Chapter Thirty-Three
Jess
If Alex thinks a WhatsApp message is all it’s going to take, then she was clearly crazy to ever contemplate liking him. Considering the empathy and emotional intelligence on display in his novels, she really had expected better from him. Maybe all of that was Nathan’s doing, during the editing phase. But no – she knows better. She’s worked with Alex; she knows that he understands people at an intuitive level. They’ve talked about characters and subplots and emotional arcs. So if it’s not lack of empathy or lack of emotional intelligence – if it’s not cluelessness – then the only possible conclusion is that he deliberately meant to hurt her. Jess can’t fathom why, but it’s the only thing that makes sense. She wasn’t being unkind. She was only looking out for his best interests.
Maybe she should just walk away now. She’s probably done enough work on the book to earn the contracted payment and a cover credit as a co-author. Enough, too, to earn her the right to have her own book published someday – one that will be much less fraught to write, just her and her laptop in a bustling café, building charactersshe loves and not having to negotiate her way out of convoluted descriptions of aeroplane landing gear. She hopes so, at least. Because much as she’s trying to ignore it, there’s a knot in her stomach, and she doesn’t enjoy this feeling. It’s time to go back to doing the things that bring her joy. She’ll travel! She’ll learn to knit! She’ll take a cocktail-mixing class. There’ll be time in her life and space in her brain for those things again. And, also, for the work she has fallen behind on. It’s only a matter of time before somebody slides into her DMs to complain that her newsletters are now fortnightly, and they’re paying for weekly, so what gives?
She turns the idea of being done with Alex – with this whole thing – over and over in her mind, and when she’s had enough of doing that, she emails Nathan. This will require delicacy, so she can’t say what she really wants to, which is:I can’t do this anymore. She has mentally spent the money; she has promised her grandparents a cruise. She can’t renege on that. Instead, she asks if he can do coffee.
From: Nathan Thomas
To: Jess Martin
Subject: Coffee
Hi Jess,
Nice to hear from you. To coffee: gladly. But just to clarify – I assume this isn’t just a social call?
Nathan
From: Jess Martin
To: Nathan Thomas
Subject: Coffee
You assume correctly.
All best,
Jess
So now, here they are, back at the same coffee shop where she and Alex had their first disastrous work meeting. The one she is beginning to wish had never taken place. At the time, it had seemed life-changing, in the best of ways. A dream come true: her name on a book. Maybe her way into writing her own books. And for the briefest of seconds, before she realised his arrogance, the hope that she might be doing all this with someone the romcom gods had deliberately sent her way via a bookshop meet-cute. This is where, perhaps, her constant escapism into fiction and fun has served her poorly. She has clearly not been prepared for the harsh realities of life. She sees that now.
‘Can I get you a pastry with your coffee?’ Nathan asks, all smoothness. Wanting, no doubt, to improve her mood with some sugar, to literally sweeten her up. But the fact she’s seen through it doesn’t mean she’s immune to the charms of a pain au chocolat.
‘Yes please,’ she says. ‘That would be nice, actually. Something with chocolate?’
When he returns, with pastries for both of them, he leans forward, attentive.
‘So,’ he says. ‘Tell me. What’s Alex done now?’
The directness of it, the way he has guessed so easily, makes her smile. ‘So we’re not pretending you don’t know what this is about?’
‘I’ve known him for a long time,’ Nathan says. ‘I know how impossible he can be.’
‘So you threw me under the bus to get his book done, then?’
This, admittedly, probably isn’t how she should speak to her editor. But something about Nathan puts her at ease; she feels she can be honest with him.
He smiles, a little crookedly. Seemingly not at all offended. ‘Something like that.’
Something about the way he says this reminds her of her previous suspicions. ‘Just for the book, or was there an ulterior motive beyond that?’
‘Just for the book, at first. But after that … there might have been an ulterior motive.’
‘I see.’
