24
Angry people are not always wise. —Pride and Prejudice
I drive too fast, but it’s all I can do to keep from crying. I’ve never felt so hurt and betrayed. Or so stupid. So stupid. I drop Lydia and Cat off at their apartment. Lettie takes this chance to move to the front seat. Good, maybe she’s going to explain herself. But she doesn’t. She stares out the window.
When I pull up in front of her apartment, she remains frozen in her seat. She doesn’t open the door or her mouth to give me any explanation. Finally, I can’t stand her silence.
“Were you ever going to tell me?” Hot tears sting my eyes. No, I will not cry. I already feel like a chump.
“Yes . . . yes . . . once I heard that my book was causing you harm, I . . . ”
“SO YOU DID WRITE IT!” The moment she said, “My book” was like a gut punch. Until she said it out loud, I held out a tiny, far-flung hope that I was somehow mistaken.
“Y... yes... I was angry at you after our first date, and it seemed harmless. My first two books did fine, but they didn’t get that many readers. I never thought you’d read it. I didn’t think... we’d ever... ”
“Was any of this real? Or were you just using me for research?” She doesn’t answer. “Here I am planning a future with you and... and you wrote me as a villain, the worst sort of villain.”
“I... can’t say how sorry I am.” She’s crying now and seeing her upset guts me. A tear rolls down my cheek and splats on the steering wheel. I hope she doesn’t notice. “I changed it,” she sobs. “But... ”
“Get out! I don’t... I can’t talk about this.” I struggle to speak, determined not to fully break down in front of her. I gulp back impending sobs. “I’m not available tonight.”
“Liam! I’m sorry. Believe me.” I hear her teary voice, but I refuse to look at her. I feel so betrayed. Not only that she wrote the book, but more that she didn’t tell me. This book has been out since July. July! when we started corresponding. She had so many chances to tell me. I asked over and over to read what she wrote.
“You can’t be as sorry as I am. Goodbye, Lettie!” I keep my eyes fixed on the windshield. A neighbor walks out to the street, rolling out a trash can.
The car door opens and shuts. The tailgate beeps as she raises it to get her luggage. I hear some sniffling and glance back. She stands behind my car, holding her bag and silently weeping. My heart spasms; maybe this is salvageable? Then she shuts the back. And my moment of softness hardens. How dare she? I feel like such an idiot for loving her. She plods into the apartment building. I drive home in silence.
When I enter the house, Fitz runs up to greet me, his paws clicking on the floor. I bend down to pet him. “She’s not coming, boy,” I say. “It’s over.” And then I lose it. Fall to my knees with my arms around my dog and sob like a schoolboy. I cry out all the tears I’ve held back since my father’s death.
***
I wake several hours later on the rug in the front hallway with Fitz guarding me nearby. For a brief moment, I can’t figure out what I’m doing on the entryway at dusk. Then it all returns: the fragile bliss of time with Lettie, the rising hope that maybe everything would work out, followed by the crushing discovery that she wrote me as the villain in her book. I roll onto my back and stare at the ceiling. Fitz licks the salt of my dried tears off my cheeks. The house is empty. My mom has already left for England. I’m supposed to fly out tomorrow. I don’t know how I’m ever going to manage that. Getting up off this floor sounds impossible. I just want to lay here and feel miserable.
I’m stunned by the enormity of my pain. I’ve only known Lettie for a year, but the loss of her, the loss of the dream, is so intense I can hardly breathe. It’s easier to dwell on how she wronged me than to visit the pain. I stay up all night reading her stupid book. There are a few consoling moments, such as when she goes on about the overwhelming attractiveness of the avocado guy. I would find it flattering. And indeed, when I reread the kiss Lydia read out loud, I can’t help but think, good, she must have imagined kissing me nearly as much as I thought about kissing her. But that satisfaction is fleeting because not only did she make me the villain. But she made effing Noah Whittaker the hero.
***
Twenty hours later, my mom picks me up from the train station. The moment I see her stiff smile, I know there’s more bad news. I give her a quick hug, then study her grim face. “What’s up? Is it Georgie?”
“Your sister’s fine. You’re the one in trouble.”
“You talking about that book?”
“Yes.” She closes the boot and hands me her phone. “Watch this.” The generic blonde face of a TikTok influencer smiles at me from the screen. Her handle is: Ms. Book Boyfriend.
As my mom navigates the narrow roads to Georgie’s cottage, I watch.
The headline reads: “Author Takes Revenge on Boss.”
“This just in,” says the blonde with puffed lips. “We have positively identified the author of the wildly popular All’s Fair in Love who skewered businessman and local hottie, Liam Darcy.” A picture of me in a tux flashes on the screen. It was taken the night of the gala.
“The mysterious author has been identified as Violet Benson.” A photo of Lettie at the gala fills the screen. It’s a great photo. So good I want a copy of it. “The two of them dated briefly.” Across the screen flashes a picture of us dancing at the gala. We’re sharing a laugh. My heart pinches just looking at it. “After Liam ruthlessly dumped her, Violet got sweet, sweet revenge by making her one-time lover a villain in her recent bestseller.” The last photo is the real kicker.
I’m in bed shirtless tenderly kissing Lettie’s hair. It’s the one Lydia snapped with her phone just the other day. The moment is so sweet, it takes me back to that morning when I woke up next to Lettie, full of dreams for our future. I stare at my phone screen as my mom parks her car in the gravel drive outside the cottage. She gives a small cough.
“Did you date Lettie when she worked for you?” she asks, her voice trembling slightly. And I realize just how worried she is about me.
“No, that photo is from yesterday or, wait, the day before.”
“Sunday? It was taken Sunday.” I see the tension leave her. “Then this might not be so bad. I’m certain Lettie can help clear things up.”
“I’m not asking her for help.”
“Aren’t you two dating?” my mom asks. “I thought that was what you wanted.”
I let out a long, exasperated sigh. I’m exhausted and disappointed. I really don’t want to talk about this with my mom. “I thought things were going well. But then everything fell apart.”
“Have you read the book?” my mom asks.
“Yeah, twice.”
“It’s not flattering, but it’s not at all what this TikTok woman is saying. There’s no sexual harassment in it.”
“Not exactly, but it was inappropriate for Ivan to kiss her at the company party.”
“Yes, but this TikTok lady has made it sound much worse.”
“Whatever gets clicks, right?”
My sister scampers out of the cottage and taps on the car window.
“What are you two doing sitting in the car?” she asks outside the passenger door, apparently unconcerned about the light rain falling on her.
“What are you doing standing in the rain?”
Georgie shrugs. “You live here long enough, you get used to it.”
She tugs at my reluctant hand. “C’mon, Liam. I’ve got a cozy tea waiting for you.”
***
“I cannot believe you’re dating Collette Best!!!” Georgie says for about the millionth time. The warm tea and meat pies she set out are indeed cheering me. When I saw the food, I realized I hadn’t eaten much since I found out Lettie wrote that abominable book.
“One, her name is Lettie, Collette Best is just a pen name, and two, we are definitely NOT dating.”
“But you could be,” wheedles Georgie. “It’s obvious you guys like each other. I saw those pictures.”
“She wrote me as a villain.”
“Don’t be so easily insulted. All the fans love you. They all ship Ivan and Lizzy. And it’s obvious reading the book that Lettie loves you, too.”
“When she wrote it, she was furious at me.”
“Have you read those kissing scenes?” Georgie asks, her eyebrows raised. Yes, more than I would ever admit.
“She made you the villain, but she put more time and care into your scenes than the ones with the hero.” Having read the book twice now (I read it on the flight), I know my sister is right. Still, I’m hesitant to believe Georgie’s theory.
“If she cares about me so much, why didn’t she tell me that she put me in her book?”
“For being so smart, you can be really clueless,” my mother says before taking a sip of tea. “It’s obvious. She didn’t want to lose you.”
“Also, it looks like Lettie tried to change the book. Ms. Book Boyfriend just released this.” Georgie slides her phone over. On the screen, the TikTok lady holds the cover of All’s Fair in Love with a shocked look on her face. The caption reads: “Suspicious Edits in Revenge Book.”
I hit play. “The plot thickens,” says Ms. Book Boyfriend, waving a print copy of Lettie’s book. “This morning, I woke up to messages from readers all over. Accusing me of talking shiz. They had bought the eBook of All’s Fair in Love and, stop the presses: Ivan Pennington is no longer an avocado grower! Now, he works in construction. He never rowed in college but played water polo, and there’s nary a mention of crooked teeth. All these changes are in the most recent eBooks. However, my followers who received print books today report that Ivan Pennington is still an avocado grower. Did the author make these changes willingly?” the woman asks the camera. “Or are there more sinister motives at play? Who’s to say? As for me, I say ‘something is rotten in the state of Denmark.’” The clip ends.
“Book Tok girl quotes Hamlet?” My mom sounds shocked. “I did not see that coming.”
“What does it mean?” I ask.
“That it’s suspicious,” my mom says.
“Not the Shakespeare quote,” I say. “The changes to the book.”
“I bet Lettie tried to change it,” says my sister. “Self-published authors can change their manuscripts fairly easily.”
“Wait! Lettie did say something about changing it.” I see her tear-stained face as she pled with me. “But I read the eBook that night, and Ivan Pennington was definitely an avocado farmer.”
“Well yeah... I think it can take a few days for those changes to go into effect,” says Georgie.
I consider this. It means, possibly, that Lettie had already changed the book before this weekend. Did that make a difference? I mean, she still made me the villain and Noah the hero. I think about our fight in the car. I was so upset I didn’t hear her out. In my mind, she should have told me about it earlier. And she should have. But when she was finally telling me about it, I should have listened.
“I think you should give her another chance,” says Georgie. “It’s kind of a big deal that she changed a best-selling book for you. Not sure that was the wisest business decision.” My sister tuts.
“And reading that book,” adds my mom. “It’s clear that she’s in love with you.”
“Did we read the same book?” I ask. “Or did you read the newly revised version?”
“No, he definitely had crooked teeth in the one I read. But those kisses,” my mom says in a way that makes me blush.
I’ve already read the mistletoe kiss a few thousand times. Each time, my thoughts rush to the very real kisses, very hot kisses Lettie and I shared. Whatever she wrote, the feelings between us were (are?) real, and this book is fiction.
“She hurt me.” I take another sip of tea. My mom and sister’s sympathetic eyes make me uneasy. “I don’t know what I want to do.”