Some imagination he had. “She’ll never believe I met you. She’s your biggest fan of all time. There’s never a question of what to buy her for Christmas or her birthday. I struggle when you go on holiday.”
Clementine Hazel, the goriest female novelist of their generation, actually blushed.
“Damn, you’re adorable. Mum might believe me if I take home a little insider information. Like, say, the story behind your pen name. How ’bout it, Quinnie?”
A strange light passed through her eyes. Had he said something wonky? She didn’t comment on it, however, only sipped her beer, pinkie poised, and then snorted. “What would you do? Write as Quinn Buzzly? You can’t take a name like mine seriously. Also, I hate to have to say this, but you realize it’s one of my best kept secrets, right? Clementine has social obligations and gets around, but Quinn leads a very quiet life.”
“Oh, Quinnie.” Jack took a moment to appreciate the irony of her simple proclamation. “I’ll tell you a little secret of mine. Afterward you can tell me the real story behind your pen name because I’m not buying this it’s-only-a-name business. In England, my dear, I wouldn’t need to introduce myself to you.”
“Low social standards?” She didn’t laugh, wink, or in any other way betray the comment as a joke, but by now, he was on to her.
The grin tugging at his lips belied his complaint, but he gave her a sideways glance all the same. “Now you want to be funny? Actually, I’m the stuff of tabloids over there. I’m an actor
—
one of the best, I might add, despite my flagrant behavior. Naturally, I understand the importance of privacy better than most. Your secret is entirely safe in my hands.”
Quinn took her time appraising him, much as he had done after she’d revealed her secret identity. He didn’t mind being on display while her olive eyes looked from his artfully tattered jeans to his salon-grade hairstyle. It was her response that goaded him.
“I don’t believe you.”
His glass of whiskey stopped halfway to his lips. “Not fair. I didn’t question your claim to be a best-selling novelist, did I?”
She shrugged one shoulder. The motion caused the brooch pinned to her gown to sparkle alluringly. Sheer willpower kept his eyes trained on hers. “Perhaps not, but my photo is on the back of most of those books you purchased for your mom. Who says you didn’t know who I was this whole time?”
Jack put on his incredulous face. An easy feat considering he felt incredulous. “For starters, I don’t do head games. Had I known who you were, I’d have asked for an autograph straightaway. I’m not exactly shy, am I? Besides, who looks at the author’s photo? I’ve read Clive Cussler for years, but if the man walked into this bar right now, I’d never know it.”
An autograph! Why hadn’t the obvious come to him? Probably because most of his brainpower had been focused on not staring at Quinn like he’d never seen a grown woman before.
He’d seen plenty of them but never one like her. Being wrapped in yards of silk and adorned with glittering diamonds would improve anyone’s appearance, but her elegance was as natural as her milky skin. She’d probably carry herself as gracefully in ripped jeans and a coffee-stained T-shirt.
Jack dashed from the barstool and returned with a napkin liberated from one of the unoccupied booths lining the far wall. He lifted his hand but instead of asking Busty the Barkeep for another drink, he requested a pen. He offered Quinn a self-deprecating grin. “I’m a dull crayon sometimes. An autograph, of course.” He slid the napkin and pen her way and begged. “Please.”
Quinn relented with a polite smile and took the items. “Fine. What’s your mother’s name?”
“Madeline.” She’d faint when she saw this. She might even have a stroke. “Madeline Decker.”
Quinn scribbled on the napkin and handed it back.
To Madeline
,
for being my biggest fan of all time
.
Jack folded the flimsy paper carefully and shoved it into his front pocket. He hadn’t been so proud of himself in a long time. “Thank you. I mean it.” He hoped he wasn’t coming across as too much of a mama’s boy, but it couldn’t be helped. He was, in fact, quite a mama’s boy.
Quinn traced the lip of her beer bottle with the tip of one finger and eyed him. “If you’re an actor, have you been in anything I might’ve seen?”
Jack shook his head. He wasn’t put off so easily. Distracted, yes. Forgetful? Never. “Oh, no, Quinnie, we’re not talking about me yet. We’ll get there, believe me. I do love to talk about myself. You’re still holding out on me, though. Why Clementine Hazel?”
“Why do you care? Really, curiosity only accounts for so much.” She was clearly exasperated.
Poor lamb. If only she knew how she encouraged him. “Curiosity accounts for everything, love. First, you’re this gorgeous, lonely creature wearing diamonds and silk in a Hollywood nightclub. Now, you’re Clementine Hazel, gorgeous and lonely, wearing diamonds and silk in a Hollywood nightclub. Who wouldn’t be curious? Besides, we’re practically best friends! I feel like I’ve known you all night.”
Jack waited for Quinn to tell him to mind his business. To shove off. To go suck eggs.
Instead, she smiled her shy smile and looked to the heavens as if some answer to this pushy Irishman was on the ceiling. “Clementine was my mother’s name. She passed away a few weeks before my first novel went to print.” Quinn settled her intent gaze on him. “Hazel is the color of my son’s eyes.”
A son. Was this the information she’d been afraid to depart? Jack hadn’t stopped to consider if she was married. No ring clung to her wedding finger. If she had a man at home, he was certainly doing a poor job of it. Jack set aside the notion of a Mr. Hazel.
Throwing propriety out the window and hoping it wouldn’t land him on his ass, he put a hand over hers. “See? Relatively painless. Now, what can I tell you about myself? Ask away, Quinnie. I’m all yours.”
Hours passed, but it might as well have been days for all Jack had noticed. He’d lost track of which stories he’d shared and which ones he was saving to impress her later. There would definitely be a later.
Maybe not tonight, but soon.
Quinn offered a strong dose of serious for his tease, the perfect foible for his excitability. Like an anchor to a ship, or a pole to his flag flapping in the breeze.
Despite her air of reservation, she met him tit for tat in every verbal spar. They’d spent most of the evening simply attempting to outwit one another. He couldn’t fathom not seeing her again.
Flabbergasted, he gaped at Quinn. “That’s how your ex-husband justified carrying on with another woman for five years? Your career? Tell me you don’t buy it.”
Quinn drew a circle through the moisture left on the bar from beer number five. She seemed to have a hard time keeping up with the paper-napkin coaster. “Maybe at first. I needed a reason. Anything to make sense of what was happening. I readily accepted the easiest explanation for how my husband found the time to fall in love with Kira.”
“He fell in love? I see now. Makes sense.”
Her eyes went round, and she didn’t bother to try to hide her hurt. “Some best friend you are.”
“Aw, c’mon, Quinnie. Not the affair. Never the affair. Those never make sense. Love, however, is an elemental. It’s like snow or a tsunami. Remember the last time you were in love and imagine ignoring it. You can’t. It’s impossible.”
Quinn crossed her arms and pouted. Actually pouted.
He didn’t want to grin because she might mistake him for laughing at her. She embodied both the adorable and the regal, as much a conundrum now as she’d been when he introduced himself hours ago.
Laughing was the last thing going on in his head. Rather, he was on the cusp of holding something precious and had no clue how not to screw it up.
“Blake is still a rotten bastard. No excuses. I’m only saying he can’t have loved you if he loved her. What makes him such a twat is how he didn’t set you free five years ago when he set himself free.”
She cocked her head to one side and considered. Then she smiled. “Finally, we agree on something.”
Shouts of last call rang through the bar.
Forget never. It was now or the next day, or the day after that. Something of the inevitable shone from Quinn Buzzly. He had a sense of something new beginning right before his eyes.
He stood, dug into his pocket, and threw a wad of cash on the bar. “Nonsense. We agree on a lot, you and I.” He held out his arm and looked her in the eyes. The offer was clear.
She accepted them both without hesitation.
Chapter 3
“L
et me see if I’ve got this right.” Emily Buzzly’s disapproval came clear as packing tape through the telephone receiver. “You slept with a strange Irish man claiming to be a famous actor because Richard took you to a nightclub and offered you champagne?”
Quinn stared at the ceiling over the standard-issue queen-size bed and counted to three. It didn’t take. She still had a vague urge to strangle her sister. She counted to ten with marginally more success.
She no longer recalled what insane notion had entered her mind and induced her to call Emily. She sighed.
That was a lie. She’d awoken with a mind-numbing hangover that had her desperately grasping for the memories of the night before. They were coming back to her like a half-remembered dream. She needed to talk about Jack for him to seem real. Emily was the only person guaranteed to be awake at this hour.
She was also the one person guaranteed to take a perfectly wonderful evening and make it sound like a plot for the next big made-for-TV movie.
“We’re both adults here. Shouldn’t I be able to tell you stuff like this and get spared the lecture? Do you realize how long it’s been for me? Do you? I’ll tell you, Em. A
year.
A flippin’ year. Sex wasn’t happening for me long before Blake got found out. Chew on that for a minute.”
Emily didn’t empathize. She wasn’t the empathetic type. “From where I’m standing, this appears to be the self-destructive behavior of a lonely and recently divorced woman who misses her son.”
The comment set Quinn’s teeth on edge. “I can’t believe you went there. This has nothing to do with Seth. Forget it. I’m too old to explain myself to anyone, let alone you. I called the wrong person for the conversation I wanted to have.”
“Don’t overreact.” Somehow, Emily managed to end up the offended party whenever they got into these spats. Quinn had long since given up trying to figure out how she did it. “I’m only trying to help. I don’t understand you sometimes, though. Richard is great. He’s handsome; he makes good money
—
”
“You don’t say.”
“He obviously likes you. Oh, and there’s the thing where he
knows
you. What’s so bad about Richard you’d prefer a total stranger?”
Wrong with Richard? Quinn tapped her chin thoughtfully. Where to start. . . .
Instead of answering her sister’s question directly, she opted for painting a larger picture. “For the sake of your peace of mind allow me to explain last night through my eyes.”
Emily huffed, but relented. “Fine. I’m listening.”
Quinn stood from the bed and smoothed a hand over her bare knee where her cotton nightshirt had ridden up her thigh. She took a deep breath in preparation. “Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? You may have missed the part of this story where I spent the last fifteen years of my life married to a lying bastard who didn’t love me. The last five years of said marriage I spent sharing him with another woman whom he
did
love—you’ve met Kira?”
“I was there.” She practically heard her sister’s eyes roll.
Quinn paced as she got into her story. “Oh, good. We’re on the same page. Last night, four months after my divorce, I meet this guy. This sexy, charming, hilarious, totally engaging guy. We talked and talked and talked. I mean
hours
. He said things I have desperately needed someone to say. I’ve gone
years—
five years to be exact—without the things a woman simply needs to hear sometimes. I understand how men fake it to get laid. It’s kind of their thing. I learned that lesson back in high school like every other girl. The part you aren’t grasping, sister of mine, is
I don’t care
.”
Quinn waited for a burst of indignation or righteousness to come through the phone line, but silence reigned. She continued. “You probably envision me laying out my sad little story and lavishing in my Irishman’s accented pity, but it was mature. It was . . .”
What was it?
She wanted to call it magical and important. He’d even called her Quinnie. Only their dad ever called her that. She wanted to say Jack was special, but Emily’s cynicism would ruin everything and make Quinn see the truth.
The only difference between Jack and Richard came down to success and failure.
“Let’s say the sex was symbiotic. He wanted to get laid. I
needed
to get laid. We used each other, and it was lovely. Bottom line? I don’t regret last night, and you can’t make me.”
Emily had no comment regarding her little rant. “What happened this morning? I can only imagine how awkward it must’ve been.”
“Not awkward at all. He’d left by the time I woke up.”
“Ha! How can you not feel used waking up alone after what you claim was some wonderful night?”
Quinn took a steadying breath. “I asked him to be gone in the morning.”
She was silent for a beat. “Why?”
Quinn was too dejected to pace any longer and returned to the bed. She wasn’t accustomed to feeling stupid. It took the fight right out of her. “To preserve the illusion. Jack was spectacular in bed and out. He was literally perfect, Em. I couldn’t have designed a more ideal man if God gave me holy molding clay and told me to have at it. Right now I can’t handle being confronted by another hurtful truth on top of everything else. I’d really appreciate it if you’d quit trying to shove this one down my throat. There’s nothing you can say I haven’t already figured out for myself and chosen to ignore. Call it selective awareness.”
Finally, Emily backed down. “I’m sorry. I really am. I forget how rough you’ve had it lately.”
Rough hardly touched the surface, but Quinn accepted the rare apology. “I have to keep believing Jack was perfect. If he’d woken up and bolted, or even farted at the wrong moment, the whole thing would’ve depressed me.”
Emily turned soothing. “Okay, I understand. How did he react when you asked him to go?”
Quinn studied her toes. Recalling Jack’s hurt expression made her uncomfortable. First, because she wasn’t certain she hadn’t imagined it. It could’ve been his I’m-off-the-hook face.
He’d mumbled something about a flight to catch, which effectively stopped her from recanting the request. It had been the only awkward moment in an otherwise-perfect night.
She lied. It was easier than listening to Emily convince her of the worst possible scenario. “He was obviously relieved. He told me he had a plane leaving the next day. See? It worked out for everyone.”
Quinn ended the call a short time later.
Talking to Emily had a way of bringing her down. She was lightning quick to point out Quinn’s mistakes. Everything from how she’d reacted to Blake’s affair—divorce was so extreme—to what guy she should’ve slept with last night became fodder for Big Sister’s Petri Dish of Scrutiny.
Quinn refused to have regrets. Sure, the odds Jack was the wonderful, perfect man he’d been last night in her foggy, beer-laden memories were astronomically low. She liked to believe he’d have been there with fresh coffee and his phone number on a sticky note this morning, but logic told her she’d have woken up alone all the same. Thanks to men like Richard and Blake, she knew better than to walk into a trap like Jack Decker.
Besides, he’d had a flight to catch.
A melancholy mood came over her, a little emotional soup to wade through courtesy of Jack and a mad hangover.
Who was the Irishman when he wasn’t trying to get something? He’d still be sexy, but would he still be charming and intelligent, funny and direct, empathetic and earnest? Which attributes were full-time qualities and which were employed at will?
She didn’t really want to know. The truth would likely destroy her fantasies of him. Best to preserve the illusion like she’d told Emily.
Preserve
.
Memories faded. In another month she’d hardly be able to recall what Jack looked like, let alone the musical quality of his accent or the searing teal color of his eyes.
But words persevered. They brought life to stories and characters centuries old. If she really wanted to hang on to her version of Jack, the smartest thing to do was
write
him.
Hadn’t she told him what an interesting character he’d make mere moments after meeting him? Wasn’t this the very definition of fate?
She sprang from the bed and nearly collided with the desk chair as she raced for the courtesy notepad with the hotel’s logo printed at the top. She snatched up the pen and jotted down every last physical detail she recalled—his hair, his eyes, and the way his grin went lopsided when he said something clever. This character would be her best yet. He’d be smart and savvy; the perfect hero for any story. She’d need a plot able to stand up to him. Something complex, emotive, and built to showcase his range of funny and feeling.
Her creative frenzy came to a sudden stop. She chewed on the end of the pen and slid despondently into the chair.
She didn’t work with the concept of heroines and heroes. Jack’s character would never be fully realized in a horror novel. The genre revolved around victims and survivors. His sexual appeal would be wasted with his energy put into solving a crime. Writing him as the villain was unthinkable. The only place a character like Jack would be done justice was—
“Oh, no. No, no, no. Not happening.” Quinn stood up and stalked over to the window. She looked out over L.A. from ten stories up through sheer curtains and tried to come to terms with where her instincts were guiding her.
“A
romance
? I can’t write a romance. Richard will laugh me out of his office. He’ll say I’ve gone soft, lost my edge.”
She slowly meandered back toward the desk and the pad of paper. It called to her and willed her to indulge like a triple-threat brownie sundae.
Why not a romance? It wasn’t so different. Plot was plot. A story was a story.
Jack
needed
to be written. She wouldn’t dare risk falling in love with him, but her readers could. His Irish background provided ample material for a beautiful and tragic historical romance. The moment her brain accepted its fate, ideas for plot and setting began bouncing around in her head itching to be put on paper.
She reclaimed her seat at the desk and began to write.
“You’ll need time.” Douglas, Quinn’s dad, picked through the last of his dinner salad. He pushed the red onion off to the side where it would remain uneaten. “More than usual. The basics are probably the same, but I doubt the details will be.”
Quinn swirled her glass of water. The lemon slice and ice cubes spun in circles. They were at an upscale diner in Beverly Hills seated at a square little table for two in a quiet corner of the dining room. From her vantage point, she could people-watch and silently judge others for their menu choices. Who ordered banana pudding with chocolate cheesecake and tiramisu on the menu?
“My standard year and then some. I’ll have a better grasp on timeline once I’ve completed my outline.” She shook her head. “Talk about a different animal. None of the same rules apply.”
When it came to good advice, Quinn would be hard-pressed to call on anyone better than her father. He was the anti-Emily, always supportive and caring. However, like her sister, he wouldn’t quell at sharing his opinion. He hadn’t batted an eye when she’d slipped her idea of writing a romance novel into their conversation. It was all the encouragement she needed.
“Research.” He pointed his fork at her, his eyebrows raised knowingly. “That’ll be a challenge.”
She chased a crouton across her plate. “You’re right. I’ve been slashing for so long there’s not much I have to study up on to write an accurate bloodbath scene. I could probably analyze blood spatter for the LAPD crime scene unit if I ever needed a real job. But romance is a whole new search log. Thank God for the Internet, right?”
Douglas gave her a disappointed look through his silver square-framed glasses. He was still handsome at his sixty-some-odd years. His thick hair had the good grace to turn stark white rather than fall out as he’d aged, and he was the source of Emily’s chocolate-brown eyes. The uncommon hue of Quinn’s green eyes had come from their mother.
Her father’s body language put her on the defensive. She squared her shoulders. “What?”
He glared at her intently the way he did anytime he was adamant about a point, which made it impossible to look away. It proved a more effective tactic when he didn’t have a mouthful of lettuce.
With his usual intensity dulled by food, he let his words do the talking. “The Internet won’t churn butter this time, Quinnie. You want this romance idea of yours to fly, it’s got to be genuine. You can’t have stale nuggets of information taken from the pages of Wikipedia. You’ve got to infuse your history with emotion, and the emotion has to reflect the history of the place and the era.”
Jeez. She hadn’t expected the passionate argument. She also hadn’t planned on her dad finding fault in her research techniques. She quirked a brow. “How do I go about doing emotionally enriching research on eighteenth-century Great Britain?” She posed the question with equal parts sarcasm and sincerity. She wanted a real answer but didn’t expect he’d have one.
Their entrees arrived. She waited patiently for an answer while he paused to slice a thin piece of filet mignon before giving his matter-of-fact reply. “You go.” His eyes never left his steak.
Quinn choked on the huge bite of penne rigate she had shoveled into her mouth. She gasped and grabbed for a napkin with one hand and water with the other. After she recovered, she sought clarification. Surely, her ears deceived her. “I’m sorry, did you say I
go
? Like . . .
go
to Europe? To write a book? That’s nuts, Dad. I don’t have time for a vacation right now, not even a working one.”
“Not vacation. Move there. Spend the whole year in Europe. London is the ideal base. Lots of museums, tons of history.” He didn’t seem to grasp the absurdity of the idea. He tucked into his mashed potatoes without a care for how her head spun.