Chapter 21
Spending a night alone in a hotel was a first for Kate, and she’d been impressed by the publisher’s upscale choice of venue. She’d hung her dress ready to go in the morning, and set her makeup out ready to apply even though they’d most likely do it again when she got to the studio.
Charlie had said he’d swing by for a drink in the bar, probably concerned she’d work herself up into a ball of anxiety if left to her own devices.
He was there already when she headed downstairs. She’d expected he would be. He’d told her at their first meeting that he’d be beside her every step of the way, and as long as he wasn’t on a different continent, he’d been a man of his word.
She spotted him sitting at a table with what looked like a Scotch in one hand, his head dipped to read paperwork.
It was a quiet midweek night in the hotel, a sparse scattering of patrons, a table of women over on the far side.
Straight from the office, Charlie had laid his jacket on the empty chair beside him, no tie, dark hair falling forward as he studied the papers.
Were they something to do with the book, or did they concern someone else entirely?
He always managed to make her feel as if she was his only focus; it was easy to forget he had a roster.
“Fancy seeing you here,” she said as she drew close.
“And now I feel underdressed,” he said, putting his paperwork away as he took in her short pink summer dress and heels.
“And I feel overdressed, so we’re even,” she said, smoothing her skirt over her thighs. The dress had seemed longer the last time she’d worn it; she was glad to at least have the benefit of some summer color.
“Pink looks good on you,” he said.
She’d think nothing of the compliment coming from Liv, but from Charlie it was enough to send a matching flush up her neck.
“Thank you,” she said, then waved a hand in the vague direction of his shirt. “And, umm, black suits you.”
“Drink?”
“Please,” she said, glad of the chance to give herself a mental slap.
She watched him cross the room, noticing the way people’s eyes followed him, the subtle movement of his shoulders beneath his shirt as he leaned forward to speak to the woman behind the bar.
Was it unwise to meet him tonight? He was Charlie Francisco, her agent, but he was also someone she was coming to rely on.
She knew the rumors about the end of his marriage and what sort of man he might be in his private life, and she wasn’t in the romance market after the shocking end of her own relationship, but if she spoke purely as she found, Charlie was damn good company and he had never let her down.
Not to mention he looked like he could have starred in Hollywood rom-coms rather than written them.
If he’d written them at all, that was. Throw in a moodily lit bar, a hotel room upstairs, and a large glass of wine to steady her nerves, and she really needed to be careful what left her mouth and what stayed inside her head.
“Have you eaten?” he asked, placing the chilled glass of white in front of her as he sat down.
“Room service,” she said. “Living the high life. It was good of them to book such a nice place, I expected a budget hotel or something.”
“You’re helping them make a lot of money, Kate, a good night’s rest isn’t exactly a luxury.”
“So I don’t balls things up again?”
“You didn’t balls things up with Glynn, and you won’t balls up tomorrow.” He sipped his drink, something short on the rocks again. “Rachel called earlier,” he said. “She wondered if they’d be able to track down your crush from the train.”
“Oh God,” she said. “Charlie, I—”
“It’s fine,” he said. “They’ll always try to maximize on any angle that presents itself. The story is already out there doing its thing so don’t feel obliged to hand over names and numbers.”
Kate swallowed a cooling mouthful of wine, completely split over whether to come clean. She’d really just prefer it if no one ever mentioned it again. “I don’t really want to…you know, go down that road if we can avoid it,” she said in the end, feeling lame.
“We can avoid it,” he said. “I’m sure neither of you want to be paraded on TV before you even decide whether to go for that coffee.”
“I wanted to ask you something,” she said, changing the subject. “Earlier, in the meeting, you said something about the author being pleased with how things are going.”
He watched her steadily over his glass. “What I actually said is that he thinks you’re pretty damn special.”
She nodded, thrown because Charlie had inadvertently referred to the author as “he” rather than “they.” So she and Liv had been right with their hunch it was a guy.
“Was it true, or were you trying to bolster my confidence? It’s fine if you were.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” he said. “You remind them of someone who isn’t in their life anymore.”
“I do?” She frowned, surprised by the detail. “How so?”
He sighed into his glass. “Things you’ve said on email and on the radio, I expect.
” He shrugged a shoulder. “You’re the right person for the job, Kate, and tomorrow will be no exception.
They might press you about your guy-on-the-train encounter, but only say as much as you want to and steer the conversation back toward the book. ”
Kate didn’t miss the way he’d subtly steered the conversation away from the author and back to the book either, and admired his skill.
She listened as he ran over some basics about the day, timings and pitfalls to watch for.
The bartender wandered across to offer them a refill; she hesitated and then accepted, and he checked the time, then did the same.
“Can we not talk about tomorrow anymore?” she said. “I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
Her knee brushed his as she reached for her glass. “You reminded me of your father earlier,” she said. “In the meeting. Jojo had a way of making me feel I could do anything I wanted to. You did that same thing today.”
Charlie’s half smile lacked his usual confidence. “I hope so. It’s a lot to live up to. Today was a moment for me too—I thought you were going to walk out of there, but I should have known better.”
“Not really. I seriously thought about it.”
He drank a mouthful of his drink. “My father was fond of you, from looking at his notes in your file.”
Jojo blustered straight through Kate’s head, always in a crumpled linen jacket and one of his florid collection of bow ties.
“I was fond of him too,” she said. “Telling him I was leaving was worse than telling my own father.” She remembered walking up the stairs to deliver the news, full of dread.
“He told me to commute to Germany, that I was barely out of nappies let alone old enough to get married, and that if any child of his tried to pull a stunt like that he’d lock them up till they saw sense.
” She laughed softly. “I guess he must have been talking about you.”
Charlie huffed under his breath. “I wouldn’t have put it past him.
He was the best father in the world in most ways, but God, could he be stubborn.
I’m surprised he didn’t handcuff you to his desk.
” He swirled his drink in his glass. “He wrote that you were a rising star, and that you’d come back one day. ”
“Oh my God, that breaks my heart,” she said. “He was right about me coming back and he never got the joy of I told you so. ”
“At least Fiona is there to see it,” Charlie said.
Kate took a gulp of wine. “She terrifies me as much now as she did back then. Although saying that, she once gave me a squirt of her perfume and straightened my collar before I went up for a part. It shocked me so much that I forgot my lines.”
He laughed then. “She is what she is.”
“I feel like a teenager again every time she’s in the room. I have this crazy need to impress her.” She decided to ask a question she probably wouldn’t have without two glasses of wine under her belt. “Were she and your father ever together?”
“In a romantic way?” Charlie said. “No. Great friends, but Bob was the big love of Fi’s life. He’s been gone a good ten years now, maybe even fifteen. She and my dad were too alike, and when they rowed, they rowed. ”
She could imagine, they were both such huge personalities. “You must miss him.”
“Every day.” Charlie drained his drink. “I should hit the road, let you get some rest for tomorrow.”
“I’ll walk out with you,” she said. “Grab some fresh air before I head up. You need a degree in engineering to operate the air con.”
He swallowed. “Need a hand with it?”
Kate so nearly said yes. “I’ll be okay, I can always call reception if I get desperate.” He nodded, and she followed him across the quiet bar. Her heels clicked against the marble reception floor as they headed outside into the warm evening.
“It’s quite some view, isn’t it?”
The hotel perched on the South Bank, lit-up London spread out in front of them, the glitter of lights reflected in the river.
“Best city in the world,” he said.
“Different from L.A., I should imagine,” she said, leaning against the hotel wall.
“Another planet.”
“Do you miss it?”
He shook his head, his eyes on the river. “Being back there recently reminded me exactly how much I don’t miss it. It feels as if the sun bleached its soul out. I’d be happy to never see the Hollywood Hills again.”
“Tricky for a screen agent,” she said.
“Yes,” he said. “My father was a fish out of water over there too—too honest and direct for the slippery smiles and handshakes. It’s a big old machine, the wheels keep turning with or without you.
There’s things I miss about it for sure, and people, but not the life I lived there—” He broke off. “It got complicated.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, aware they’d strayed into uncharted waters. “Love does that.”
His dark eyes met hers, a shared moment of acknowledgment that they weren’t kids, that they’d both been around the block.
“Will you go for coffee with the guy from the train?”
She glanced away, not wanting to talk about it. “Would you go for coffee with the first girl you ever kissed?”
He laughed then. “Jenna Jackson. I was twelve, she was fourteen.”
“Scandalous,” she said. “First kisses are best left to teenagers.”
He side-eyed her. “Don’t say that on TV tomorrow. You’re a romance writer now, remember? You need to believe in the magic moments.”
“The magic moments?” She knew what he meant from the movies, but magic had been sorely lacking from her own love life, even when she was nineteen and Richard proposed in a packed restaurant.
He’d had the chef bury the ring in her dessert—summer pudding.
It had ended up being a bit macabre, like fishing the diamond out of a bowl of blood and guts. Her fingertips were purple for a week.
“You know,” Charlie said. “The part in the story when one person does or says something unexpected, and the other person looks at them with new eyes.”
“Whiskey and cola,” she said.
He looked at her, quizzical.
“Your eyes,” she said. “They’re whiskey and cola.”
“Yeah…that kind of unexpected,” he said after a surprised pause. “And then something like this might happen”—he braced one hand flat on the wall beside her head and brushed the back of his fingers down her cheek—“and he might say he’d never met anyone quite like her in his whole life.”
The warmth of his breath fanned her lips, and Kate’s breath caught in her throat.
“Maybe you did write those rom-coms after all,” she said, unguarded.
He was close enough for her to see the micro-expression of hurt flicker through his eyes before he caught it. They hadn’t really talked about his previous career, what she knew or didn’t know. He stepped away, and she floundered for the right thing to say.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”
“Forget it. I’ll go, let you get some rest,” he said, lifting one shoulder as he backed away. “I’ll see you at the studio.”
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak, unsure what she’d say anyway.