Page 69 of The Midnight Book Club
“It is.Well, a new draft for the first half of the book—I’m still working on the rest.”
“You’ve revised the first half already?”
His disbelief was making her feel very full of herself, so she said, “Of course,” as casually as she could.
“I take it you didn’t work in many of my edits, then.”
“I did.They’re there.Well, most—not all.I shortened the beginning, made Italy more fun for you,” she said, her eyes narrowing as she ribbed him.“Overall, I think you’ll be happy.”
“But areyouhappy?”
He seemed to genuinely care about her answer to that question, which made Aurelia drop her teasing tone.
“I wasn’t at first.It’s always hard to get edits on something you care about.But I agreed with most of them once I had a chance to work them out and see what they might mean for the story.”
He gave a smile that warmed his eyes, and she smiled in return, telling herself to ignore the tugging feeling in her stomach.The moment passed, and he was back to his edits.
“What about the love interest?Does Vronsky have a mademoiselle waiting for him in France now?”
The stomach tug instantly vanished at the casual way he’d referred to Vronsky’s love life.
“No.No, I haven’t gotten to that note yet.I’m not sure about… Well, I’m not even sure how to address it.”
“Aurelia, his is one of the greatest love stories in literature.As a reader I would find it hard to believe that, even after the tragic loss of Anna, he would never love or be with another woman ever again.Fine if it’s not the love of his life like Anna was, but can you really not see him having feelings for another woman again—ever?”
After last night’s conversation with Elinor, Aurelia had to admit—at least to herself—that she, too, found it hard to believe he would never love again, even if that love were only half of what he’d felt for Anna.She looked up to see Oliver studying her face, trying to puzzle out her silence.
“You alright?”
“I am, yeah,” she said, nodding.“I’m going to think about the love interest.I can’t promise anything, but I’ll see what I can do.”
“Okay,” said Oliver, nodding his head decisively.“You know, you can take your time with the next round of edits—there’s no rush.”
“Actually, there is a bit of a rush.I know the contract you sent said the book would come out next year, but I’m hoping we could get it into print a bit sooner.”
Oliver’s eyebrows went up.
“How much sooner?A year is tight as it is, even for a small press like ours.And you’re only on an early draft.”
“I was hoping to have it published in a few months?”
Oliver had taken a sip of water and began spluttering as if it had gone down the wrong way.He coughed, holding up his finger as he tried to recover.
“Sorry!I didn’t mean to shock you.But you did say you liked working with early drafts.”
“I did say that.”He paused to clear his throat again.“But I also said I wanted more time to work on those drafts, not less.”
“Oh, right.”She’d definitely forgotten that part.“It’s just… It’s important to me to get this book out as soon as I can.It means something to me, to have it out in the world.And now you’ve seen that I can work quickly.I don’t want to push you, but… If we could try for a publication date this year—maybe in autumn?—I promise I’ll put in the time to get it all done.”
He regarded her, giving no sign of what was going through his mind.She wanted to keep making her case but thought it best to give him a moment to think.
“I’ll have to get the lead editor to approve it, but I’m willing to put in the time if you are.”
“Really?That would be brilliant!Thank you!”
“I’ll take a look at your changes this weekend, and I’ll work on getting notes back to you early next week,” he promised.
“Excellent.Okay.”
