I hated that things between us were strained, when I’d wanted the opposite. Maybe talking about Mom would break the ice?
But Kade spoke first.
“Billy called. The money from the interview with Mona should be in your account soon.”
“That’s good. It’ll help pay for repairs to the café.”
Kade sat back, frowning as though he were annoyed. “Billy also said there’s a hit-job reporter trying to dredge up gossip about both of us. I should never have put you through all this. I’m going to announce we’re not engaged, and we’ve always just been friends. Nothing more.”
“Nothing more,” I repeated dumbly. Dragging in a deep breath, I gathered my courage. “Only I think I’m falling for you,” I blurted. “And please don’t make a joke of it. I don’t think I could stand it.”
Kade folded his arms, his expression making my heart sink. “You’re not falling for me.”
“What do you mean?” If there was one thing I hated, it was tears stinging my eyes when I was trying to have a serious conversation. I turned my face away and blinked. No matter what, I refused to cry.
“How long have we known each other? If you had serious feelings, I’d already know. It’s not something you decide later.”
“You don’t believe I’ve fallen for you?” I gave a hard laugh at how absurd that was. “What, you want me to prove it?”
His voice softened, like he was breaking bad news. “Nat, you can’t suddenly decide you have feelings for me.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want the kind of love that’s there one day and gone the next. And I especially don’t want it from you.”
I drew in a sharp breath. I couldn’t believe he’d said something so awful. The worst part was his dismissive tone, as though whatever I had to offer would never be good enough for him.
“Is that really what you think of me?” I demanded. “Then what do you want from me?”
“Friendship. Let’s keep to what we’re both comfortable with.”
“What if I can’t do that? What if I want more?”
“Don’t you get it? Your feelings aren’t real.” He sounded frustrated and annoyed. And frankly, he was pissing me off.
“What gives you the right to tell me my feelings aren’t real?”
“You’re grateful I’ve been helping you. Maybe that’s confusing you.”
“That’s not it at all!” I jumped to my feet, my fists clenched. “Why are you being such a jerk about this?”
“Because it’s better if we’re honest.”
My heart was thudding painfully, and if I didn’t get out of here I was in serious danger of either slapping him or falling apart. “Okay, fine!” I shouted. “But if you don’t want me to fall for you, you need to stop being so… you!”
“What does that even mean?”
Huffing in outrage, I turned on my heel. “Forget it.” I stormed through the house, wrenched open the front door, and slammed it behind me. Then I burned rubber all the way back to my house.
Once inside, I threw open my laptop.
As well as being furious with Kade, Dad’s words were still playing through my mind. I was still pretty damn sure the only reason Mom had sacrificed all those years working at the café was to help him fulfill his dreams. And he wasn’t even grateful.
Well, there was one way to prove him wrong about Mom. She and I were alike, and if I wasn’t afraid, that would prove she hadn’t been either.
Without letting myself think about it, I pulled up a list of literary agents who were accepting submissions. Picking the first name, I attached my novel’s manuscript. With a hard, angry click, I hit the Send button.
There! I’d done it!
Riding a high wave of triumph, I sent it to the next name on the list, then the next.
When I reached the end of the list, I took several deep breaths, stood up, paced around my living room, and sat back down.
As the wild thumping of my heart finally started to drown out my anger, I stared at the messages in my Sent folder with a slow-dawning horror.
It had been a mistake.
I’d been too hasty in sending the manuscript away, and now there was no way to cancel the messages.
On top of all the other terrible things that were happening, now I’d be strung out every time I checked my emails, waiting for the rejections to start arriving. The novel was nowhere near good enough to be read by anyone, let alone the best, most highly sought-after literary agents. Maybe if I’d written a high-brow literary novel, I could have sent that. But a trashy serial-killer book with ludicrous deaths? No, it was unpublishable, and an inbox filled with scathing rejections could be the final straw to break me.
What had I just done?
Chapter Twenty-Three
Natalie
“You’re not really engaged?” asked Willis.
He’d turned up for his grammar lesson on time the following morning, but had been acting strangely since he’d arrived. Starting with pulling his chair so close to mine, he was intruding into my personal space.
“Nope,” I said, trying to keep my mind on what I was writing down. I turned the notepad to face him and handed him my pen. “Now you need to put in the punctuation.”
But Willis’s gaze didn’t go to the unpunctuated sentence. “That means you’re single, right?”
I blinked at him, surprised. “Um. What’s between me and Kade is private. How about I give you a hint about the punctuation in this sentence? Possessive nouns have an apostrophe, but plurals don’t.”
He cocked his head. “It sounds like you’re single.” His eyes were dark brown, completely unlike the warm, sparkling gray of Kade’s. He was handsome in his own way, and he’d always been nice. At least, he had before Kade got to town.
But Willis wasn’t Kade, and I wasn’t attracted to him.
“Should you insert an apostrophe here?” I tapped the notepad. “If you’re really not sure, then I’ll know you haven’t been studying.”
“I love it when you talk like that.”
“Like what?”
“Sexy teacher.” He wagged his eyebrows up and down. “Talking about inserting things.”
I
