Page 90 of A Billion Dollar Romance
“You know the answer to that, don’t you?”
I straightened in my borrowed hiking boots. They were a size too small, but the slight pinch was nothing compared to the twist of my heart seeing James. “Why did you give it to Sam?” I asked, and he nodded, listening to my ill-considered question with the same thoughtfulness I’d come to rely on.
“You deserved a good agent. You’re a good writer.”
“I had a good teacher,” I said. His green eyes glinted gold, sunshine dappling the pine trees that surrounded us.
“You did,” he acknowledged, tilting his head to the side, “and then you wrote and wrote, and edited a thousand other books, and put in the hours necessary to learn your craft. Even if some of them were in the bathtub.”
“Are you disappointed?” I blurted out.Bathtub books.“That it’s not…”
“What, the next Great American Novel?” He gave me a crooked smile. “No. Of course I’m not disappointed in you, Edie, and that you were worried I would be means I’ve done something wrong. I’ve done a lot of things wrong,” he said, his smile fading into a wry twist of his lips. “But I can fix this one, first: the important part is tolovewhat you do. What you write.”
My bottom lip wobbled–Ihadloved it. Of course I had. It wasmine.
“And you do. It’s right there, on the pages. It’s all there.”
I nodded, but he wasn’t finished.
“And I don’t,” he said. “I don’t love it anymore. Or, maybe I never loved it, and it was just the… thevalidationthat I craved.”
The wind blew his hair again, and I longed to go to him, to push it back above his brow myself, to sink my hands into his waves and pull him close to me. Keep him there.
“James–” I said, but he looked back at me, his face serious.
He sighed, looking out over the valley. It was a long time before he spoke again. “This reminds me of your campus. Even the scent is the same.”
My eyes flicked to his profile, tracing his straight nose, his sharp jawline, scuffed with a few days’ worth of beard. He’d been busy, back at the office, while I’d been here.
“I really enjoyed teaching. It was good for me to be away from the city but even more than that, I had a purpose.”
I was quiet.
“It wasn’t the teaching, really, it was the students. They counted on me. They looked up to me, and trusted me, and I stepped up to the role just as my grandfather had predicted.” He chuckled. “My grandfather was right when he sent me there. He usually was.” He looked back at me, catching my gaze. “That’s why I would never have crossed the line with you, Edie. I had a bigger purpose. Much as I wanted to, andgod, I wanted to, so, so much. Every day.”
The heat in his eyes made me flush, despite myself.
“And you were part of that purpose. Reading this… Edie, you can take this and leave, and never speak to me again, I would understand. And I would still beso damn proud.”
My heart fluttered.
“I’ve been wasting time resenting Verity, everything that it stood for–but my grandfather left it to me for a reason, too. He built that company, and he gave it to me, and it’s long past time that I find my purpose in that. Because I have people who count on me there, too. They may not look up to me–in fact, I’m sure many of them don’t, after how I’ve acted, but I want to make that right. Iwillmake that right.”
He let out a shuddering sigh.
“I’m sorry that I tried to do it by using you. I won’t do it again.”
I stared at the manuscript clutched in his hands, unable to meet his eye.
“I hurt you. I can’t change the way the story started. But, Edie…” he said, taking a step closer to me. “What I want you to tell me is how the story ends.”
He held out the manuscript–my romance novel–with both hands.
“It’s a romance novel, James,” I said, looking up at him. “They all end the same way.”
“Not that one, Edie.” His gaze flicked downward.
He’d crossed out the name Penelope Portland. Written in the neat script that littered so many of my typed manuscripts was a new one.
