Page 89 of The Plot Twist

‘Oh.’ Allie’s stomach dropped.

‘Sorry, no, I didn’t mean… I guess I meant to say continuing our story. I should leave the words to you, you’re the writer after all, not me.’

‘But you never called, after I left you our story, you never came to find me.’

‘I was in York when you left it on my doorstep. It sat there for two days. And then when I got back I read it from cover to cover and Allie? It was weird. Good weird, but weird to see us written down like that. And weird to see the ending that I didn’t think we had a chance of finding after having met Dominic at that party.’

Allie groaned. ‘I’m so sorry about that. He’sdefinitelyan ex. He got the wrong end of the stick and came to that party thinking we were getting back together. We’renotgetting back together by the way, we never were, I want to make that completely clear.’

‘Yeah, I understand that now. But it was a confusing message to receive, and something that messed with my head a bit, especially coming after everything else.’

‘And what did you think to the ending of our story?’ Allie asked softly. ‘Because I left it there five days ago, so what’s been going through your mind since then?’ She held her breath waiting for his response.

‘Well, you can blame my delayed response on Jess.’

‘What do you mean?’ she asked sharply. ‘Why is it Jess’s fault?’

‘Because, and I’m going to quote her here, remember these are her words not mine,’ he said warningly, catching Allie’s eye and smiling, ‘“she might be a great writer, but she’s a terrible communicator”.’

‘What?! What does that mean?’

‘So, after you left your manuscript at my door, and after I hadn’t been in touch for a day, because I was in York.’ He arched his eyebrow at her. ‘Jess tracked me down and demanded a response. And of course, because I wasn’t at home, I didn’t have a clue what she was talking about. So, I booked the first train back, took a cab from Euston and sat up all night reading.’

‘And then what?’ Allie felt herself trembling under his gaze.

‘Then Jess got to me before I could come and tell you how reading your words made me feel. And she explained to me that you’d lost your faith in true love, and didn’t think that happy-ever-afters were real. But then you met me and changed your mind but were too pigheaded and messed up to act appropriately – again, her words not mine.’ By now he was grinning at her outraged expression. ‘So that by the time you’d finally realised how you felt about me, everything had gone so wrong that you felt you could only fix it with a grand romantic gesture. And that as a writer this meant writing not one, but two novels – one of which turned into our story – and then leaving that copy on my doorstep to read.’ He paused. ‘Allie…’ The way he said her name made her stomach swoop. ‘Look at me.’ She hesitated before she looked up into his eyes, his hand caught her waist and she could feel her heart racing.

‘Allie,’ he said again, ‘this is how you make me feel, this is how reading your words made me feel. This,’ he waved to their surroundings and then placed his hand softly around her back, ‘this ismygrand romantic gesture. When I’d read your words, when I’d spoken to Jess, I realised I wanted to show you how I felt. Not by calling you or sending you a badly written text. Not by turning up at your flat uninvited. But by bringing you back to where it all started and telling you that I love your way with words, I love the start of our story, I can’t wait to read more, and I love you.’

Allie’s throat constricted, his words taking her breath away. ‘Shouldn’t we be outside? In the alley round the back if we’re really going back to where this all started?’

‘Allie,’ he growled her name and pulled her towards him. ‘Surely this is better?’

And as she felt his lips on her neck, his hands on her body and in front of a priceless, original, one-off Chanel black dress, she agreed that yes, this was immeasurably better than how it had started.

Epilogue

Ten months later

‘So, how does it feel?’

Allie was taking a moment to herself in the backroom of Daunt’s. It was almost two years since she had launchedThe Wishlisthere and some things, like the fact it was still Simon checking in on her, arranging the books, and generally organising the whole thing, never changed. And in other ways, it felt as if her whole life had turned around in that time.

She smiled at Simon as he busied himself about, tidying book boxes to the side and shutting down his computer for the evening, ready to head out into the shop to celebrate.

‘Sometimes I can’t believe I managed to write another book. There were definitely times when it felt like I never would.’

Simon chortled amiably. ‘They all say that. I think it’s nice that Brinkman’s gave you that time off. They should do it for more authors, look what it’s done for you! I heard your new sales manager saying your pre-sales were your biggest yet!’

‘Shh!’ Allie laughed. ‘Don’t jinx it.’

‘Right, I’d best be getting back out there. Sure you’re alright? You don’t need anything?’

Allie peered round the door into the shop and confirmed to Simon that she was absolutely alright and that everything she needed was right there, she just needed a few more minutes to take it all in.

She stood just out of sight of her guests in the shop, able to watch but notbewatched. It was the first launch in a while that her mum had been at. Allie had a feeling that Martha might have had a word, pointing out that perhaps it would be nice if she showed up and so their mum and Nigel had flown in from Spain especially. Nigel seemed to be quizzing some of the sales team on selling techniques while her mother was making the head of design blush to the roots of his carefully styled hair. Allie shook her head, not wanting to know what her mother was talking about.

Martha was there, hovering awkwardly about. Obviously close enough to witness their mother’s antics but not close enough to stop whatever it was that was going down. Allie felt a rush of affection for Martha who was doing her best to be here for her, when she would probably much rather have been somewhere else and surrounded by more sciencey people. But she had shown up for Allie and had been doing a lot of that recently. After Allie had introduced Will to Martha a few months back, Martha had pulled Allie aside and told her that she knew their dad would have approved, that she could tell Will was the one he had been talking about. Which made Allie wonder whether she wasn’t quite as good at hiding her emotional scars as she had thought she was, and that perhaps Martha had realised all along. Or perhaps Martha had just had one too many drinks that night, because she really wasn’t used to having more than one glass of anything.

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