When the producer started the countdown to air, giving them the ten-second warning, she took a deep breath. She could do this.
Easy peasy.
When they were live, she relaxed a little as she listened to Joe introduce her as a beloved best-selling author who wrote the kind of love stories every woman wanted to be in.
When Joe seamlessly moved on to announcing that she’d be doing a Christmas novel for the first time and getting inspiration for that book from a special Christmas Camp she was hosting this year, Riley was relieved everything was going as planned.
As he continued to talk about when and where she’d be hosting the Christmas Camp, they rolled video to show the Christmas Lake Lodge in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains, and Riley was impressed by what she saw on the monitor.
Mike had shown her some quick pictures of the lodge, but they hadn’t done it justice. From what she could glimpse now from the video, the place looked enchanting, like something out of a storybook. It was outlined with hundreds of white Christmas lights and overlooked a beautiful lake.
She was still taking it all in when Joe turned his attention to her.
“Riley, thank you for joining us this morning,” Joe said with a perfect TV smile.
She smiled back at him. “I’m happy to be here, Joe. Thanks for having me.”
Joe glanced down at his notes and back up to her. “Riley, you’ve had quite the career, working as a TV reporter, then as a travel writer, and now as a best-selling romance author. You’ve made a very successful living writing about love and relationships, about meeting ‘the one’ and happily-ever-afters.”
Riley smiled and nodded. “Thank you.”
When Joe continued, he looked her in the eye for the first time. “But isn’t it true that you, yourself, have never been married, and that before writing Heart of Summer, you ended your last relationship and now your book sales are down?” he asked pointedly. “How can you continue to write about happily-ever-afters when you’ve never had one of your own?”
Chapter Three
Blindsided and stunned, Riley felt the room start to spin as all the Christmas decorations blurred into one big holiday nightmare.
When she looked over at Mike for support, her panic grew when she saw he looked just as alarmed as she felt. Heart racing, she fought to keep a smile on her face as a wave of embarrassment washed over her. Every second of silence was suffocating her, but she knew she needed to say something—and fast. She was on live television.
She’d been right about Joe all along, and she wasn’t about to let a self-serving, wannabe TV host define who she was and wasn’t.
She met his bold stare with one of her own. She didn’t blink.
“That’s a great question, Joe,” she said with a sweet smile, the kind of smile that anyone who knew her would recognize as a warning. “I’ve actually been very blessed because I have known great love in my life, what it is to feel love and to be loved. But you know not everyone’s happily-ever-after looks the same. You don’t have to be married to know what love is. I write about love because I think it’s the most powerful human emotion we have that connects us all. Wouldn’t you agree, Joe?”
When Riley locked eyes with Joe, she saw he wasn’t going to back down easily. So she did the only thing she could do. She prepared for a battle.
“So let me get this straight,” Joe said. “You’re saying you have been in love? That you have found ‘the one’ like you write about in your novels?”
Riley answered quickly, too quickly. “Yes.”
“Yet, you’re not with that person now,” Joe said, continuing to prod her. “Have you ever wondered ‘what if’?”
Riley laughed to mask her growing resentment at having someone pry into her personal life on live television. “Of course. Hasn’t everyone?” She smiled into the camera.
“So then what happened?” Joe countered quickly. “Where is this love of your life?”
Riley instantly realized her mistake. What she’d meant to say was that all the love stories in her novels were inspired by different loves of her life, not just one person. She was trying to figure out the best way to clear it all up when she saw the floor director give Joe a wrap signal.
Perfectly on cue, Joe looked into the camera. “Everyone, we need to take a quick commercial break, but stay with us, because when we come back, we’ll have more with best-selling author Riley Reynolds and this mysterious love of her life who has inspired her romance novels right after this break.”
As soon as they were off the air, Riley gave Joe an incredulous look. There was a rational voice inside her head telling her to stay calm and professional and that getting upset wasn’t going to help anything.
But she didn’t listen to that voice.
Instead, she listened to the voice that told her to get the heck out of there as fast as she could. She rapidly removed her mic and stood up.
Joe looked surprised. “Where are you going? We’re not done yet.”
Riley laughed as she stared down Joe. “Oh, we’re done. So done. I came here to talk about my new Christmas novel and Christmas Camp project, and you’re trying to turn this into some tabloid tell-all. That’s not what I signed up for.”
As she started to walk away, Joe shouted after her. “If you walk out on this interview, you’ll never get booked on this show again,” he threatened.
Riley laughed and kept walking. “That’s the best Christmas gift you could ever give me!” When she passed
