Chapter Twenty-Four
Back at the flat later that night, Petra sat on the bed gazing at the pansy dress that was hanging in front of the wardrobe
door. It was one of the increasingly rare nights she and Ross spent apart these days. She had had a dusk tour of Flo’s garden,
which was magical, and then shared a simple supper of scrambled eggs on toast with the older woman. It had been late by the
time she was ready to leave and—after messaging Ross—they had agreed to reunite the following evening so Ross could pull a
late one tonight and work through. He had been writing at such a frantic pace that the manuscript was now complete, barring
the final chapter, and he was immersed in rewrites and editing, smoothing the rough corners off the already sparkling prose.
When she was at the cottage, she would sometimes wake in the night and find herself alone in the bed. She would turn to look
and there he would be, sitting in the chair in the corner of the room, his laptop on his knee, totally immersed, just like
he was the morning after he rescued her.
Sometimes he would work all night and then go to bed at dawn. Mostly, on the nights when she knew he was planning to do that, she would stay in the flat alone, so as not to risk waking him when she got up.
Their lives were molded around each other now. Petra had started to imagine there could be no other way of living. Slowly,
almost by stealth, she had found herself completely committed to this man.
Petra sighed, putting the dress away in the wardrobe and contemplating putting her pajamas on. It was late.
Instead, she stood in front of the window for a while, gazing out at a view that had already become very dear and familiar.
Across the rooftops and out to sea, she could see the bright white light of a lonely fishing boat working its way across the
mouth of the bay, kept safe from the rocks by the lighthouse on the promontory.
She and Ross had walked up there together once during a summer storm, laughing as the wind gusted fiercely, stealing their
breath, and then gazing silently out to sea together for a long while, with Petra wrapped safe in Ross’s arms.
The lines of a Shakespeare sonnet came to her. What was it again? Something about a little boat being guided by the constancy
of true love . . .
(love) is an ever-fixed mark,
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark . . .
And yet, she just couldn’t convince herself that Ross saw their love in the same way as she had started to.
For her it was truly a “marriage of true minds,” that never “alters when it alteration finds.” What if—for him—their relationship was a summer fling that would make him look back fondly on her, and Portneath, long after
he had moved away and moved on with his life?
Time was ticking steadily on, whether she wanted it to or not. The months had flown past, and her time in Portneath was coming
to a close. In just a few days, Jules and Roman would be returning, and as soon as their party was over, the literary festival
would be racing toward them. The thought of it reminded her—in a moment of practicality—that she must follow up with Alistair
over plans to announce Ross’s return to the literary world.
And after the news was out, what then? She dreaded the announcement. Realistically, Ross coming out into the open—and with
a new book too—would immediately destroy this private, special, magical time they were enjoying. Was their love an “ever fixed
mark”? Or would the spell be broken?
Who was she kidding? Of course it would.
Could she ever convince herself that handsome, supremely talented Ross McCloud would settle for plain little her, when he
was being feted by the entire literary world? With all those glamorous, clever groupies gathering around him, as of course
they would be, he would instantly be tired of her.
No, she couldn’t assume their little affair was ever more than just that for him.
He wasn’t cruel, though, and she knew he cared for her.
He called her his muse, after all. His Miranda.
No. She flattered herself that he might refer to her obliquely in some of the many interviews he would inevitably end up doing.
He wouldn’t mention her by name; he was too classy for that.
But it would be a sop to her, to their little summer fling.
What happens in Portneath stays in Portneath.
That’s what he would say. They would both give a little smile at the secret message, designed to soothe her pain as he inevitably moved on.
Hell, she might even find he dedicated this new book to her!
Could she hope for that at least? Perhaps .
. . She had done more than enough to make sure he finished it.
It was good to rehearse these thoughts, she told herself as she turned away from the window, an icy shaft of regret settling
in her chest. At least this way she could practice the pain of loss and prepare for its intensity. The main thing for her
dignity—which was all she would have left—would be to hide her distress.
She could do that by focusing on the professional stuff. It had always worked for her before.
“We need to time the announcement so The Bookseller can break the news first. We’ll go to the culture pages on the nationals simultaneously. If we do it before, someone’s bound
to leak it,” Alistair told Petra on the phone.
“Sounds like a plan,” replied Petra, trying to match Alistair’s brisk professional tone.
“Yes, and you know the second it goes out we’ll be fending off interview requests,” he warned her. “I suggest we use Louise.
She’s pricey, but she’s the best publicist in the business.”
“Agreed,” said Petra. “And they’ll all want an exclusive, but I say we go wide. With their long lead times, we will have sold
the manuscript by the time they go to press. They’ll be announcing the lucky publisher and probably a publication date for
the book at the same time, if they haven’t done it already.”
“And how do you see the literary festival sitting in all this?” asked Alistair. She could hear him tapping away on his keyboard, making notes.
“Well, Ross is keen that the festival gets a boost out of the story breaking,” Petra reminded him, “so I thought we could
promise a press conference with Ross on the first day of the festival, down here in Portneath. In the bookshop, probably.
That way, everyone gets what they want in public and at the same time, which seems fair. Plus, they have to come down to Portneath
in person to do it. Fingers crossed, that way the festival will get a mention.”
“Smart,” said Alistair. “Right! Well, we haven’t got that long really, so if you could please put together some copy for us
to use in our email to acquisition editors, you can leave briefing Louise to me, okay?” suggested Alistair.
“So I’ll be . . .” hazarded Petra.
“You’ll be dealing with the editors yourself,” he confirmed.
“And it’ll be an auction?” she asked.
“Almost certainly,” said Alistair. “Unless we get the mother of all preempts. You know the drill. And we’ll help here in the
office too, of course. As I say, your baby but with full agency support.”
It was kind of cool, Petra had to admit, having these conversations, when so much of her job in the past had involved desperately
trying to get acquisition editors to take her calls.