Page 80 of A Billion Dollar Romance
“So, what,” I said, after a long silence. “We just keep doing… this?”
“Edie,” James said, his head tilted to one side, brows furrowed, “nothing has changed.”
I knew logically that in a way, he was right: he’d always been my professor, he’d always been my boss, since the first night at the bar. He’d always been a bad idea, a–arake, I thought frantically, since before I’d even met him. It shouldn’t make a difference if it was printed in a magazine or not.
But it had never felt like this. Like a weight against my collarbones as he explained to me exactly what we were going to do, him and his lawyers and PR firm and marketing department and NDAs. The weight of his billion-dollar company.
“I can’t go back to work. I can’t show my face like this, knowing…”
“You wanted a writing retreat,” James said, not looking at me. “So take one. It’s a little early, but… just stay at the cabin until it blows over. Work on your masterpiece, Edie.”
The sound I made was trapped between a sob and a laugh.
“Of course, James.” The words tasted bitter in my mouth.
I turned and walked to the door. I’d left my tote back at my desk, and in it, my wallet. I’d have to go back and get it. If I saw Margaret, I’d tell her I would be gone for a little while. What was it she’d said? Moving to the middle of nowhere, writing the next Great American Novel.
I stopped just as I got to the threshold of the CEO’s office, but I didn’t turn around.
“Goodbye,” I said. I didn’t wait for his response.
I held my head up as I walked past Alice, unable to meet her grandmotherly eye. Kept my head up in the elevator back down to the fourth floor, and through the maze of desks to my own. Even when Margaret turned to me from where she was seated at her neighboring desk, concern written on her usually impassive face, and asked if everything was okay, I was able to nod.
“Yes,” I said, “fine.”
“I saw the article,” she said, cringing. “For what it’s worth, I know you’re an excellent editor. So does the rest of the department. Everyone here–the ghostwriters, the agents–we all know–”
“Thank you, Margaret.”
She nodded. “Are you going home for the day? You should.”
“I am. For… a while, actually,” I said. “I’m going to– to–”
My eyes stung as I swallowed down the lump in my throat.
“I’m going to James’s cabin,” I said. “I’m going to take a little time off to–”
My vision blurred.
“To write,” I managed, and Margaret lifted her hand, placing it on my forearm as I stood beside her.
“Oh, Edie,” she said, her cool hand squeezing my arm gently before she let it drop. “Take your time.”
I nodded, my voice failing, the tears spilling over my lashline as I turned to my desktop, grabbing the papers I had unpacked this morning, my finished manuscript. I still had edits to do, but I’d wanted to bring it in to him today, thinking, maybe, that he could read it before our date tomorrow, that maybe then, he would understand how I felt–
How mortifying.I shoved the papers haphazardly into my tote bag as hot tears dripped down my cheeks.What had I been thinking?
I’d been thinking that James would be at the cabin with me.
I’d been thinking that he loved me.
That wasn’t part of the agreement,I thought bitterly as I nodded again to Margaret, running for the privacy of the staircase rather than the confines of the elevator. I’d done a shitty job on my end of the bargain, I thought miserably: I’d dragged his name further into the mud, and mine along with it, and he had every right to cut me loose. It was generous of him, really, that he’d offered me the cabin at all, after the mess I’d made of things.
I would go, and I would write something amazing, better than the–theembarrassmentI had shoved into my tote bag, written over lunch breaks and late at night.
I’d have ample time now.
The time I’d been waiting for for years.
