Chapter Four
THE SUN IS OUT, AND THE WIND is up, a buffeting breeze that half drags Sienna down the steps and onto the gravel-lined drive.
To one side, the cliff; to another, a path running to the editor’s cottage.
She knows it’s firmly off-limits, but the image of Malcolm laying claim to the typewriter and the sheaf of paper rekindles her anger, and the breaking and entering has made her bold.
As she starts across the drive, she builds the argument in her head, concocting what she’ll say, what he’ll say, running the dialogue options the way she does when she’s building a scene, working backward from the crux of the conversation.
More than once she looks over her shoulder, half expecting to see someone watching from one of the castle’s many windows.
For some reason she expects it to be Priscilla, arms crossed in pink cashmere.
Priscilla, who strikes her as even more of a rule follower, who has somehow assumed the role of parent in the group, despite the fact that she and Sienna are probably around the same age.
But the grounds are bare, and the many windows stare back, blank and empty.
As Sienna heads toward the cottage, she finds herself wondering, too, if Eleanor Vandenberg is part of the deal.
No offense to Phil. But he represents Penn Stonely, and come to think of it, she can’t remember the last time she and Malcolm got a message from their agent, let alone saw him in person, but she knows that the few times they’ve met, he directed the entire conversation toward Malcolm, even though he’d signed them as a team.
So actually, yeah, fuck Phil.
Sienna Wood is going to need her own representation.
But first things first. She reaches the cottage, takes a deep breath, runs a hand through her hair—a useless gesture, given the gusting wind—and knocks.
But there’s no answer.
She knocks a second time, and a third, starts to worry that no one’s home. But where else would he be? She slips around the cottage to a window. The glass is old, rippled, and she has to cup her hands and press her face close to see in, and—
Sienna lunges back, surprised to find the editor standing so close. But he didn’t see her. He’s got his back to the window, a pair of headphones clamped over his ears and his head bowed over a stack of paper.
Pages.
The angle and the warped glass make it impossible to see the color, but it’s obvious—someone has already turned in their ending.
Rufus turns, shuffling the pages, and Sienna ducks below the glass, her mouth going dry in a way that has nothing to do with the prospect of being caught and everything to do with the knowledge that while she’s been wasting time with hidden doors, other writers are doing their work. They’re finishing.
She creeps back around to the front of the cottage.
Stands there for one minute, two, willing herself to knock again, and harder this time, but the sun dips behind the clouds, the temperature plunging in its absence, and Sienna, hand frozen halfway to the door, suddenly feels very, very foolish.
What is she doing? Not leaving Malcolm—that part, she knows, is right—but she’s going about the rest of this all wrong.
She shouldn’t ask to write alone.
She should just do it.
Come up with an ending so good—so undeniably good—that Rufus Beaumont has to accept it.
Better to ask forgiveness than permission, she thinks, backing away from the door.
She turns and marches back toward the castle, feet crunching on the gravel.
Kenzo’s standing on the front steps, cradling an espresso and staring out at the sea, and something in her loosens at the sight.
She wonders if he saw her, coming from the cottage.
But when his gaze shifts from the cliffs to her, he doesn’t mention it, just cocks his head and flashes her an affable smirk.
Sienna wants to tell him everything—about going into Fletch’s room, about the half-written note and the misaligned G, about the secret ladder down into Millie’s room. She wants to, but something stops her.
A tiny warning tightness in her chest.
She likes Kenzo. She wants to trust him. But the sight of those pages in Rufus’s hand reminded her—there are millions of dollars at stake. This is a competition. And only one of them can win.
So when Kenzo asks her how it’s going, Sienna swallows and smiles.
“It’s going well,” she lies, then slips past him into the house.
She sags back against the library door, rubbing her eyes.
“Get a grip,” she mutters to herself.
“Are you okay?”
Sienna jumps, heart pounding in her chest. She thought the room was empty, but Cate’s standing on a footstool in the corner, hand raised like a kid reaching for a cookie jar, fingers skimming one of Fletch’s many books.
“Oh my god.” Sienna’s nerves are still jangling. “I didn’t see you there.” She glances at the shelf, a run of special editions, their spines glinting like brass. “I think those are in German.”
Cate lets out a shallow laugh. “Oh, yeah. I know.” She tugs one free, revealing a silhouette of Petrarch, backlit by streetlights. “I thought the covers might trigger some ideas.” She returns the book to its spot and sighs. “Grasping at straws, I know,” she adds, hopping down.
Sienna’s gaze flicks toward the dollhouse, fingers twitching with the urge to find the hinge, search the model for more secrets, but she doesn’t want an audience, and besides, secrets won’t write this goddamn book.
“Sorry,” she says, reaching for the door. “I’ll find somewhere else to work.”
“No, please stay,” says Cate with a weak smile. “Who knows, maybe your creativity will rub off on me. Like . . .”
“Narrative osmosis?” ventures Sienna.
Cate bobs her head, dark hair skimming her shoulders. “Exactly.”
She pads back across the room and takes a seat on the floor beside the model, all four books in the Petrarch series spread around her.
The manuscript too, fanned out like a summoning circle, though, judging by the tired tension in Cate’s face, not a terribly successful one.
The silence in the room is muffled, heavy.
“I’m surprised you’re not playing music,” says Sienna.
Cate glances up, confused, and she points to the record player tucked in the far corner. “When we were loading our stuff in the safe, you said you needed your phone, because you listen to music when you write.”
Cate blinks. “Oh. Yeah,” she says, and Sienna realizes she’s probably too young to know how the record player works. She’s about to offer to show her when Cate gestures at the scattered books on the floor. “I don’t think you can call this writing. It’s more like . . . quiet panic.”
Sienna joins her on the floor. “When I get stuck, I find it helps to remember why I wanted to be a writer in the first place.”
Cate frowns, a small furrow between her brows.
Sometimes it’s hard, Sienna knows, to find the right words. “At dinner, you said something about your mother?”
Cate straightens at that, a fresh light shining in her eyes when they find Sienna’s.
“Yeah,” she says. “My mum cared about writing more than anything.” Her gaze escapes back to the work spread on the floor. “She dreamed of being a famous author, just like Fletch.”
“But it didn’t work out?”
Cate’s fingers tighten on her knees. “No.” She swallows.
“She went into debt because of it. She went part-time at work, so she’d have time to write.
She spent money on courses and retreats, paid for freelance editing, and traveled to seminars.
She made so many . . . sacrifices over the years.
” Her voice trembles slightly as she adds, “But no matter how hard she tried, she just . . . couldn’t break through.
” A sad laugh escapes Cate’s chest. “And here I am. Further than she ever got.”
Sienna studies the girl. “So you’re doing this for her?” she asks, trying to pin down the expression that ripples across Cate’s face before vanishing beneath the surface.
“Maybe I am.”
Sienna bites her bottom lip. She should let it lie, let Cate keep doing what she’s doing, or failing to do, and go back to her own work.
But she can’t.
“Look,” she says, “some unsolicited advice, from someone who’s learned the hard way. Working so hard for someone else’s dream won’t make you happy. You have to want it for yourself.”
Cate ducks her head, eyes shadowed by the hair that falls into her face. “You’re right,” she says, in a soft, sad voice, so Sienna adds, “Hey, you’ve obviously got the chops. I mean, you’re what, twenty-two? When did you sign with Eleanor?”
“Oh. Um.” Cate looks up. “A few months ago. She was the first agent I queried.”
Sienna struggles to hide her surprise. “Oh?” As if she didn’t send her work around for years. As if she doesn’t have enough rejection letters to paper a bathroom.
“Mad, isn’t it? I don’t know what I was thinking. I probably just wanted to get it out of the way. I didn’t expect to get an offer from the first agent I asked.”
Sienna flinches, jealousy sticking like a splinter. “But surely not your first manuscript?”
Cate flashes a sheepish smile, which is answer enough. Jesus Christ.
“Wow, that’s—” Sienna resists the urge to say ridiculous, and manages “incredible.”
Cate shrinks inside her cardigan. “I know. And now I feel a bit like a child flung into the deep end, without knowing how to swim.”
Sienna laughs. “I hate to break it to you,” she says. “But that’s basically publishing.”
Cate bites her lip and looks down at the array of paper, and maybe it’s that she looks like she’s about to cry, but Sienna finds herself adding, “Hey, in some ways, I think it’s easier at the start.
When your whole career is still ahead of you.
You don’t really know enough to know better. No offense.”
“None taken,” says Cate, and it’s funny, but comforting her makes Sienna feel a little better. It reminds her that she can do this, she’s done it before.
“My advice,” she says. “Whether it’s your first book or your tenth, there’s no secret. No shortcut. You just sit down and do the work. Or,” she adds with a smile, “you could try to find that golden book.”
Cate cocks her head. “You don’t think it’s real, do you?”
Sienna raps her thumbnail thoughtfully against her teeth.
“Who knows? What I do know is that in this game, when something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.” She drops her hand.
“There’s always a golden book. It might be a marketing plan full of things that never actually happen, or a shiny award that turns out to be a popularity contest, or a promise that you’re the next big thing, when the truth is, it’s anyone’s guess.
You can spend your whole life chasing those things. Or you can focus on the work.”
Cate nods and hugs her knees to her chest, staring at the work scattered on the rug.
Sienna rises, trading her spot on the floor for a plush leather chair.
She sinks down onto the cushion and draws her legs up beneath her.
She flicks the notebook open, rapping her pen against the page where it taps out a steady rhythm, like a heartbeat.
Or a ticking clock.