‘You’re kidding me.’
‘I’m not. She said that it was about a travel writer and that it was set in Thailand and Cornwall. She told me it was a romance, but she didn’t go into details – it wasn’t exactly my cup of tea.’
‘How did you find out?’ I ask.
‘When she got a book deal.’
‘No!’
‘Yeah.’
‘You hadn’t read it before she submitted it?’
‘No. But Kate had.’
I push my food around on my plate.
‘Nicki didn’t really want me to read it,’ he continues, and his expression is full of sympathy when I meet his eyes. He knows how much what happened with Kate upset me. ‘You’re the only one who knows that, though,’ he says.
‘Knows what?’ I ask with confusion.
‘That Nicki submitted her book without telling me what it was about.’
‘How did you react when you found out?’
‘We had a massive argument.Massive,’ he states. He shrugs and looks away. ‘I don’t know, I guess I felt a bit betrayed. It’s probably just as well I couldn’t stick my nose in. Look how well it did. Women obviously like reading about that sort of stuff.’
I shift in my seat. I liked reading it, too.
‘I’m surprised you enjoyed it, actually,’ he says. Has he got a telescope into my mind? ‘You’re so anti-cheating.’
‘I am.’ I nod. ‘It wasn’t the cheating I liked reading about – in fact, a lot of the time I was screaming at Kit and wanting to hit her over the head with something hard.’
He smirks.
‘It was the falling-in-love part that got me. And this book hadtwolove stories. Nicki wrote them so well.’ I take a sip of my wine and pause for thought, then throw him a worried look. ‘I don’t know how I’m going to pull off this sequel, if I’m honest.’
‘Is it stressing you out?’
‘A bit,’ I admit. ‘The pressure is immense. All her readers... I’m not sure what they expect from this story, but I don’t want to let them down.’
‘You just have to do what you think is right,’ he says. ‘I have faith in you.’
‘Thank you.’ I mean it sincerely. ‘The thing is, I do believe Nicki was going to have Kit marry both Morris and Timo, so I want to respect her wishes. That’s the book that I’m writing. You remember the baby theme I came up with?’
‘Yes.’ He nods. ‘Kit realises she can’t bring children into the mix.’
‘That’s right. And her relationship with Morris breaks down because he wants a family and she doesn’t.’
I think of Liam and know that I’ll be writing that part from my own personal experience.
‘I thought it was a great idea,’ he says.
‘Thanks.’ I smile at him.
‘And Timo?’ he asks.
‘He doesn’t evenwantchildren,’ I remind him.
