Book People

Chapter Eleven

Come tonight. He is away. I need you.

C

KATE

My mouth is dry and my heart is on its way to Athens from Marathon to tell the Greeks the Persians are coming. Okay, so that’s a reach of a metaphor, but seriously . . . telling me to take my clothes off and climb into his bed?

There was no hesitation in my response. I didn’t second-guess. I only saw him, with that burning look in his eyes, and all I thought was ‘yes’.

Yes. That’s exactly what I want. And if it destroys me, then so what? My life already destructed when Mum died and then when I left Jasper, and for six months things have been drama-free, and, quite frankly, it’s getting boring. I could use a little more destruction.

‘You did not just say that,’ Sebastian says.

‘I think you’ll find I did.’

‘Why? Why do you want that?’

‘Why do you think? You said the kiss was extraordinary and I agree. I want more. I want you and I think you want me too.’

He scowls. ‘It’s not going to happen.’

‘Why not? Maybe we’d get on better if we didn’t have this ridiculous sexual tension getting in the way.’

‘No.’ The word is flat and hard, and it’s the most profoundly irritating thing I’ve ever heard him say.

I step closer to the counter and lean in. ‘Give me one good reason. And not the stupidity about not sleeping with women who live in the village.’

‘I do not owe you an explanation.’

‘Actually, you do. You kissed me, don’t forget. What do you think is going to happen? That one night with you and I’m going to fall at your feet and beg you to marry me? That I’m going to demand you be my boyfriend? That I’m going to fall hopelessly in love with you?’

He says nothing, his mouth a hard line, his hands thrust in the pockets of his tailored black trousers. The shirt he’s wearing today is black and he’s so insufferably handsome I can’t bear it.

I lean in even further. ‘I’m not a virgin, you know. I’ve just come out of a long-term relationship and I’m not looking for another one.’

His eyes seem even bluer and darker somehow, the colour of the sky just before it breaks into the stratosphere. He’s like a high-tension wire, a tautly drawn bow. He could snap at any moment and I want him to.

I want to see him lose control again.

The air around us is so thick you could cut it with a knife and spread it on your toast for breakfast.

Anything could happen . . .

Then the bell above the door chimes, shattering the seething tension, and Mr Parsons, the ultimate book snob, who has never once darkened the door of Portable Magic, comes in.

I’d have thought he’d be oblivious to the atmosphere, but he’s not. He glances at Sebastian then me, then at Sebastian again. ‘Am I . . . interrupting?’

That muscle in Sebastian’s jaw is leaping, fury in every line of him. Though I don’t know whether it’s at Mr Parsons for interrupting, or at me, presumably for existing, or at himself for being utterly ridiculous.

I’m hoping he’s annoyed at himself for being ridiculous, because he is. Though Mr Parsons’ interruption has given me a moment to think, and now I’m aware that I’m furious myself.

That’s why I charged over here. Because of Sebastian’s text about the kiss – extraordinary, he said – and my own impatience with his ‘later’ response to the letters. Mainly, though, it was about the kiss, and how I didn’t sleep well last night because I was thinking about it. How my dreams were full of heat and desire, and how when I woke up this morning, I was in a foul temper.

So much for good thoughts.

His kiss has woken up something inside me and I’m angry about it. I want him to do something about it.

‘Not at all,’ Sebastian says, his cool tone utterly at odds with the look in his eyes. ‘What can I do for you, Mr Parsons?’

Mr Parsons approaches the counter. He gives me a nod, but keeps a wide berth, as if I’m going to infect him with my horrible genre germs or something.

‘I read The Bay at Midnight on your recommendation,’ he says to Sebastian. ‘And, look, I have to say, it was really very good. You said the author was coming to the festival, if I recall correctly?’

Sebastian opens his mouth, but I get in first. I’m feeling petty and thwarted and, again, as if I’m the problem. But I’m not. I know what I’m talking about, dammit, and both of these men need a lesson in that.

‘Have you ever read Colours , Mr Parsons?’ I ask.

Mr Parsons blinks and reluctantly looks at me. ‘ Colours ?’

‘Yes. By Lisa Underwood.’

‘Er . . . no. Should I have?’

‘You should.’ I stride unerringly to Sebastian’s contemporary fiction section, take the book off the shelf, and stride back over to Mr Parsons, who is gazing at me suspiciously.

I hold the book out to him. ‘Try it.’

Mr Parsons glances at the book as if he’s never seen one before in his life, and then he glances at Sebastian. Clearly for guidance.

Of course. Ask the man. He is infinitely wiser than me, a mere woman. I let him have his moment, though, because regardless of anything else, Mr Parsons knows Sebastian and he doesn’t know me.

Sebastian’s gaze is opaque. I can’t tell what he’s thinking. Then he says in the same cool, measured tone, ‘It really is excellent, Mr Parsons. Easy reading, naturally, but with some bite to it.’

I shouldn’t feel pleased that he’s backing me up, but I do.

Mr Parsons looks down at the book I’m holding as if I’m handing him a dead rat. ‘Two pages,’ he says to me. ‘That’s my rule. If it doesn’t engage me in two pages then I won’t read on.’

‘Fine.’ I wave the book at him. ‘Read two pages. I’ll wait.’

Again, he glances at Sebastian, probably wondering what on earth this madwoman is doing trying to force books on him.

But I don’t care. I’m trying to prove a point, that I know what I’m doing. That I’m good at this. That I’m not just fluffy blonde hair, and dogs, and costumes and events. It’s the books, it’s always been the books, and I know what I’m talking about. No matter what Jasper said about me.

Sebastian nods, then gestures at the leather armchair positioned in a nook by the old fireplace, where the fiction section is. ‘Please.’ He smiles slightly. ‘I think it will surprise you.’

Mr Parsons has a dubious expression on his face, but he takes the book, goes over to the chair and sits down. Opens it up.

‘What is this in aid of?’ Sebastian asks me, sotto voce .

‘He’s your most snobbish of customers, yes?’ I reply.

‘Nothing wrong with appreciating good writing.’

‘He’s a book snob,’ I insist. ‘I want to see if Lisa Underwood would be a drawcard for him too.’

‘The two-page rule has been the downfall of many an author . . . I want you, Miss Jones. But you might prove to be an addiction I cannot quit, so it’s preferable if I do not even try.’

He says the whole thing in the same tone of voice and it takes me a moment to realise exactly what he’s said.

I might be an addiction. An addiction he cannot quit. I have never been an addiction for anyone and now I feel hot all over.

‘Would that be so bad?’ I whisper.

‘Yes.’ He is gazing steadily at Mr Parsons, not me. ‘Yes, it would. The Blackwood men cannot be trusted with women, Miss Jones. We do not treat them well and . . . you deserve much better than that.’

I feel even hotter. Again Jasper enters my thoughts, the bastard. He never talked to me about what I deserved. Only about what he did.

‘It’s just sex, Sebastian,’ I say, trying to minimise the moment for both of us.

Only then does he deign to look at me. ‘It will never be just sex with you, Miss Jones.’

I can see it then, in his eyes. Conviction. Certainty. As if he knows already what it will be like and that it will destroy not only me, but him too.

I want to tell him he’s being dramatic, but I know deep in my heart that he’s not. He’s right. It will never be just sex between us. It will be incendiary and that’s a door we should keep firmly closed.

I don’t even like him, yet I can sense, just beyond the borders of that, something more. Potential. Possibilities. What if I dig beneath the surface of this attraction between us? What if I dig beneath the surface of him? What will I find if I do?

Something amazing, I just know it.

But I know, too, that I’ll be committing myself if I do. That I won’t be able to change track or course. I’ll have to follow my curiosity wherever it leads, even to heartbreak.

Deep thoughts for a sunny morning in early summer.

Too deep.

‘Look at those letters,’ I say, because I can’t think of anything else. ‘I think Lisa will love the mystery of it. Especially when we don’t know who Sebastian was writing to.’ I look up at him. His eyes are so blue it’s almost painful. ‘Keep me posted about Mr Parsons.’

Then I turn around and leave the shop before I say something or do something I regret.

Back inside the haven of Portable Magic, the shelves full of books that normally give me such calm and happiness, now make me feel flat.

It’s stupid to be so disappointed, and about sex of all things.

Sure, Sebastian’s hot, but there are plenty of hot men in the world. If it’s sex I want, I can find another guy. It doesn’t have to be with him .

The morning proves to be a quiet one, so I go over the draft of my programme for the festival. I don’t have the money to pay anyone to come, so I have to rely on goodwill and the promise of exposure, but the few feelers I’ve put out to various local authors have been successful. I’ve also used some of my publishing contacts to invite a few other authors: not big names, but well-loved in their genres, including a guy who does some very popular graphic novels. Some have refused, but enough have accepted to make my programme look enticing. I’ve got a romance book-club session planned, and one for the cosy mystery fans. With dogs. Naturally, there’ll be a cosplay cocktail evening. I haven’t run that past Sebastian yet, but it’s one of my most popular nights, so I’m sure I can talk him into it.

It’s exciting seeing it all take shape and yet . . .

I can’t shake off the flat feeling.

Maybe it’s not all Sebastian. Maybe part of it is the letters and the history they contain. They’re part of his history and they’re making me think of my own. Or rather, my lack of history.

He’s lucky in many ways, to have a sense of place, of belonging. Mum and I moved around a lot when I was a kid, and she never spoke of Wychtree. Of her mother or her grandmother. She never spoke of my father either, and now whatever she knew has been lost. It didn’t bother me before – I had too many other things to deal with – but it’s bothering me now.

There’s a history there that I’ll never know because of her choice not to speak and that would be fine if I didn’t care. But . . . I do care. When I lost her, I lost my only connection to the past, to any family I had, and now it doesn’t take a psychologist to understand that what I’m trying to do here is to replace that lost family.

I’m gathering people to me, trying to reconnect those old connections.

Sebastian is one of those connections. He’s the one that, despite our differences, I feel the most kinship with, even if it’s only because of the books.

Anyway, it’s romance book club tonight, and, for the first time, I’m not looking forward to it. I can’t seem to muster up my usual enthusiasm as our regulars pour through the doors. Aisling attends and she comes in with the others, carrying her usual platter of food. It’s all items she hasn’t been able to sell that day that must be eaten, but no one cares about that.

We never look a gift éclair in the mouth. Even if it is a vegan one.

I’ve arranged the chairs in a circle and Mrs Abbot – who is our convener – sits down and gets out the book we’re discussing. We’re going old-school with The Shadow and the Star by Laura Kinsale, so cue the complaints about rapey heroes. Which is Mrs Abbot’s favourite topic and on which she has a lot to say about the nature of female desire and how society has changed since the early nineties when the book was written.

The conversation then devolves into what’s sexy in a love scene and we’re just debating the merits of the word ‘cock’ when Sebastian walks in.

At the sight of a man in our hallowed romance space, everyone falls immediately silent.

A normal man might have been intimidated by the relentlessness of the female gaze turned upon him, but Sebastian isn’t. He’s impervious to the sudden silence, his attention skimming over the circle of romance fans and stopping on me where I sit near the counter.

Aisling gives me a surreptitious thumbs-up, while Mrs Abbot, a rebel deep in her heart, says, ‘Sebastian, what are your thoughts on the word “cock”?’

Sebastian’s blue gaze doesn’t budge from mine. ‘I think it’s a perfectly adequate word, Mrs Abbot. And speaking of words, Miss Jones, can I speak to you for a moment?’

Everyone’s collective breath holds and I can feel myself blushing, which is hugely annoying.

I don’t know what he’s doing here, given our discussion this morning. I was expecting more terse-sounding texts, not his presence in my bookshop, a dark, brooding cloud of masculinity that every woman here is suddenly mesmerised by.

‘Well,’ Mrs Abbot says briskly to the room at large. ‘Let’s all reconvene at my house. I’ll get out the sherry.’

No one moves.

Mrs Abbot frowns. ‘Come on now. Chop, chop. Let’s give them some privacy.’

Finally there’s a scraping of chairs as everyone gets to their feet, grabbing coats and bags, and eyeing Sebastian and me.

I want to tell them they don’t have to leave, but before I can get a word out, Sebastian says, ‘Thank you, Mrs Abbot. Yes, privacy is exactly what we need.’

He’s not even blushing, the bastard. Not like I am. How infuriating.

The romance book club begins to file out the door, grinning at me as they leave and throwing approving glances in Sebastian’s direction. He’s a famous bachelor in the village, but most of the single ladies don’t bother with him because, as he’s already made very clear, he prefers to find his partners elsewhere.

He doesn’t look at all the women filing out, though.

He only looks at me.

As the last person leaves, shutting the door behind them, I say, ‘Come upstairs, Sebastian.’

It sounds like an invitation to something more and it’s not.

But I try not to think about that as I turn and guide him up to my flat.