Standing Still (BreakNeck Rockstar #2.5)

Chapter One

Two weeks after I got my New York Times Bestselling title, and after returning to New York from a whirlwind European book tour, I find myself on the road to Mystic, Connecticut.

My hometown.

A place I left when I was a teenager and have only been back to a handful of times.

The reason. My estranged father is dead.

My last living blood relative is gone from the world, and I’ve been called to meet with his lawyers for the reading of his will. I don’t want any of it. I wasn’t expecting him to have named me in his will. I haven’t spoken to him in over ten years. I don’t think he spent even a second of his time thinking about me. Clearly I’m wrong.

When I received the call, I’d still been on the high that came along with the success of gaining my dream. I’m proud of everything I’ve achieved in my thirty-four years, despite the difficulties and the heartache. This is the pinnacle, the gold standard. It is like the Michelin star of writing .

Well, that’s an overstatement. There are hundreds of authors who have been given that title on the cover of their books. But it is all mine. All the hard work, the millions of words that have flowed from my brain, through my fingers and onto the screen, then out into the world.

Years of being told I am wasting my time, it isn’t a proper job and other criticisms. I stuck with it, and I’ve reached what I only dared to dream I could reach.

Yet since I received that call, everything shifted. Each night before I go to sleep and each morning I awake, I think of nothing but what is waiting for me in Mystic.

It is a strange feeling, somewhere between sadness and regret, and indifference and even a touch of anger. Truth is, I’m pissed. I don’t want to admit to anything like guilt, the knowledge we could have fixed things if only one of us reached out. Turns out we are both as stubborn as each other.

Now it’s too late.

I don’t have a clue what to expect when I get there. My intention is to stay long enough to sort things out, establish what exactly he has left and how I can divide it up, sell it or plain get rid of it. Then return home to New York.

It’s a three-hour drive, so I set off early to avoid traffic. I’ve got my driving playlist full of upbeat songs. Given I’ve just got off a tour with my literary agent’s assistant, who got us tickets and backstage passes to a BreakNeck concert, I’m spending a lot of time listening to their music.

My phone rings as I pass through New Haven, more or less halfway there. I considered stopping for a comfort break around this area, but pushed on as I answer the call.

It’s Kevin, my researcher and PA. He was with me during the tour across the states and then into Europe. I gave him a couple of weeks off. There is a book brewing in my head, at least there had been before I got this news, but it is still at the ideas stage, and I won’t need his help for a while yet .

He runs my social media and the marketing side of the business for me, so I can focus on the writing. I want him to take some time to refresh. He deserves it.

He’s also got a bruised ego because things with Jenna Montanari, our literary agent, hadn’t gone the way he hoped. I was stupid for encouraging it. They’d make such a cute couple. But her heart already belonged to someone else. At least she let him down easy. He is an amazing guy, good looking too and many times, friends suggested we get together, but that isn’t how our relationship works.

Kevin is like family to me and the thought of anything romantic growing between us makes me baulk. Fortunately, he feels the same way.

“Have you stopped for a coffee yet?” he asks after I greet him.

He knows me well. Coffee is my lifeblood. I didn’t want to drink too much of it, though, not with this drive ahead of me. I can’t afford to be stopping regularly to use the bathroom, a problem that is becoming more annoying as I get older. I also want to get this finished as quickly as possible. I’ve booked myself into one of the local bed and breakfasts because the thought of sleeping in that house makes me feel ill.

“Nope, but I will, in Guildford. I’m a few miles away.”

“How are you feeling about it now?”

“I’m good,” I lie. “Honestly,” I say when that is met with silence. “I want to wrap things up quickly and get back. I don’t foresee there being any issues. Sounds like he had things all squared away.”

“Well, that’s good. You don’t want to hang around a while, see old friends? Maybe get some pizza?” he laughs.

I roll my eyes. Ever since the Julia Roberts movie, Mystic Pizza, came out, my hometown has been inundated with tourists. Not that it is a bad thing, given the money it brought in, especially over the last few years when the lobster trade was so severely affected. A trade that was big business in Mystic for many years. I should know, it is our family business.

I feel ashamed to admit I have no clue what dad did when the lobsters started dying out and a lot of the lobstering companies went out of business. He was still working right until his death. At sixty-three, that was no mean feat, especially in such a manual job. Then again, his work was his life. That, at least, was something that never changed.

“You know they remodeled the restaurant? To make it look the way it had in the movie.”

“I’m aware,” I say, remembering it well enough.

I’d never frequented Mystic Pizza when I lived there, only going in for take away. My brother and his friends practically lived there. It still had its loyal customers. The locals wouldn’t be pushed out. The pizza is good, but as far as I am aware, there are no servers who look like Julia Roberts working there and definitely no secret sauce .

The fishermen are a different matter. There are tons of those. It is a big family thing in Mystic. A lot of the kids from my high school went into the business.

Including Bennett Daniels. But I will not think about him.

I talk a little while longer with Kevin until I see the signs for Guildford. I get off the highway and head into town, telling him to enjoy his time off. He says he has some things to wrap up, but he will not work too long. He wishes me luck and says goodbye.

I’ve made good time to this point. It’s just after ten. I should be in Mystic before lunch. I find a small diner and head into the parking lot. Once inside, with a large coffee and an order of pancakes with eggs on the side, I sit and look through the window as I eat. People watching is one of my favorite pastimes.

I’ve always been fine on my own. Solitude doesn’t bother me. As a writer, it can be a lonely job, but I have many friends and usually see Kevin at least three times a week, sometimes five if we’re getting close to a deadline .

My mind drifts to Adrian, and oddly enough, a smile graces my lips. My ex-husband and I never had a big falling out, we just drifted apart. Neither one of us was an asshole to the other. We didn’t cheat, we didn’t hurt each other. We realized how we felt and once we sat down and discussed it, decided we’ll be better friends. His family was more hurt than the two of us.

He is now in a happy, long-term relationship with a widower who has three kids. Another reason we didn’t fit, Adrian never wanted children. I did. Yet for Saskia, his new girlfriend, he’d taken to her kids like a natural. I wouldn’t lie and say that didn’t sting a little, but I was happy for him.

I’ve had my share of dating disasters and a couple of decent relationships, but nothing has ever gone the distance since my marriage. I’m a romance author, but I try not to hold every guy I meet to the standards of some of my male lead characters.

Adrian called last night to congratulate me on hitting the New York Times list. I didn’t tell him about my father. He knows we are estranged. He’s never met him, nor been to my hometown and no one from Mystic came to our wedding, so I didn’t see the point in raising it.

I finish my meal and glance at my watch. I’ve sat daydreaming for longer than I realized. It is already a quarter after eleven. Still, I take my time over another coffee, mentally gearing myself for what I am about to drive into.

A swirling sensation fills my stomach. Or I’ve drunk too much coffee. I’m only fooling myself. It’s dread, plain and simple. I hold a lot of hurtful, broken memories of Mystic, and I don’t want to go back. I will meet the lawyers tomorrow, find out what needs to be done to settle the estate and hopefully be back on the road the day after by the latest.

There is nothing for me in Mystic anymore. I can’t wait to see the town in my rearview mirror for the last time.