Page 31 of Slow Burn Summer

“I better get downstairs and open the shop,” Liv said, screwing up the empty pastries bag as she drained the last of her coffee.

“I’ll be down in a while. I need to reply to a few emails and do, you know, social media–type author things,” Kate said, wide-eyed and overstimulated by coffee and relief and the sudden Christmas-morning elation of it all.

—

Heading downstairs a couple ofhours later, Kate found herself faced with a wall of flowers on Liv’s small counter.

“Ms. Darrowby is popular this morning,” her sister said. “Not one but two monster flower deliveries.”

Kate plucked the card from a burst of bright summer roses in a glass fishbowl. “From the publishing house,” she said, reading Prue’s congratulatory note. “Don’t they smell beautiful?”

The second arrangement was less formal, hand-tied cream peonies flushed peach on their outer frills, lavender snapdragons, baby-pink anemones, as if someone had wandered through the watercolored countryside and gathered them by the armful.

“This arrived with them,” Liv said, producing a bottle of champagne and a card.

Dear Kate, something to celebrate this momentous occasion in style! My father would have been very proud, as am I. Fiona is too, although she’ll never say it. You’re an indispensable part of something very special.

Charlie x

“Charlie,” Kate said, touching a velvet peony petal.

“Thought so,” Liv said. “Probably lifted straight from one of his rom-com scripts. This is seriously good champagne, though.”

Kate wasn’t sure what to say. Liv was her sister and her best friend rolled into one, yet still she hadn’t found the words to explain her conflicted feelings toward Charlie. If she had to what-three-words him, she’d choose charismatic-confusing-unsettling. And every now and then she’d chooseTop Gun–hot, quietly inside her own head, after a couple of G&Ts. It was the aviators and the broad shoulders and the suntan—she couldn’t explain it and she’d never say it aloud, even if she was the only person in the room. Her agent–client relationship with Jojo Francisco had been clear-cut, but her relationship with Charlie was far more difficult to define. The undercurrent whenever they were in the same space was undeniable.

As if she’d summoned him, his name appeared on her screen.

“Hello, Charlie,” she said. He was in L.A. for a few days at meetings with one of his clients; she hadn’t expected him to call.

“Happy publication day, Kate.” She could hear the smile in his delayed voice when he spoke.

“Thank you.” She laughed. “What time is it for you? Crazy early or crazy late?”

“It’s an unfashionably early threea.m.”

Unbidden images of rumpled white sheets against suntannedskin blew through Kate’s mind, and she shook them hastily away. “You didn’t wake up just to call me, did you? The flowers came by the way, they’re gorgeous. Liv’s trying to steal the champagne but there’s no chance.”

“Drink it, you’ve earned it. Any big plans for the day?”

Kate looked at her painted nails. “Liv’s closing the shop in a bit so we can head out to spot the book on the shelves,” she said. “And then champagne, now I have some.”

“Are you still feeling okay about Sunday?”

Her stomach turned. She was feeling anything but okay about the radio interview, but that wasn’t the right answer.

“Well, I’ll be glad when it’s over,” she said. “But I’ll be fine.”

“I could ask Fiona if she’s free to come and meet you there?” Charlie said.

“God, no,” Kate said, emphatic. “Honestly, I’ve got it.”

She could well imagine Fiona eyeballing her through the glass booth, drawing her finger slowly across her throat.

“I’ll tune in from here,” he said.

The thought of him listening from L.A. didn’t help her nerves one bit.

“How’s L.A.?”

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