Читать книгу The Original Sinners: The Red Years - Tiffany Reisz, Tiffany Reisz - Страница 13

6

My Caroline,

I didn’t want to write this story any more than you want to read it. It’s us. Of course it’s us. A name changed here, a date changed there…but still us. You have always been my only muse. I cannot paint or sculpt. I have only my words to render your likeness. Sometimes I wish I were both God and Adam so I could tear out my rib and create you from my own flesh. I would say I’d create you from my heart, but I gave that to you when you left me. But that’s a cliché, isn’t it? Sadly, that’s all I have these days. The whole story is a cliché. I desired you. I ate of you. I lost you. That ancient story—older than the Garden, old as the Snake. I would have liked to call this story of ours The Temptation but the word temptation, once the province of pious theologians, has now been co-opted by every third second-rate romance novelist. And although I loved you, my beautiful girl, this is not a romance novel.

“Like it, Zach?”

Zach blinked at the interruption, lost as he was in Nora’s new words.

“It’s quite an improvement.”

“An improvement? Oh, I meant the cocoa.”

Zach sat in Nora’s bright kitchen, the winter sun turning everything white. Nora’s new draft of the first chapter sat in front of him and a cup of hot chocolate steamed at his elbow. He sipped the cocoa and felt like a lad again in his grandmother’s kitchen.

“Very good,” he said, inhaling the warm steam. “So is this.”

He tapped the pages in front of him. Nora had taken his advice and created a frame story for her book. It would be a letter her narrator, William, was writing to Caroline, the woman he loved and lost. It was working beautifully already—the book and the partnership with Nora. He’d rarely gone to his writers’ homes and certainly never sat with them at their kitchen table and drank cocoa. Nora was proving to be a different breed from any writer he’d ever before known. “‘This is not a romance novel…’” Zach read from her new first chapter. “Excellent line. Evocative and provocative. Ironic, as well.”

“Ironic?” Nora sipped at her own mug of hot cocoa. She sat across from him at the table and pulled one leg up to her chest. “It’s true. It isn’t a romance novel.”

“Not a traditional one, of course. Your protagonists don’t end up together, but it is a love story.”

“A love story is not the same as a romance novel. A romance novel is the story of two people falling in love against their will. This is a story of two people who leave each other against their will. It starts to end the minute they meet.”

“Why does it end? You seem like an optimist to me, but the end is heartrending. The last thing she wants to do is leave him, and yet in the end she goes.”

Nora left her chair and went to the kitchen cabinet by the refrigerator.

“I’m no optimist,” she said as she opened the cabinet door. “I’m just a realist who smiles too much. And the reason William and Caroline don’t stay together is that while he really is in the lifestyle, she’s not. She’s only in the relationship for him. It’s their sexuality that’s the problem, not the love. It’s like a gay man being married to a straight woman. No matter how much he loves her, it’s a sacrifice every moment they’re together. The sex is secondary to the sacrifice.”

“A very close second, I notice.”

Nora laughed. She closed the cabinet door and knelt on the floor. She opened the bottom door and gave a victorious laugh.

“Found them.” She pulled out a bag of marshmallows. “I have to hide the sugar from Wes.”

“Has a sweet tooth, does he?”

“He has type 1 diabetes. And a sweet tooth. Bad combination. He’s usually really good about what he eats, but I catch him staring pretty longingly when I have cocoa and marshmallows.”

Zach wondered if it was actually the sugar Wesley had been staring at and not Nora. He couldn’t take his own eyes off this woman. She’d been captivating in her signature red Monday night. And now in casual clothes she looked casually stunning. He watched her as she rolled back onto her toes and rose straight up off the floor with the well-trained grace of a geisha. He marveled at her offhand display of almost balletic agility while she leaned over the table and dropped a handful of marshmallows into his cocoa and hers.

“Zach, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re even more ridiculously handsome when you look happy,” she said, dropping back into her chair and popping a marshmallow into her mouth. “You aren’t, by any chance, enjoying working with me? The London Fog isn’t lifting, is it?”

Zach took a sip of his cocoa to cover his embarrassment. He was used to women hitting on him but never before had any woman been so shamelessly forward with him.

“As this is the first time we’ve actually sat down and worked on your book together,” Zach said and coughed uncomfortably, “I think a verdict on my meteorological conditions would be premature.”

“What’s the verdict on the book then?”

“The verdict is…you might actually pull this off. But not without some major revisions. Keep the letters at the beginning and end. But I want the body of the book in third, not first, person.”

Nora looked down at her notes. She picked up her pen and wrote something on a sheet of paper. She looked at it a moment before sliding it across the table.

The first time William saw Caroline was on Ash Wednesday. She still had the ashes on her forehead.

“Like that, Zach?”

Zach read and nodded his approval. “Perfect. That’s exactly what I want. Now rewrite the entire book like that.”

“Yes, sir,” she said and saluted. “What else? Since you’re being nice to me, I have the feeling you’re about to hit me with some more changes, yes?”

Zach grimaced, unnerved by how well this near stranger could read him.

“Just some minor ones—have you considered going a more mainstream route with your characters?”

“I like virgins, perverts and whores,” Nora said without apology. “I couldn’t care less about the people who just fuck for fun on weekends.”

“The sex shouldn’t be the story, Nora.”

“The sex isn’t the story, Zachary. The sacrifice is. Caroline is actually vanilla, not kink. So she sacrifices who she really is to be with the man she loves—she sacrifices the good for the better.”

“But they end it, yes?”

“That’s the point of the book—sacrifice can only get you so far. William and Caroline are just too different to make it work. And although two people can love each other deeply, sometimes love alone doesn’t cut it. We can only sacrifice so much of ourselves in a relationship before there’s nothing left to love or be loved.”

Zach’s stomach clenched. Even now he ached for Grace with an impotent fury. Zach could only raise his cup of cocoa.

“I’ll drink to that.”

He and Nora clinked their tea mugs together in a mock toast. Across the table their eyes met, and Zach could see the ghost of his pain reflected in hers.

Zach’s next question was cut off by Wesley’s sudden entrance in the kitchen.

“Hey, you,” Nora said to Wesley. “What’s up?”

“I’m not here,” Wesley said. “Keep working. I just need my coffee mug.” Wesley threw open the cabinets and took an aluminum travel mug from a shelf.

“Where are you going?” Nora asked.

“Study group at Josh’s. I’m helping him with calculus, and he’s giving me his history notes.”

“What are you majoring in, Wesley?” Zach asked politely, trying not to show how unnerving he found Nora’s relationship with her young intern—unnerving and familiar.

“Biochem. I’m premed.”

“That’s wonderful. Your parents must be very pleased.” Zach winced internally at how old he sounded.

“Not really.” Wesley shrugged. “My whole family has worked with horses for generations. They want me to come home and stay in the business. If I have to do medicine, at least it could be equine medicine.” He poured a mugful of coffee and screwed the lid on tightly. “I have this conversation with them every week.”

“I think he should just let me talk to them.” Nora batted her eyelashes at Wesley.

“You,” Wesley said, pointing his finger at her, “don’t exist. So don’t even think about it.”

Nora responded by wrinkling her nose at him in mock disgust.

“What?” Zach said. “Your parents don’t know you and Nora are living together?”

A faint blush suffused Wesley’s face. “There’s a lot they don’t know. They were going to pull me out of school and send me to the state school down there. It was money reasons, the usual, and Nora offered to let me live with her and work for my room and board. They just know I got a job to cover it and a place off-campus. They don’t know what I’m doing.”

“How did you two meet?”

“School,” Nora answered for Wesley. “His school was obviously a little desperate—they asked me to be their writer-in-residence that semester. Wes was in my class.”

“You were her student?” Zach asked, his hands going cold even as he said the words.

“The class met at one.” Wesley smiled at Nora. “I needed to meet my Humanities requirement, and I would have taken anything that let me sleep late on Tuesdays and Thursdays.”

“I’m very flattered.” Nora stuck her tongue out at him.

“I’m very leaving. Later,” Wesley said. He reached for Nora’s mug and she slapped his hand.

“What are your numbers?” she demanded.

“One-seventeen. I can have a sip,” Wesley protested.

“Not on my watch. Drink your coffee black, and keep your hands off my cocoa.”

Wesley feinted to the left and stuck his finger in her cocoa and licked it off as he disappeared through the kitchen door. Zach felt a pang at the easy intimacy between Nora and Wesley. He missed his play-fights with Grace in the kitchen and the bargains they struck to make up. He would cook dinner if she would wear the lingerie he’d gotten her for her birthday. She’d do the dishes if she could be on top tonight…amazing how they both came out victors in those battles.

“So he’s…nineteen?”

“You have a dirty mind, Zachary Easton. Wesley’s as pure as, well, I’m not.”

“You’re telling me that Wesley’s a virgin? The young attractive houseboy of an infamous erotica writer is a virgin?”

“Believe it or not, I do have some self-control. And even if I didn’t, Wes certainly does—apart from sticking his damn hand into my cocoa every now and then. He’s a good Christian kid and I respect him more than I can say for his decision to wait. Mark my words, Zach, I will put the first randy bitch who lays a hand on him in the hospital.”

“And he doesn’t mind what you write? What you do?”

Nora leaned back in her chair. “We made a deal. I can top, but not bottom.”

“Are you secretly a gay man?” Zach eyed her curiously.

“I’m not so secretly kinky. Top and bottom are S&M terms, too. Wes leaves me alone about my sex life as long as I’m not the one coming home with the bruises.”

Zach swallowed. “Did you ever come home with bruises?”

Nora bit her bottom lip.

“I won’t bore you with the whole story of me and Søren,” she said, glancing away. “Let’s just say we’ve got history and leave it at that. Last year, I went to see Søren on the day we consider our anniversary. I do it every year. Can’t stop myself for some reason. Anyway, I had a weak moment. I came home the next morning covered in welts and bruises and with a nice fat lip. Wes was horrified. He started packing.”

Zach winced. The thought of welts and bruises on Nora horrified him, too.

“So you made your deal?”

“Right. If I go back to Søren one more time, Wes is gone.”

“Moving out seems a rather extreme threat. Of course, moving in with you seems a rather odd decision.”

“He’s Methodist. I think he’s trying to save me. Methodists are always trying to save people.”

“Are you sure he doesn’t have feelings for you?”

“He does have feelings for me. Namely irritation, frustration and disgust mingled with amusement. But that’s not surprising since he’s not in the game.”

Zach sympathized with the boy. He had the same feeling for Nora, too. As well as intoxicated, amazed and aroused mingled with petrified.

“You said he was a virgin. How do you know he isn’t like you?”

“K-dar,” Nora said and tapped the side of her nose. “Kinksters can smell it on each other. And my Wesley smells like warm vanilla.”

“Wonder what I smell like.” Zach cursed himself for accidentally speaking the words aloud.

Nora cocked her head at him; Zach’s heart started to race. She rose up out of her chair and slid onto the top of the kitchen table. She stretched across it and put her nose at his neck. Slowly, she inhaled. A slight rush of air whispered over Zach’s skin and he immediately knew what every muscle in his body was doing.

“Not kink. But not vanilla, either. Smells like…curiosity. It killed the cat, you know.”

“Nora,” Zach said in a warning tone. J.P. would yank him off Nora’s book in a heartbeat if he saw them right now.

“S&M is as psychological as it is physical and sexual, Zach. Imagine being as deep inside a woman’s mind as you are inside her body.”

Zach’s hands gripped his mug, still warm from the steaming liquid inside.

“We’re working,” he reminded her, reminded himself. He remembered their photograph in the newspaper; her mouth had been at his ear just the way it was now. If he turned his head only a few inches their lips would meet.

“I write erotica. I am working. Want to earn some overtime?”

“Nora, we’ve got less than six weeks and more than four hundred pages to write. Now get off the table and stop wasting my time.”

“Oh, fine,” she said, sounding playfully disappointed. Zach exhaled with relief when she slid back and sat in her chair again. She reached under her notes and pulled out a copy of the trade newspaper that had their picture in it. She leaned back in her chair and threw her legs up on the table as she flipped through the paper. Zach stared at their picture again prominently displayed right in front of his face. The byline read Erotica Writer Nora Sutherlin Gets the Royal Treatment.

Nora turned another page and sighed. “And to think I thought the fog was finally lifting.”

* * *

Zach stared at his computer screen for the seventeenth straight minute in a row. The words of the book review he’d sworn he would start writing for the Times tonight simply would not come. He had words, the wrong words, Nora’s words, but not the words he needed.

Not kink, she’d purred into his ear, sending every nerve in his long neglected body firing. But not vanilla, either… Nora… Zach understood now why some people were afraid of her. He was afraid of her, of her power to take captive his every thought. He felt unmoored around her, unsafe, and yet of everyone he had met since coming to New York, he sensed only she could be trusted.

As deep inside a woman’s mind… Zach tried and failed to stem the tide of images that her words conjured. Grace’s soft skin, moon-white against midnight sheets, her back against his chest, his hands over hers, his mouth to her neck as he drove into her, knowing her flesh and yet still knowing so little of her soul. Her body had been so open to him once. But her mind? Her heart?

Zach shook his head, trying to pull himself out of his dangerous reverie. Grace, who he had made love to countless times, told him nothing. And Nora, on whom he had never laid a hand, said everything.

On a whim, Zach minimized his document and opened Google. Nora threw out S&M terminology like a doctor tossed around the names of exotic diseases. He wasn’t entirely clueless when it came to matters of kink. An old lover of his had even accused him of being kinky because he preferred positions other than missionary. He certainly knew what S&M meant—sadomasochism, knew the French called it “the English vice” because his countrymen had an amusing obsession with corporeal punishment. Not him—he tried to avoid giving or receiving pain whenever possible. He’d been known to bite a little during lovemaking, something Grace was inordinately fond of, but actual hitting or whipping was something entirely out of his purview.

After they were done working on her book today, Zach had worked up the courage to ask Nora about Søren, her former lover who she spoke about with the reverent sadness of a knight speaking of a fallen king. She said they were a D/S couple like William and Caroline in her book. She’d been collared to him for years, and that leaving him had been akin to dying.

Zach typed in D-S couple and quickly discovered he’d mentally spelled it incorrectly. Spelled D/s it stood for Dominant and submissive. Interesting that while the D was capitalized the s was always lowercase to illustrate the lower status held by the submissive. The whole thing seemed rather strange and sexist to him, but he couldn’t deny that there seemed to be quite a few male submissives and some rather impressive-looking female Dominants out there. He couldn’t imagine a woman as vivacious as Nora being content to sit at a man’s feet. His only guess was that this man, this Søren person, was a rather impressive specimen. He wondered what Søren did for a living—probably something innately alpha male like a pilot or a military officer. Or perhaps he was independently wealthy like Nora seemed to be. Something certainly afforded her an impressive quality of life. She drove a late-model black Lexus with a cheeky license plate that read “Say Ouch” and she lived in an elegant, historic home. He knew award-winning writers in England with a dozen or more books under their belts who still couldn’t afford the house or the neighborhood she lived in.

Curiosity got the better of him, and Zach typed in Nora Sutherlin and hit Enter. She found several fan pages, some links to fan fiction and Nora’s official website. Zach kept scrolling through all the mentions of Nora on the web. He clicked the link to someone’s blog that carried an entry entitled “Last Night with THE Nora Sutherlin.” But as soon as Zach clicked the link the page disappeared. He hit Back and tried to find it again, but the page had vanished. Maybe the blog server was down.

Zach gave up nosing on Nora and looked up more S&M terminology. As uncomfortable as the idea of coupling pain with sex, he did appreciate that people in the community seemed fairly responsible in their play. Every webpage he landed on carried the mantra “safe, sane and consensual.” He stared for a long time at an image of a young woman wearing a brown leather collar that buckled and locked at the base of her neck. Zach remembered Nora had said she’d been “collared” to Søren. Collars were apparently quite an important part of the S&M scene. Nora had touched his naked wedding ring finger that night in the cab and then brought his hand to her bare neck. She’d equated being collared with marriage. Maybe that’s why he and Nora had found common ground so quickly despite being such wildly different people—they were both going through a divorce of sorts.

But was he going through a divorce? Every day when he checked his mail, he expected papers from Grace’s attorney. Every time his home phone rang, he expected it to be Grace telling him they needed to stop putting it off. But so far he’d received no calls or legal papers. Was she waiting on him to start the process? If so, she might have to wait a long time. He couldn’t deny their marriage had fallen apart in the past year and a half, but he was in no hurry to put the final nail in the coffin. He’d hoped if he came to New York, she’d miss him enough to want to make it work again. But every day the phone stayed mute.

Zach closed the internet and exited from his empty document without writing a single sentence. He’d left Nora in her kitchen hours ago. Surely she’d sent him another email by now—she emailed him constantly. But his in-box sat empty but for a reminder from J.P. about the next staff meeting and a question from his assistant, Mary. Both could wait.

He clicked on New and typed in Nora’s email address. Of course she would have an address with “littleredridingcrop” in it. Ludicrous as it was, at least it made it easy to remember.

Nora, he wrote and stopped. Why was he writing her? They’d discussed her book for hours today. There was no more to talk about for now. And considering they already had a reputation for working too closely together, he knew he didn’t need to be writing her about anything but the book. What would he say if he did write her? He had those words, those sentences. But they had tumbled about in his head so much since meeting her that they had crashed against each other, against him, and broken into fragments.

Nora, I don’t want to I won’t it’s been so bloody long I can’t I think of you of her too much I still love but I I hurt her Grace Now it’s hell worse Limbo I hurt too young too much…

Zach deleted it all, even Nora’s address. He knew better than this, knew better than to get involved. He would not make this mistake again. She would not pull him off course.

It didn’t matter, he told himself. He was gone in five weeks. Off to L.A. where he could start over again and perhaps get it right this time. But did he want to start over? At forty-two a new life seemed a far more terrifying prospect than it had at thirty-two when he and Grace married and moved to London.

The blank email sat waiting before him. He looked down at his fingers poised above the keyboard. Was it the words that failed him or his hands? They felt too heavy now. It made no sense. Without the weight of his wedding ring they should have been lighter.

The screen still waited, the cursor winking at him like an eye.

Zach typed in another address.

Gracie, he wrote, using the nickname that never failed to make her smile. Please talk to me.

* * *

Nora stood at the kitchen window peering into the dark. Sunset came so early in the winter that whole days seemed to pass in darkness. Zach had left her several hours ago, left her with a thousand ideas and admonitions. But now she could only wait and think and gaze at the light falling in from the lamppost outside the kitchen window. It illuminated the tremulous flakes of snow and cast white shadows that gathered round but did not touch her.

She turned toward a sound and saw Wesley standing in the doorway watching her with the same intensity as she watched the snow-lit play between the light and the shadows.

“How long have you been hanging out here in the dark?” Wesley asked, stepping into the lone pool of light.

She sighed at a shadow. “For as long as it’s been dark.”

Wesley reached out to flip the light switch.

“Leave them off.”

Wesley dropped his hand back to his side.

“I didn’t know you could write in the dark.”

Nora gave him only the barest hint of a smile.

“You’d be surprised what I can do in the dark, Wes.”

Wesley grimaced. “Zach know what you do in the dark?”

Nora shook her head.

“No. He thinks I’m just a writer. Let’s keep it that way, shall we?”

“It’s not anything I’ll ever brag about.”

“Wes, you knew what I was when you signed up for this job.”

“And you knew how I felt about it when you asked me to move in.”

Nora took a slow deep breath.

“And yet you moved in anyway. Why is that?” Wesley lifted his chin and only looked at her. “His silence says it all.”

Nora stepped away from the window and took a wineglass from the cabinet.

“What are you doing?” he asked as he came deeper into the dark kitchen.

“If you’re going to pout, I’m going to drink,” she said, pouring herself a steep glass of red wine. “I read somewhere that red wine is good for diabetics. Want one?”

“I’m not pouting. And I don’t drink.”

“There’s a lot you don’t do.”

Nora sat on top of the kitchen table across from him. She watched him, daring him with her eyes to either speak or leave.

“I’ve got homework,” he said.

“Then go.” Nora gestured to the door.

Wesley moved to walk past her. But Nora reached out and stopped him with a hand on his chest.

“Or stay,” she said as she took a deliberate sip of her wine before setting the glass down on the table next to her. “Staying is better.” She grabbed a fistful of his shirt and pulled Wesley to her, positioning him between her knees. His face was a blank mask and his eyes would not meet hers.

Nora laid her hand on his stomach, smiling as the taut muscle quivered through his T-shirt.

“Nora, don’t—”

“Søren and I used to play a game on his kitchen table,” Nora said, ignoring the plea in Wesley’s voice. “Did I ever tell you about that?”

“No,” Wesley said, visibly tensing as Nora raised his shirt and slid her hands underneath, pressing her palms into his warm skin. She saw his fingers curl into fists.

“Simple game—he’d fill a wineglass with one of his expensive reds and set it on the edge of the table. Then he would fuck me. Hard.” Nora grinned as Wesley flinched. “If I thrashed too much, or fought him and knocked the glass off…then the wine wasn’t the only red that we spilled that night.”

Wesley closed his eyes as if trying to block out the image.

“The secret is,” Nora said as she raked her fingernails up Wesley’s chest and back down his stomach, “sometimes I’d knock it off on purpose.”

“I won’t play that game with you,” he said as Nora continued relentlessly caressing the delicate skin of his chest and sides. “I won’t play this game with you, either.”

“But it doesn’t have to be a game, Wesley.” She narrowed her eyes like a cat’s. “It can be very real.”

“Don’t do this.” His voice was a plea. His breathing was getting harder, everything was getting harder now. “Not to me.”

“Your heart is racing.” She let her hand rest on the left side of his chest.

From his chest she traced a languid path down his stomach, his breath catching as she deftly unbuttoned the top button of his jeans.

“Nora…”

“I’m not holding you here. You can go if you want to. Do you?”

She grabbed his belt loops and pulled him even closer until his hips pressed against her inner thighs. She knew she shouldn’t be doing this. But Wesley was a constant source of frustration. Sometimes she had to retaliate. And she knew that every now and then he forgot what she really was. It didn’t hurt to remind him.

“I don’t know,” he finally answered.

“Now that is a refreshing bit of candor on your part. Since we’re being so honest now, tell me, why are you being so pissy about Zach?”

Wesley’s eyes widened. Nora bit her bottom lip as she waited for his answer.

“You like him.”

“I do like him.” She took another deep drink of the wine and set the glass down again. “But we’ve just met and we’re not fucking. Not even I work that fast.”

At that Wesley gave a grim chuckle and looked up at the ceiling.

“I couldn’t care less if you were fucking him.”

“My God, did you just say ‘fuck’? You’re a good, clean Methodist. You don’t swear.”

“You have no idea what I do.”

“I do know what you do. I know you sleep with your bedroom door unlocked,” Nora retorted. “Expecting company?”

“I know you stand in my door at night and watch me sleep. Expecting an invitation?”

Now it was Nora’s eyes that widened. But she recovered herself quickly.

“You’re pretty good at this game,” she said, nodding her approval. “For a beginner.”

“I told you. I’m not gonna play with you.”

“Too bad. I think you’d like the prize.” Nora went for the next button on his jeans, but Wesley grabbed her by the wrist to stop her.

“Harder,” she instructed. Wesley let her go as if her skin had burned him.

“I thought so. Go,” she said, dropping her hands to her sides. Wesley took a step back, his palm pressed into his stomach. “Go do your homework, kid.”

She picked up her nearly forgotten wineglass and lifted it to her lips. But before she could drink, Wesley took the glass from her.

He held the glass in his subtly shaking hand before raising it and drinking. Finished, he lowered the glass and set it next to her on the table. He left the kitchen without another word.

Nora picked up the glass and stared inside.

He’d drained it to the dregs.

Nora set the glass back down and turned to follow Wesley. She hated when they fought even though it was almost always her fault.

Wesley would be fine, she told herself. He needed a little toughening up anyway. She’d never forget the first day she saw him. She walked into his classroom at Yorke, and the first thing she’d noticed was a pair of big brown eyes looking at her like he’d never seen anything like her before. And the minute he opened his mouth and those soft Southern syllables came out, she knew this kid was going to be no end of trouble. She’d made all her students talk about their favorite story. Wesley had said his favorite was O. Henry’s The Gift of the Magi—the story of the wife who sold her hair to buy her husband a watch chain and the husband who sold his watch to buy his wife combs for her hair. Nora had called it a horror story. Wesley had objected and called it a love story. The debate had continued even after the class ended. Two people who give up their most precious possessions for love and end up with nothing—that’s a love story? she’d demanded. Wesley had argued that they still had each other. She’d laughed and told him he might see things a little differently when he was her age.

She knew she’d been too rough with him tonight, but she couldn’t stop herself sometimes. After all, Søren had put her through ten kinds of hell when she was Wesley’s age. And now she was grateful for the discipline he’d taught her, the fortitude he’d instilled in her. Now a guy like Zach could look her in the eyes and tell her she wasn’t worth his time and energy, and she could look back and smile and ask him if that was the best he could do. Søren had made her strong and for that she’d be forever grateful. And Zach was making her a real writer, which was the one fantasy Søren could never make come true for her. And Wesley…she looked down at the empty wineglass and quickly refilled it in his honor—Wesley was just making her crazy.

Nora turned and saw her book and Zach’s notes lying on top of the kitchen table.

“Goddammit, Zach,” she said to herself and poured the wine down the drain. “Why did you have to tell me it was going to work?”