Forbidden Pleasures (30 page)

“I haven’t talked to J.P. in a couple of years,” Emily said. “I hide behind Aaron.”

He chuckled. “I’m going to go, Emily. It’s past midnight here, and I’m exhausted. I just got into London yesterday. I apologize again for missing Thanksgiving.”

“It’s your loss, Devlin,” she told him. “Night.”

“Good night, angel face,” he said.

She cried after he hung up.
Damn! Damn!Damn!
Well, it wasn’t as though she weren’t going to have a tableful on Thanksgiving Day. And Rachel was arriving tomorrow. It would be fun seeing her old editor and catching up. Emily suddenly realized she hadn’t spoken with Rachel since April, until two weeks ago, when she had called her and reminded her she was expected for Thanksgiving as usual.

Essie came Thanksgiving morning to help Emily get everything started. They had set the table together the day before. Now the turkey went into one oven, the apple and pumpkin pies into the other. The sweet-potato casserole came out of the freezer to defrost. By afternoon it would be ready to be heated. The broccoli was in the steamer waiting to be cooked, the parsnips in their pot.

“I’ll be going now,” Essie said. “Have a good day, Miss Emily.”

“You too, Essie. Happy Thanksgiving. I’ll see you on Monday.”

“You don’t need me tomorrow?” Essie asked.

“Go shopping like all the other crazy people,” Emily said with a smile.

The door closed behind Essie, and hearing Rachel Wainwright coming down the stairs, Emily pulled a pan of her sweet rolls from the warming oven. “Morning, Rachel,” she said. “I’ve got your sweet rolls and coffee.”

The two women sat down at the kitchen table and gossiped. Rachel’s main concern was whether Emily was working well with Michael Devlin. She assured her former editor that she was. At four o’clock that afternoon Emily’s other guests arrived: Rina and Dr. Sam, Aaron Fischer, and Kirkland Browne. They came in from the cold late afternoon sniffing appreciatively, greeting their hostess and Rachel Wainwright.

“Where’s Mick?” Aaron immediately asked as Emily settled them in the living room before the roaring fire.

“Stuck in London,” Emily explained, and then told them of the conversation she had had with Devlin two nights ago.

“He always did enjoy London,” Rachel said. “I doubt he’s lonely. I have friends in the London office, and the stories they told me ... !” She laughed. “He’s probably looked up a few of his birds, as he always called them. And no doubt they’re happy to see him.”

Emily looked slightly stricken, but then, recovering, she said, “Savannah told me a story of some girl who thought she had him roped and tied, and then he showed up at her birthday party with some model. There was a fight, and someone got shoved into the birthday cake.”

“Oh, yes, I recall that story. The model was Lady Soledad Gordon Brumell. She goes just by her first name. You’ve seen her. She’s the model for Helèna Cosmetics. Tall. Fair. Black hair and very blue eyes. And the disdainful look. Attitude, they call it today. In my day it was just plain sulkiness. They all seem to have that look nowadays.”

“Emily’s new novel is going to be very big, Rachel,” Aaron Fischer said in an attempt to change the subject. “They’re going to release it simultaneously in England and the United States. And such promotion they’ve arranged for it. I haven’t seen promotion like this since the early days of romance literature.”

“Like what?” Rachel wanted to know. She seemed pleased for Emily.

“Posters of the cover as giveaways. Floor and counter dumps with headers. Emily will be at BookExpo in New York in June for a big signing. They’ve got radio and television interviews scheduled. And Stratford is holding a raffle in all the big chains. Ten winners get flown to New York during BookExpo, all expenses paid, to have lunch with Emily at her favorite restaurant. And the grand-prize winner gets ten days in England, all expenses, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. No one’s done anything like that for a romance author in years. Oy! I’m forgetting. She’s going to do breakfast with several distributors, at least those who are left, in February. Valentine’s Day, I think.”

“My goodness,” Rachel exclaimed. “Do I get an ARC to read soon?”

“I just have a few pages to go,” Emily said. “It will be in to New York next week.” She stood up. “I’ve got to go and check on the turkey. It should be almost done. Rina, come and give me a hand, will you, please?”

When the two women had left the room, Aaron Fischer looked to Rachel Wainwright and said, “Rachel, I think there is something you ought to know.”

And Rachel’s eyes grew wide with a mixture of shock and surprise as Emily’s agent explained what was happening between Mick Devlin and Emily.

“But he’s a ladies’ man,” Rachel said when he had finished. “Mick never struck me as a man who was going to marry and settle down. But then, I never saw a man in Emily’s life either. She’s too much of a writer.”

Dr. Sam chuckled at this observation. “She can’t be a writer and a wife too?” he asked quietly. “She’s in love.”

“But what about Mick?” Rachel asked.

“According to my Rina, he’s in love with Emily,” Dr. Sam replied.

“From your lips to God’s ears,” Aaron Fischer said. “I wouldn’t admit this in Rina’s hearing, because I would never hear the end of it, but she does have an instinct for these things. The problem is, he’s been a bachelor for forty years. Can he find the chutzpah to propose?”

“Christmas is coming,” Dr. Sam said. “Hanukkah’s coming. It’s a season of miracles, my friends.”

“It’s going to take a miracle,” Rachel Wainwright said. “But why not?”

And the three men in the room nodded in agreement.

I
t was the first week in December, and
The Defiant Duchess
was finished at last. Caro and her duke had been reunited and would live happily ever after. The duchess had gained her revenge by finally trusting in her husband to aid her. It was a good story with fully developed and likable characters both major and minor. The villains were deliciously evil and got their proper comeuppance, because good must always triumph over evil. And, most important, there was lots of steamy sex. Emily was surprised at how easily a more sensual story line had been incorporated into her novel. It really hadn’t spoiled a thing, once she had learned from delicious experience what real love, both emotional and physical, was all about.

She had gone over the chapters in her computer, making small corrections: adding a line here, deleting one there. Finally satisfied, she burned two CDs and printed out five paper copies of the five-hundred-page manuscript. Normally she would have printed out only four. Putting two large rubber bands about the first copy, she taped a small Post-it note to it that read,
Dear J.P., I know how patiently you have waited for the final manuscript of
The Defiant Duchess,
so here is an early Christmas present. As ever, Emilie Shann.
Then, placing the manuscript in a box, she wrapped it in Christmas paper decorated with fat dancing Santas, and tied it with a large red silk ribbon. She kept a paper copy for herself, sent one to Aaron, and directed the last two along with a CD to Devlin’s assistant, Sally. She had been e-mailing Michael Devlin at Stratford’s London offices the final pages as she completed them. The entire finished manuscript would be awaiting him upon his return to the States.

Some authors celebrated the successful completion of a manuscript by going out to dinner. Some went off on little vacations planned weeks before. Emily Shanski cracked open a bottle of her favorite wine and opened a double box of Mallomars. Then, sitting in her den before a roaring fire, she listened to Mozart and unwound. Christmas was coming, and she had a great number of things to do. There were Christmas cards, both personal and business, to write. There were presents to buy. There was a very special Christmas dinner to plan for, as Devlin had missed Thanksgiving.

Already the village of Egret Pointe was in the holiday spirit. There were little pine trees with white lights in round red wooden tubs along Main Street. And all the shop windows were beautifully decorated. This year each had a miniature scene of a country Christmas in a past era. Egret Pointe’s shop windows all followed a single theme each year in imitation of the store windows on Fifth Avenue in New York.

The weather was cold, but so far there was no snow, and for that Emily was grateful. She far preferred a green Christmas. She thought the composer of “White Christmas” should have been boiled with his own Christmas pudding, as Mr. Scrooge had once declared regarding the whole holiday. Emily loved Christmas, however. She just didn’t like snow. For some reason it depressed her and always had. No one understood it, least of all Emily. Sure, snow was magical when it was falling. And the next day, when it sparkled on all the eaves and roofs in the bright sunshine, it was pretty. But the day after, when it wasn’t gone and it sometimes stayed for weeks—oh, how she hated that! So every year Emily hoped for an El Niño and a mild winter that would lead into an early spring. Nothing was nicer than daffodils in bloom on St. Patrick’s Day.

Several days after she had sent off the manuscripts, her office phone rang. As she was writing Christmas cards at her desk, she answered it.

“Ms. Shann? One moment for J. P. Woods,” a young voice said.

There was a click. Another click.

“Emily? Sweetie, I was up all night reading! It’s a triumph,” J. P. Woods crowed. “Mick said it was, but we’ve invested so much into promoting this book I couldn’t rest easy until I had read it myself. You’ve outdone yourself! I am so pleased.” Emphasis on the last sentence. “And Aaron has probably told you that we’ve worked out a wonderful contract. Stratford isn’t about to lose its brightest star.”

“Thank you, J.P.” Emily said. She really didn’t like the woman, but this wasn’t personal, after all. It was, to quote a certain megamillionaire, business.

“And you’re happy working with Mick Devlin? We want you one hundred percent happy, Emily.”

“He’s a wonderful editor, J.P. I will admit to being upset when Rachel retired, but even I have to admit Devlin is a better editor. Yes. I am happy working with him. I hope to do many more good books for Stratford with him,” Emily replied. “I want to thank you for putting me with him.”
Even if you did have an ulterior motive, you bitch. You didn’t care whose career you destroyed in your pitiful attempt to get even with Devlin for turning you down all those years ago. I wonder what you would think, bitch, if you knew I’ve been fucking him for months. And he is good!

“I thought long about it,” J.P. said. “But editors like Mick Devlin are few and far between. Martin and I felt you deserved the absolute best. And I was right,” she crowed. “I just knew you could change your direction and produce a hotter book.”

Emily gritted her teeth listening to J. P. Woods. Then she said, “Savannah Banning is willing to give me a quote, J.P.”

“Wonderful! I was thinking of asking her. You’re friends, aren’t you?”

“Yes,” Emily answered.

“And did she give you some advice on how to do a sexier novel?” J.P. tittered.

“As a matter of fact, she did,” Emily said.
She suggested I seduce my editor, and I did, and we all see how well that worked out.

“I don’t suppose you’d share her secrets with me?” J.P. said coyly.

Emily forced a laugh. “Now, now, J.P. Trade secrets have to remain secret.”

“Of course they do, and as long as they produce the results they did, Emily, I am more than satisfied,” J.P. replied, all business once again. “Now, Emily, Stratford is having its Christmas party on December twenty-third, and we want you to come. The heads of several important book distributors will be here. We want you to present them with some rather special ARCs we’re putting together now. Martin is sending a car for you. Sally or my girl will e-mail you all the details.”

She didn’t want to go into New York, especially two days before Christmas. The traffic would be horrendous. But this was a command performance, and Emily knew it. “I’ll look forward to it,” she told J. P. Woods. “And thank you for calling me. I’m so glad you enjoyed the book, J.P.”

“I did, Emily. Good work! I’m now looking forward to what you’ll do next for us. Good-bye.” There was a click, and J. P. Woods was gone.

Emily set the phone back in its charger.
Damn, and double damn.
Now she would have to have everything done before the twenty-third. It was going to be a push. But it would be her first Christmas with Devlin, and she wanted it to be perfect. She had pretty much decided that if he didn’t tell her he loved her, she was going to break the cardinal rule of dating women: She was going to tell him that she loved him. What could happen? He’d bolt and run? Well, that was always a possibility, but maybe, just maybe, if Rina was right, it would give him the balls to tell her that he loved her. And once they were over that hurdle there would be a future for them. And Emily Shanski wanted that future with all her heart and soul. She had two weeks to go.

She managed to finish the Christmas cards by the ninth. They were in the mail by the tenth.

“Right on time, Em,” Bud Cranston down at the post office said as she handed him the shopping bag of Christmas cards over the counter. “You’re like clockwork—December tenth, every year. Pat wants to know if you’ve got another book coming out soon. She says she’s ready for one with the long winter ahead.”

“Tell her next spring. Sorry,” Emily said with a smile. “Merry Christmas, Bud, to you and the family. The kids okay?”

“Off the wall waiting for Santa.” He grinned back at her, giving her a wave as she stepped aside to allow the next customer up to his window. Bud Cranston had gone to high school with Emily Shanski. Who knew she’d turn out to be a best-selling author? But Em never changed, he thought with a smile. She was still a nice small-town girl who always had a friendly word for you.