him to understand.
“I won’t try convincing you to be my coauthor, Chris,” she said. “That’s obviously your choice. I just want to talk about options.”
He shook his head. “There are no options here, D. You wrote the book. It will succeed without me. Don’t let Milner hold this over your head. We’ll go to the signing tonight and tell the truth.”
“What? No. We need to talk to—”
“It’s your career. You make the decisions.”
She stared at him. He stood there, jaw firm, green eyes lit with righteous fury.
“I make the decisions?” she said, and the ice in her voice should have warned him off, but he only nodded, seeming relieved that she understood.
“I make the decisions,” she repeated. “And do whatever you tell me.”
He blinked, rocking back. Then he shook his head sharply. “No, that’s not what I mean.”
“But it’s what you said, Chris. It’s literally what you just said.”
She snatched her wallet from the table and marched to the door.
“Hold on,” he said behind her. “Let’s—”
The door closed behind her, and she strode toward the stairs… and then broke into a run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHRIS
Math nerds had a reputation for being boring. As Chris had long ago figured out, sometimes “boring” really meant stable and dependable and responsible, all things he considered positive traits, even if, yes, they weren’t very exciting.
Sometimes, though, being responsible got in the way of being the kind of boyfriend he wanted to be. The kind who raced after his distraught girlfriend and left his wallet, phone, and key card behind. He’d dashed to the door, of course. Then he’d thought Key! and turned to grab it, but it wasn’t on the hall table, so he ran back into the bedroom, snatched it up, and took off.
By then, Daphne was long gone.
On the elevator, he ignored the responsible voice that said he was in his bare feet and didn’t have his wallet or phone. Finding Daphne was more important. Show up in socks and shoes, and it would look like he didn’t care enough to run after her.
He padded around the lobby. There was no sign of her. He surveyed the other guests, and picked the one most likely to have noticed Daphne—a middle-aged businessman waiting in the lobby while checking out the pretty desk clerk.
He asked and got a solid no, with a twist of the lips that said the guy wouldn’t admit it even if he had seen Daphne.
Next Chris tried the desk clerk, who determined that this might not be information she should give out. He was breathless, shoeless, and asking about a woman who seemed to have fled his hotel room. The clerk was right not to give him anything, damn it.
He went back upstairs and called Daphne.
No answer.
He hesitated, and then tried Sakura. No answer, and he decided not to leave a message saying Daphne had gotten upset and fled. Daphne was too private a person for that.
He’d screwed up. He’d wanted to stand firmly at her side, furious with Milner and anyone else who threatened her career because she’d recognized the potential for industry-based sexism and worked a loophole. He’d meant that she shouldn’t have to hide, and he wasn’t letting anyone make her feel otherwise. What he’d said was something different.
Milner had called Chris articulate, intelligent, and photogenic. Chris had pointed out that Daphne was all those things, and Milner steamrolled right over him. The guy’s attitude and suggestion proved that Daphne had been right sending out her book under a man’s name.
Did Milner realize he was a dinosaur, clinging to his old preconceptions? Chris suspected that explained the off-the-record phone call. Milner might be packaging his prejudices as marketing—believing people really did care whether the author was the guy on the cover—but he knew enough not to present his coauthor idea in front of others. For every reader who was disappointed that the author wasn’t the guy on the cover, someone else would be relieved that it was a woman writing Theo’s story. They’d had that discussion at the book festival.
Milner wanted to scare Daphne into accepting his coauthor idea. If Daphne said it was what she wanted, Lawrence wouldn’t argue. If the publishing company’s lawyers didn’t see an issue with the arrangement, then it saved them negotiating. Everyone would be happy. Except Daphne.
Now that Chris thought about it more, he realized Milner hadn’t even made an overt threat. Did he say they’d stop publishing Edge? Did he threaten Daphne’s future with the company? No. He preyed on a new author’s inexperience to frighten her.
The answer then was clear. Fight back. Daphne couldn’t see that because her mind was swirling with worry and dread. She was afraid to take this leap that he absolutely knew she could take.
That meant there was only one thing for him to do.
He picked up the hotel pen and writing pad and started a letter to Daphne.
DAPHNE
She’d spent the last hour swinging between the worry that she’d overreacted with Chris and the certainty that she had not. At first, she wanted to brand him a liar who’d said whatever she wanted to hear. That was her anger talking. Anger and old hurt over Anthony reignited by this new pain. She wouldn’t let that infect Chris until she was damned sure he deserved it.
Daphne had been upset over Milner’s call, and he’d handled it poorly. That wasn’t cause to throw a new relationship on the trash heap.
Yes, she said she was ready to start a serious relationship with Chris, but was she really? Or would she flee at the first sign of trouble and take it as proof he wasn’t the right guy?
She needed time to cool down and put her thoughts in order, and he needed time to realize he’d said entirely the wrong thing, and if he didn’t mean it, then he could take it back. Then they would talk this out.
She went up to her hotel room and opened the door. “Chris?”
The blinds were drawn, the room still. Seeing the adjoining doorway open, she slipped over to it, calling softly, “Chris?”
No reply. She found her phone and started a text. As she did, she noticed a folded piece of paper on the coffee table, with her name written across it.
One second she was moving and breathing and thinking, and the next, everything stopped. When she forced herself to cross those few feet, it felt like moving through deep space, pitch-dark, dead silent, and ice-cold.
The last time she’d come home to a note on her table, it’d been Anthony’s goodbye.
She shook herself. Now she really was overreacting. Chris had realized she didn’t take her phone and left a note to say where he’d gone.
She deep-breathed until her heart rate returned to normal. Then she unfolded the letter.
D,
I can’t keep doing this. I need to step off the stage you put me on. You belong up there. You wrote Edge, and it’s an amazing book. You need to take your place as its author, and that means I need to step aside.
You can do this. I believe in you.
Chris
Daphne stared at the letter. Reread it. Tried to see where she could be misinterpreting, because he would not have abandoned her. Not now.
But she wasn’t misreading. He was gone. He’d left her to fix this.
He wasn’t just gone temporarily, either. There was no closing “Love” or even “Yours.” No mention of calling or texting her. No mention of seeing her later.
He had been as sweet and supportive as he could be, but that only hid the real message.
I’m out of here.
Earlier she’d thought that if he wanted out, he’d say so.
Now he had.
Daphne’s stomach clenched, and she ran for the bathroom. She didn’t throw up, though. She clenched the sides of the sink and still tried to tell herself she’d misinterpreted the note. Chris would never have abandoned her like this. The note meant he was metaphorically stepping off the stage, but he hadn’t actually left. He’d be here, beside her, supporting her when she revealed herself as the real Zane Remington.
Holding herself very still, she stiffly walked through the adjoining door. His things would be here. He would not leave. His bag—
—was gone.
Every trace of him was gone.
She ran to the bathroom and made it just in time.
CHRIS
Chris sat in his hotel room and looked at his phone. Still no call from Daphne. It’d been an hour, and the event was coming up fast, and he’d expected a call.
Was she angry with him? He’d taken that chance when he wrote the letter and switched hotels. He hoped she’d see this was for the best. If he was gone, the publisher couldn’t blame Daphne for ignoring Milner’s demand that she not come out as Zane. She’d need to step up at the signing and tell the truth. It’d be Chris’s fault for putting her in that spot, and he was willing to take the blame.
He just… well, he’d hoped the blame wouldn’t come from Daphne herself. He’d given her an excuse to step forward and the gentle push of support to do it.
Still, he shouldn’t take her silence as a sign she was angry. Part of giving her that excuse meant it couldn’t seem staged. She was being careful.
And maybe a little bit upset?
Shit.
His phone rang, and even when he saw it wasn’t Daphne, he still exhaled in relief. Gemma. He could talk this through with his sister, who’d reassure him that he’d made the right choice.
“Another divorce meeting down,” she said when he answered. “I’m trying not to think of what these are costing me. I promised I’d call, and I’m making good on that. I expect to be distracted. Give me exciting book tour news so I may live vicariously through you.”
He told her about the signing the previous night. Then he gave her a detail-free summary of what happened afterward.
“Oh my God,” Gemma said. “You actually scored with the hot novelist!”
“Actually? Wow.”
“You can easily charm the pants off women you don’t really care about. But when you like them? Awkward teenage Chris comes stumbling out.”
“Thanks…”
“Did you tell her how you feel?”
“I did.”
“And she feels the same?”
“Seems like it. She agreed to a test run of a committed relationship.”
“You make that sound so romantic. Clearly you are not the romance writer in the family. Please feel free to come to me for tips.”
“So you’re writing again?”
Gemma made a noncommittal noise. “So what’s next? Oh, the tour. Right. You have the penultimate signing tonight. Are you all ready?”
Chris sat cross-legged on the bed. “So about that…”
He told Gemma about the threat to expose Zane, paused to enjoy her profanity-laden outrage, and then told her about the calls from Milner, which escalated the outrage and the cursing to new levels. As a college English instructor, Gemma had a truly impressive vocabulary.
“This Milner guy is full of shit,” she said. “Admittedly, I know next to nothing about publishing, but it’s still a corporation. They won’t tank a megaselling book. Or drop a megaselling author.”
Daphne said slowly, “Are you suggesting paying off this influencer and continuing to pretend Chris wrote the book? That won’t work long-term. Suspicions have been raised.”
“Which is why we—all of us—need to take control of the story.”
Daphne visibly relaxed. “Thank you. Are you asking Chris to stay on as the face of Zane? Openly admit that the real author is a woman who would prefer to remain anonymous, but Chris will continue acting as Zane in public?”
“No,” Milner said. “The problem you’ve created, Daphne, is that the person they think wrote the book—this intelligent, articulate, photogenic man—did not. That’s going to be disappointing to readers in a way I don’t think you understand.”
“I don’t understand it, either,” Chris said. “And I think readers would find it insulting to imply that they care what Zane looks like.”
“They will be disappointed. However, I think we’ve come up with a way to fix this mess, which is why I’m running it past you before we involve agents and lawyers. I believe that if handled correctly, we might even be able to turn this fiasco into a publicity win.”
“That… would be good,” Daphne said as Chris silently seethed.
“And, to be clear, I have spoken to one of our lawyers, and he has no concerns with my proposed solution.”
“Good.”
“Chris, we’d like Daphne to step out from the shadows as your coauthor.”
“My… coauthor?” Chris said. “But I didn’t write this book. Any of it.”
“Handled correctly, that won’t matter. For this first book, you won’t discuss who did what. We’ll say that’s covered by an NDA. For future books, we’ll have talking points, and we’ll expect that Chris will legitimately play a role in the creation, whether it’s brainstorming or editing.”
Chris turned to gape incredulously at Daphne, but she was staring down, lost in her thoughts.
“That is my proposed solution,” Milner said. “Think it over, talk to your agent, and then we’ll have a conference call with everyone.”
He hung up before Chris or Daphne could say a word.
DAPHNE
After hanging up, Daphne was too numb to move. When Milner had made that suggestion, something in her had crumpled.
She had never wanted to be the public face of Edge. She’d been terrified that her self-consciousness and introversion would hurt her book’s chances of success. But when she’d decided she was stepping forward, she’d slowly made peace with the idea and found the confidence to say that she wouldn’t be the world’s worst spokesperson for her book. And now…
She knew what Milner really meant by “coauthor.” Oh, the publishing house would want to keep up the pretense that Chris contributed, but all they really expected was that he’d play Zane. He’d do the interviews and the signings. His photo and autograph would go in the books.
Why was that such a problem for her? Wasn’t it what they had already been doing?
Yes, and she hadn’t realized how relieved she’d been about ending the charade until Milner suggested they not.
She wanted to be angry. She reached deep inside herself to find that, knowing it must be there. Anger, even rage. But it was smothered under the fear of having this new dream crushed by her own mistake.
“It could work,” she said softly.
Chris was pacing along the end of the bed. “Hmm?” He pivoted to face her.
“His plan. It could work.”
He stared at her. Then he said, “We are not doing that, D.”
That crumpled bit inside her collapsed completely, and her voice didn’t even sound like her own when she said, “I’m sorry. You’re right, of course. I’d never ask you to make that kind of commitment—”
“It’s not the commitment. It’s the lie.”
Her cheeks heated. “I wouldn’t ask you to do that, either. If you did agree, we’d work something out so you could brainstorm or edit—and be paid for it, of course—and we’d be honest about the role you play.”
Chris stopped pacing and sat beside her, his hand going to her knee. “I’m not refusing because of the commitment or because of the misrepresentation. I don’t give a damn about that.”
But he was refusing. That’s the part she heard loud and clear, and the tops of her ears burned with humiliation. Milner was throwing her a lifeline. A chance to redeem herself and keep her career, and it relied on Chris, and he wanted no part of it.
Was this where she’d lose him? He’d said he was committed to supporting her writing, and yet, at the first sign of trouble, he wanted her to trample her new career underfoot.
We won’t put up with this treatment. That’ll show them.
He wanted to take an ethical stance, even if it cost Daphne her career. After all, he’d done something similar when he found out his partner was stealing from their clients.
But in that instance, Chris had done nothing wrong, and while he had taken a financial risk, his career was never in danger, and the tarnish on his reputation was easily buffed away.
And now he found himself in another ethical quandary, where he could be accused of fraud because his new business partner—Daphne—had done something that could be seen as unethical.
Except the “unethical” thing wasn’t stealing client money. It was using a male name because no one was paying any attention to her book and she wanted to see whether that made a difference. And it did, didn’t it?
She hadn’t stolen money to fund a drug habit. She’d played an unfair system to her advantage, and if she felt guilty about that, she also felt angry.
So goddamn angry.
Daphne walked to the window and looked out over the city.
Yes, she could be upset with the system, but she was overreacting by being upset with Chris before she’d given him a chance to prove she was wrong, that he wouldn’t throw her under the bus.
She turned to face him. “Can we talk about this?”
“No.”
That set her back, blinking. “What?”
His face hardened. “There’s nothing to talk about, Daphne. I won’t let them do this to you.”
Won’t let them do it to her? Or to him?
It’s easy to say you support my career… until supporting it affects you.
Like Anthony, who’d stayed up with her all night as she sobbed in his arms after her mother’s diagnosis. He’d vowed to be there for her through it all. Then came the day when the doctor admitted Mom’s chemo wasn’t working. The doctor wanted to speak to Daphne, and so she needed to reschedule her weekend getaway with Anthony.
Instead of hearing that her mother was dying, truly dying, he heard that he wasn’t getting his weekend away. She’d come home and found a letter in her apartment, telling her that he needed someone who made time for him in her life, as if she’d canceled for a damned manicure.
Chris wasn’t Anthony. She couldn’t let that old pain and anger sweep her away. Chris would be reasonable. She just needed him to understand.
“I won’t try convincing you to be my coauthor, Chris,” she said. “That’s obviously your choice. I just want to talk about options.”
He shook his head. “There are no options here, D. You wrote the book. It will succeed without me. Don’t let Milner hold this over your head. We’ll go to the signing tonight and tell the truth.”
“What? No. We need to talk to—”
“It’s your career. You make the decisions.”
She stared at him. He stood there, jaw firm, green eyes lit with righteous fury.
“I make the decisions?” she said, and the ice in her voice should have warned him off, but he only nodded, seeming relieved that she understood.
“I make the decisions,” she repeated. “And do whatever you tell me.”
He blinked, rocking back. Then he shook his head sharply. “No, that’s not what I mean.”
“But it’s what you said, Chris. It’s literally what you just said.”
She snatched her wallet from the table and marched to the door.
“Hold on,” he said behind her. “Let’s—”
The door closed behind her, and she strode toward the stairs… and then broke into a run.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
CHRIS
Math nerds had a reputation for being boring. As Chris had long ago figured out, sometimes “boring” really meant stable and dependable and responsible, all things he considered positive traits, even if, yes, they weren’t very exciting.
Sometimes, though, being responsible got in the way of being the kind of boyfriend he wanted to be. The kind who raced after his distraught girlfriend and left his wallet, phone, and key card behind. He’d dashed to the door, of course. Then he’d thought Key! and turned to grab it, but it wasn’t on the hall table, so he ran back into the bedroom, snatched it up, and took off.
By then, Daphne was long gone.
On the elevator, he ignored the responsible voice that said he was in his bare feet and didn’t have his wallet or phone. Finding Daphne was more important. Show up in socks and shoes, and it would look like he didn’t care enough to run after her.
He padded around the lobby. There was no sign of her. He surveyed the other guests, and picked the one most likely to have noticed Daphne—a middle-aged businessman waiting in the lobby while checking out the pretty desk clerk.
He asked and got a solid no, with a twist of the lips that said the guy wouldn’t admit it even if he had seen Daphne.
Next Chris tried the desk clerk, who determined that this might not be information she should give out. He was breathless, shoeless, and asking about a woman who seemed to have fled his hotel room. The clerk was right not to give him anything, damn it.
He went back upstairs and called Daphne.
No answer.
He hesitated, and then tried Sakura. No answer, and he decided not to leave a message saying Daphne had gotten upset and fled. Daphne was too private a person for that.
He’d screwed up. He’d wanted to stand firmly at her side, furious with Milner and anyone else who threatened her career because she’d recognized the potential for industry-based sexism and worked a loophole. He’d meant that she shouldn’t have to hide, and he wasn’t letting anyone make her feel otherwise. What he’d said was something different.
Milner had called Chris articulate, intelligent, and photogenic. Chris had pointed out that Daphne was all those things, and Milner steamrolled right over him. The guy’s attitude and suggestion proved that Daphne had been right sending out her book under a man’s name.
Did Milner realize he was a dinosaur, clinging to his old preconceptions? Chris suspected that explained the off-the-record phone call. Milner might be packaging his prejudices as marketing—believing people really did care whether the author was the guy on the cover—but he knew enough not to present his coauthor idea in front of others. For every reader who was disappointed that the author wasn’t the guy on the cover, someone else would be relieved that it was a woman writing Theo’s story. They’d had that discussion at the book festival.
Milner wanted to scare Daphne into accepting his coauthor idea. If Daphne said it was what she wanted, Lawrence wouldn’t argue. If the publishing company’s lawyers didn’t see an issue with the arrangement, then it saved them negotiating. Everyone would be happy. Except Daphne.
Now that Chris thought about it more, he realized Milner hadn’t even made an overt threat. Did he say they’d stop publishing Edge? Did he threaten Daphne’s future with the company? No. He preyed on a new author’s inexperience to frighten her.
The answer then was clear. Fight back. Daphne couldn’t see that because her mind was swirling with worry and dread. She was afraid to take this leap that he absolutely knew she could take.
That meant there was only one thing for him to do.
He picked up the hotel pen and writing pad and started a letter to Daphne.
DAPHNE
She’d spent the last hour swinging between the worry that she’d overreacted with Chris and the certainty that she had not. At first, she wanted to brand him a liar who’d said whatever she wanted to hear. That was her anger talking. Anger and old hurt over Anthony reignited by this new pain. She wouldn’t let that infect Chris until she was damned sure he deserved it.
Daphne had been upset over Milner’s call, and he’d handled it poorly. That wasn’t cause to throw a new relationship on the trash heap.
Yes, she said she was ready to start a serious relationship with Chris, but was she really? Or would she flee at the first sign of trouble and take it as proof he wasn’t the right guy?
She needed time to cool down and put her thoughts in order, and he needed time to realize he’d said entirely the wrong thing, and if he didn’t mean it, then he could take it back. Then they would talk this out.
She went up to her hotel room and opened the door. “Chris?”
The blinds were drawn, the room still. Seeing the adjoining doorway open, she slipped over to it, calling softly, “Chris?”
No reply. She found her phone and started a text. As she did, she noticed a folded piece of paper on the coffee table, with her name written across it.
One second she was moving and breathing and thinking, and the next, everything stopped. When she forced herself to cross those few feet, it felt like moving through deep space, pitch-dark, dead silent, and ice-cold.
The last time she’d come home to a note on her table, it’d been Anthony’s goodbye.
She shook herself. Now she really was overreacting. Chris had realized she didn’t take her phone and left a note to say where he’d gone.
She deep-breathed until her heart rate returned to normal. Then she unfolded the letter.
D,
I can’t keep doing this. I need to step off the stage you put me on. You belong up there. You wrote Edge, and it’s an amazing book. You need to take your place as its author, and that means I need to step aside.
You can do this. I believe in you.
Chris
Daphne stared at the letter. Reread it. Tried to see where she could be misinterpreting, because he would not have abandoned her. Not now.
But she wasn’t misreading. He was gone. He’d left her to fix this.
He wasn’t just gone temporarily, either. There was no closing “Love” or even “Yours.” No mention of calling or texting her. No mention of seeing her later.
He had been as sweet and supportive as he could be, but that only hid the real message.
I’m out of here.
Earlier she’d thought that if he wanted out, he’d say so.
Now he had.
Daphne’s stomach clenched, and she ran for the bathroom. She didn’t throw up, though. She clenched the sides of the sink and still tried to tell herself she’d misinterpreted the note. Chris would never have abandoned her like this. The note meant he was metaphorically stepping off the stage, but he hadn’t actually left. He’d be here, beside her, supporting her when she revealed herself as the real Zane Remington.
Holding herself very still, she stiffly walked through the adjoining door. His things would be here. He would not leave. His bag—
—was gone.
Every trace of him was gone.
She ran to the bathroom and made it just in time.
CHRIS
Chris sat in his hotel room and looked at his phone. Still no call from Daphne. It’d been an hour, and the event was coming up fast, and he’d expected a call.
Was she angry with him? He’d taken that chance when he wrote the letter and switched hotels. He hoped she’d see this was for the best. If he was gone, the publisher couldn’t blame Daphne for ignoring Milner’s demand that she not come out as Zane. She’d need to step up at the signing and tell the truth. It’d be Chris’s fault for putting her in that spot, and he was willing to take the blame.
He just… well, he’d hoped the blame wouldn’t come from Daphne herself. He’d given her an excuse to step forward and the gentle push of support to do it.
Still, he shouldn’t take her silence as a sign she was angry. Part of giving her that excuse meant it couldn’t seem staged. She was being careful.
And maybe a little bit upset?
Shit.
His phone rang, and even when he saw it wasn’t Daphne, he still exhaled in relief. Gemma. He could talk this through with his sister, who’d reassure him that he’d made the right choice.
“Another divorce meeting down,” she said when he answered. “I’m trying not to think of what these are costing me. I promised I’d call, and I’m making good on that. I expect to be distracted. Give me exciting book tour news so I may live vicariously through you.”
He told her about the signing the previous night. Then he gave her a detail-free summary of what happened afterward.
“Oh my God,” Gemma said. “You actually scored with the hot novelist!”
“Actually? Wow.”
“You can easily charm the pants off women you don’t really care about. But when you like them? Awkward teenage Chris comes stumbling out.”
“Thanks…”
“Did you tell her how you feel?”
“I did.”
“And she feels the same?”
“Seems like it. She agreed to a test run of a committed relationship.”
“You make that sound so romantic. Clearly you are not the romance writer in the family. Please feel free to come to me for tips.”
“So you’re writing again?”
Gemma made a noncommittal noise. “So what’s next? Oh, the tour. Right. You have the penultimate signing tonight. Are you all ready?”
Chris sat cross-legged on the bed. “So about that…”
He told Gemma about the threat to expose Zane, paused to enjoy her profanity-laden outrage, and then told her about the calls from Milner, which escalated the outrage and the cursing to new levels. As a college English instructor, Gemma had a truly impressive vocabulary.
“This Milner guy is full of shit,” she said. “Admittedly, I know next to nothing about publishing, but it’s still a corporation. They won’t tank a megaselling book. Or drop a megaselling author.”
