Chapter 2
I grip the white porcelain sink in the ladies’ restroom and give my reflection in the mirror a hard stare. “You’re doing it for the children, Martha. Remember the children.”
Aaaand now I have an Earth, Wind, & Fire song in my head. Great.
I’d beelined straight to the restroom as soon as I’d stepped foot inside the King Publishing building, my nerves thinking it a good idea to use my bladder as their dumping grounds in their current state of overproductivity.
I take in a deep breath, hoping to calm my jitters and prevent any need for future relays to the bathroom.
I will not rush out in the middle of my pitch, and yet somehow I doubt adopting May’s pee-pee dance will help my chances in convincing Mr. King that Little Creek Library is deserving of his philanthropic charity.
A line of children’s faces crosses my mind’s eye, overlaying the image of myself in the mirror. For them, I can swallow my pride. I can face the man who shattered my dreams and brushed away all my hopes like torn paper scattered by the wind.
Refocusing my gaze, I take myself in more fully.
I’m wearing tapered black dress pants and a cute polka-dot top with slightly puffed sleeves.
I’m channeling my inner Anne Shirley with these sleeves and borrowing her bravado to face this meeting.
If I can win Mr. King over like Anne won Rachel Lynde, then the day will be a success because I’ll be walking away with a big fat check in my hand.
My usually unruly hair is surprisingly obeying the orders given by the product I scrunched into my curls this morning.
The barrette keeping the top half restrained is still managing to do its job.
Overall, outwardly I look prepared and professional.
Too bad inwardly I’m still a onesie-wearing hot mess.
A toilet flushes in one of the stalls, and I startle. I didn’t realize anyone else was in here with me. How embarrassing if she overheard my little pep talk. My cheeks heat just thinking about it.
A woman about twenty years my senior emerges, her gaze soft as she meets my eyes in the mirror. She washes her hands in the sink beside mine, then turns my direction after shutting off the water.
“You’ve got this, honey. It’s hard to confront a cheating husband—believe me, I know—but you’re right. You’ve got to think about your children.” She dries her hands before clasping strong fingers over my shoulder. “Be strong, and don’t take no malarkey from no man.”
I watch her exit in stunned silence. She thinks . . .
A bubble of laughter escapes my lips.
She thinks I’m about to go confront Mr. King, the seventy-six-year-old CEO of King Publishing, because he’s been two-timing me and our kids.
I snort out another laugh, then meet my reflection one last time in the mirror, taking in the mirth dancing in my honey-brown eyes and the fine lines bracketing my upturned lips, the weight of my earlier anxiety lifting.
If ever the heavy feeling comes knocking again, which it probably will when my knuckles tap on Mr. King’s door, I’ll have this little mix-up reminder to release some of the pressure.
The elevator takes me up to the fifth floor of the downtown Chattanooga office building.
The doors open with a ding and a whoosh.
I’m greeted by what must be the literary equivalent of the Keebler elf tree, but instead of baking cookies, the men and women typing, reading, and talking on phones are cooking up what they hope to be the next round of bestsellers.
Or at least that’s what my book-loving heart and imagination are supplying.
Really, the office space looks generically like any other, doors to offices along one wall and cubicles along the other.
The only clue that I’ve arrived where so many authors’ dreams come to be realized with a shiny stamp of acceptance or to be buried under the weight of the rejection pile is the familiar stylized logo hanging behind the reception desk: a royal crown sitting atop a capital K.
A logo I’ve seen on the spines of so many books on the library’s shelves.
“Hi, how may I help you?” asks a young woman, whom I’d guess to be an intern, based solely on the fact that she looks like she stepped out of the pages of a New Adult novel set on a college campus.
“Hi.” I try smiling back at her as I step up to the counter, but the nerves have returned, rendering my lips a bit wobbly. The children, Martha. I push my shoulders back. I can do this. “I’m here to see Mr. King.”
“And do you have an appointment?” She focuses her attention on her computer screen and toggles the mouse around, clicking here and there. Bringing up Mr. King’s digital appointment book, no doubt.
I can’t help but try to peek at the screen. “Yes, I called last week. His assistant said he could see me today at four.”
“Name?”
“Oh, right. Sorry.” I laugh nervously as I pull my gaze away and tell myself to stop acting like a snoop. “Martha Aldridge.”
She gives me another pleasant customer service smile as she lifts a landline phone off the receiver on the counter in front of her. “Let me see if he’s ready for you, Ms. Aldridge.”
“Thank you.”
She nods and turns to the side, speaking into the phone in hushed tones.
A moment later, she returns the phone to its cradle and meets my gaze.
“Mr. King will see you now. His office is the one at the end there.” She points past the cubicles to the far wall and the single closed door.
The gold nameplate is too far away to read, but I imagine it still boasts the moniker Mr. John King. “You can’t miss it.”
“Thank you.”
I turn and start toward the office door, the Earth, Wind, & Fire song playing in the background of my mind again like a WWE entrance theme song, pumping me up for the big fight for the library’s youth programs and my job.
In my mind, I’m shadowboxing past the cubicles, ready to give a one-two jab—which is really just (1) begging, and (2) pleading.
My gaze snags on the glowing screen of another computer, and my feet slow as my vision strains to read the tiny writing of the open Word document.
I can’t help myself. Good stories are my addiction, and getting a glimpse of a prerelease book is probably the same kind of high as half-priced Prada to a shopaholic.
I’m barely moving forward now, my neck craning, but I still can’t make out enough of the words to know what I’m reading, nor which author’s work it is. Drat.
A sudden wave of sadness washes over me.
That sense of I wish it were me. That the manuscript on that King Publishing employee’s computer was mine.
That they were my words he was poring over.
My imagination and world-building that he’d gotten sucked into.
My characters that he was rooting for. My book that he’d fight tooth and nail for at pub boards, through the editorial process, and at marketing meetings.
My book that would hit shelves and make its way into readers’ hands.
But it wasn’t. And it never would be.
I shake my head. That dream is long buried. Had died, in fact, in the very office I am about to enter. No need for it to try to raise itself back to life like some kind of zombie apocalypse. Better now to fight for the dreams of my kids that can still be nurtured and realized.
Shaking off the aftertaste of lingering disappointment and giving myself one last mental pep talk, I stop in front of the closed door, read the nameplate that actually proclaims Mr. J. King, and knock.
“Come in,” a muffled, masculine voice commands from the other side.
I turn the knob and push, prepared to meet the ever serious, nonsmiling face of the man who’s impacted my life for so long and in so many ways. “Hello, Mr.—”
The name dies on my tongue. The man before me isn’t John King, CEO and president of King Publishing, my parents’ employer since before I was born, and the man who told me my stories would never sell and that I just didn’t have what it took to be a real author.
It’s his son. Julien King, my first crush (if book boyfriends don’t count), the unattainable—not to mention older—boy who lived in the main house, the Linus Larrabee to my Sabrina Fairchild.
Julien looks up from some papers he’s stacking on his desk. A huge smile spreads across his face, and his eyes light as he sees me.
I’m not a little infatuated kid anymore, but a kick of fluttery feelings hits me square in the ribs at the sight of the man before me.
Must be a reflex. Muscle memory of the way my stomach would somersault whenever Julien was around.
Which wasn’t too often, given our eight-year age difference.
By the time my interests matured from Berenstain Bears to Gilbert Blythe, Julien was off at college and I only saw him through my bedroom window in the staff cottage whenever he was home on breaks and I was spying on some garden party his parents were throwing.
Julien stands and rounds his desk. For a panicky moment I think he might pull me into a hug I’m not at all prepared for.
He isn’t a stranger, since I’ve literally known him since the day I was born, but I was always more of an audience member to his life, and I haven’t even been that in over a decade.
We may know each other, but we don’t really know each other. Especially not anymore.
I needn’t have worried, however. As soon as Julien is on this side of his desk, he stops and shifts his hips back slightly so the expensive mahogany wood props him up.
His long legs stretch out in front of him, and he folds his arms over his chest, the move enhancing the cut of his striking cobalt blue suit and the way he fills it out.
Hello, every billionaire trope romance author out there. I have a new cover model for you right here.