Page 16 of Slow Burn Summer

“I expect this has been rather a lot to take in,” Prue said, her hand on Kate’s shoulder when the meeting finally broke up. “I’d suggest you just work methodically through everything step-by-step—it’ll all start to feel natural in no time.”

“Thanks, Prue,” Kate said. “I do feel a bit like I need to go and lie down in a dark room, but believe me when I say I’m determined to make a great job of this. For the original author, and for everyone here who’s obviously working so hard to make a success of it behind the scenes, and for myself of course, but most of all for the story itself. I’ve read it so many times now I almost know it by heart. I relate to Leanora in ways I can’t even put into words. Whoever the author is, it’s as if they looked inside my soul when they wrote it, and I’m sure I won’t be the only person who connects to it so strongly. It feels like a story that needs to be out there in readers’ hands and enriching their lives, so to be a part of the team making that happen is exciting, it really is.”

Kate looked up and caught Fiona’s eye, and for a fleeting second thought she saw something akin to approval. Well, it wasn’t blatant disapproval, anyway. Baby steps.

—

Kate massaged her jaw, smallcircles just below her ears to relieve the fixed-smile tension.

“You did great back there, everyone loved you,” Charlie said.

They’d taken refuge from the rain in a coffee shop just around the corner from the publishing house. It had a vague fifties theme that had seen smarter days, a Wurlitzer jukebox bubbling withfaded neon in one corner, peeling chrome strips on the chairbacks. Charlie looked somehow too big for the spindled wooden seat, the way adults do when they sit on kids’ furniture at parents’ evening.

“Except Fiona,” Kate said, reliving the snarky remarks.

“Fiona doesn’t love anyone, except Roulade.”

Kate rolled her eyes. “Okay, I’ll play. Who’s Roulade?”

Charlie ripped the top from a tube of brown sugar and upended it into his coffee. “Fiona’s cat. Haughty-looking thing, high maintenance. Bites people.”

“They do say people choose animals that reflect their personality,” Kate said, watching the guy from behind the counter saunter across to the jukebox, unhurried as he made his selection. They were the only customers; it didn’t seem the kind of place to anticipate a lunchtime rush.

“I think it chose her, from what I remember. Sat on her step and refused to leave.”

“Ballsy move.” The thought of Fiona taking in a stray didn’t sit well with the two-dimensional Cruella image she worked hard to project.

The jukebox crackled to life, the old-school sound of needle on vinyl, the schmaltzy intro to “In the Still of the Night,” familiar to everyone thanks toDirty Dancing.It felt suddenly too sultry for a rainy lunchtime in London.

Charlie noticed the mood shift too, raising his eyebrows over his coffee cup. “Did we inadvertently walk through a time warp?”

Given the unreal experience of her first publishing meeting, it felt quite fitting to find herself here in this further interlude of otherworldliness. “If we did, can we hang around for a while? We might see Elvis.”

They fell silent as the guy from behind the counter approached their table and placed a plate of pink wafer biscuits down with a knowing look before disappearing behind thecounter again, as if he’d read their minds and provided without being asked. He was dressed, inexplicably, as a fifties sailor, white hat perched on his head.

“If I don’t make it out of here alive, tell my sister I love her,” Kate whispered, silently vowing to bring Liv here one day. She’d probably wear a netted skirt and dance on the tables.

“What does she think about you taking the job on?”

Kate decided against sharing Liv’s hotline to his previous world and the caution she’d offered about getting close to him. “She’s fine as long as I’m fine.”

“And are you fine, after everything you’ve just heard back there?”

She reached for a pink wafer, thinking. “I’ll admit it was a lot. Especially the overseas stuff, I hadn’t imagined any of that, but I think I’m okay? Nervous, but okay.” She paused. “The mouse orchestra was a bit wild, though.”

“I thought it was very you,” he said, raising his coffee cup.

She rolled her eyes and shook her head slowly, unwilling to rise to the bait.

“I’d be more worried if you weren’t nervous,” he said, back in professional mode. “It just means you want to do a good job. And, remember, you won’t be doing it alone, you have the whole publishing team around you to hold your hand.” He shrugged one shoulder. “And me.”

Maybe it was the retro movie music, maybe it was the heartbreaker half smile that lifted one corner of his mouth, but she found herself looking at Charlie’s tanned, capable hands around his coffee mug and wondering how they’d feel sliding down her spine. She pulled herself up sharp. There was a whole code of ethics about this stuff. Not to mention the personal stuff she knew about him. Not that it was relevant or any of her business, but it was more than enough to route her thoughts back on track.Glancing up and finding him watching her, she shoved the pink biscuit into her mouth whole in panic and instantly regretted it.

“Would you like me to look away so you can, you know”—he gestured toward her mouth, not helping the situation at all—“remove it?”

She shook her head and tried to style it out, breathing through her nose as she dislodged it with the dregs of her coffee.

“Try one,” she said, surreptitiously wiping away a tear when she could speak again. “They’re not as bad as you think.”

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