Chapter 28
The need for caffeine already hits me by nine o’clock. Mondays are always hard, even if it’s a routine day. But after a night with Noah, in his hotel room, and an early morning to drive home to shower and change, now I’m dragging.
The door to the store opens and Katie walks through. She looks like New York again, only, she’s smartly dressed in sensible boots since it snowed last night enough to make the sidewalks sloppy.
When she pulls off her dark glasses, her eyes laser-focus on me.
“Is he in there?” she asks, nodding toward my office door.
“No. He had some things to do,” I say.
“Good. Let’s talk,” she says, walking behind the counter and straight into my office without allowing me to invite her in.
Julia is watching Katie with wide eyes as she arranges the table by the door. I give her a shrug and follow Katie into the office, where she shuts the door once I’m inside.
“Why did I see you leaving the hotel this morning?” she asks, or accuses. I’m not sure with her tone.
This is again when I remind myself that I’m fifty-two years old and don’t owe some maybe-forty-year-old an explanation.
“Is there a problem?” I ask.
She lets her shoulders fall as she pinches the bridge of her nose. “Just tell me you weren’t with Noah.”
“Why?”
When that’s my response, her brows lift and she drops her hand. “Why? Because that would be bad.”
“Why would it be anyone’s business?”
“So you were with Noah?”
“I said it wouldn’t be anyone’s business.”
Leaning herself against my desk, she looks up at me. “He needs to work. He’s been so blocked, and sleeping with the man isn’t?—”
“It’s no one’s business who the man sleeps with,” I reiterate. “He’s going to get his work done.”
Katie studies me. She has no idea what to make of my side of this conversation.
“Emma, I’m not judging.”
I don’t say anything to that, because, yes, I do think she is judging.
“I guess a better question would have been, is Noah okay?”
And with that question, what I had assumed was judgment, becomes clearly simply her caring for the broken man she works with.
“I think he is. Yes, he said he’s been blocked, but he’s been writing,” I assure her.
A smile finally forms on her lips. “He’s had a rough go. I sometimes forget it’s not a personality flaw.”
I force my shoulders to ease. “He’s extremely talented, and sometimes that gets mistaken for irritating.”
That causes her to laugh. “You’re right.
I should know that. I work with enough authors and creatives that I need to remember that.
” She stands, moving away from the desk.
“I’m going to go talk to Mrs. Packer about using her store.
And let’s meet in a few days to walk through questions to ask during the author talks. ”
“I’m running the author talks?” I hear my voice rise in pitch.
“Didn’t we discuss that?” She laughs again. “We think it would be best since it’s your store and there will be many of your customers. Are you comfortable with that?”
I quickly give it some thought. “I guess I am.”
“Good. I find when the authors interview one another, sometimes they try to hijack the conversations to promote their own work.”
Her phone rings at that moment and she fishes it from her bag as she opens the office door and steps out into the store.
Julia looks in at me from the counter. “Noah is in the back room. I think he’s hiding,” she says in a near whisper.
That makes me chuckle. “I have no doubt,” I say as I watch Katie walk among the shelves while she takes her call.
As soon as she disconnects her call, she gives me a wave and disappears into Mrs. Packer’s store.
I take that as the all safe to find Noah.
Just as promised, he’s in the back room—hiding.
“Is she gone?” he asks as I slip through the door and shut it behind me—locking it too.
“For the moment. You’re not afraid of her, are you?”
“Not in the least. I just don’t need to engage in conversation. I brought you a coffee, by the way,” he says pointing to the cup on the table.
“Thank you.” I pick up the coffee and take a sip. This might get me through the next hour before I need another. “She knows I stayed at the hotel last night.”
Noah studies me, his eyes coolly searching my face. “She said that?”
“She asked me about it. I told her it was no one’s business why I was at the hotel.”
“She knew though?”
“She knew, but I didn’t say anything about it. I’m too old to have to answer to anyone.”
That has the corner of his mouth ticking up. “They’re afraid I’m not working, aren’t they?”
I shrug and sip from my cup again. “I told her you’re working. They don’t need to know the ins and outs of your life. You don’t owe that to anyone. And, if they fire your ass, there’s always the option to publish yourself.”
He actually snorts out a laugh at that.
“What?” I say. “It’s completely viable.”
“It is. And wouldn’t they all shit the bed?”
That has me puckering my lips. “The office is open for you if you want to work.”
“What I want to do is go back to the hotel,” he says, moving toward me and wrapping me up in one arm, both of us holding coffee cups out to not spill on one another.
“If I laid down in a bed, I’d fall asleep.”
“Would you? That didn’t happen last night when you laid down in a bed.”
I feel the heat rise in my cheeks at his words.
I watch his eyes as I lick my lips. “I suppose we should put in a few hours of work, especially since the locals are already talking and all.”
“She’s not local,” he reminds me.
“She’s not the only one talking,” I say.
“Can I work on your book?”
I search his eyes for something that I suppose is regret that he’s not writing his own words, but I don’t find anything but want. A want to work on my book. A want for me.
“If that’s how you want to spend your time.”
“It’s not. But you said we have to work,” he says as his hand trails from my back and over my ass as he presses a kiss to my lips.
“Yes, you have my permission to work on my book,” I say on an airy sigh.
“Dinner tonight?”
“I’ll cook.”
“Can I stay?”
“I wouldn’t want it any other way,” I say before I turn from him, move to the door and unlock it, and then exit out into the store.