Page 28 of No Words

I’d honestly thought that despite his terrible books (simply not my taste, given that I’d experienced the death of a loved one firsthand, and didn’t care to relive that trauma through fiction), Will Price seemed like a nice person.

What a pity, I’d thought at the time,that I’m saddled with Justin, who claims to be a writer but never actually writes anything and then complains that we never go out because I’m too busy writing all the time.I could maybe see myself with a guy like Will. Or maybe even Will himself.

It wasn’t until the next week, when theTimesstory hit, that I learned what a mistakethatline of thinking had been.

I sipped my wine—the server had come around again to refill my glass—and decided Will should be the one to speak next. Also that what he said had better be an apology or I wasn’t going to say another word to him all night, which would be awkward, considering I was sitting beside him.

He did speak next, but he didn’t apologize. Instead, he said, “Chloe told you, didn’t she?”

This was so unexpected that I forgot all about not speaking to him until he apologized. “Told me what?”

He studied my face for a moment, his brown eyes—as dark as the shadows beyond the festively lit tables—seeming to rake my face, looking for some clue that I knew... what?

Then, apparently deciding I didn’t know whatever it was, and that he was in the clear, he reached in relief for one of the wineglasses that had been poured on the table nearest us, even though it wasn’t his assigned seat, and took a hearty swig.

“Never mind,” he said.

Now I forgot all about not speaking until I got an apology. He thought I didn’t know what his lovely sister had told me—that she was a fan of my books! After all the nasty things he’d said about me and my writing (well, all right, it was only one nasty thing, but one was enough), it turned out that his own kin adored me and my creation!

“As a matter of fact, she did tell me,” I said, feeling a rush of exultation. “She told meeverything.”

This couldn’t have had a more satisfying effect. Those deliciously dark eyes of his widened, and the normally upturned corners of that pouty mouth—what was such a small mouth doing on so large a man, anyway?—sloped downward.

“Shedid?”

“Oh, yes.” I was loving this. My mother’s ancestors were so right. Revenge delayed was the very best kind. “Absolutely. And I can’t say I’m surprised.”

He seemed to have forgotten the wineglass in his hand. Itsank so low that the little remaining liquid in it was spilling out, splashing onto the sand.

“You’re... you’re not?”

“Of course not.” I was really impressed with how assertive I was being. Bernadette would have been proud. “I have fans her age all over the world... some from much farther away than England. And your sister is hardly the first to tell me that my books got her through a difficult time—the worst time in her entire life, I think, is how she put it. Which makes me wonder if things got a little awkward for you around your house after she found out how you threw me under the bus to theTimesthe last time we met.”

The wineglass in his hand righted itself, and his head came up. It had been sinking, along with his shoulders, the entire time I’d been talking, until he’d begun to resemble one of those saints paying penance in all those paintings at the Metropolitan Museum of Art—a totally hot saint. But a saint nonetheless.

But now he straightened and asked in a tone of surprise, his dark eyes narrowing, “Wait...that’swhat Chloe told you? That she’s a fan of your books?”

“Yes, of course.” What was wrong with him? “What did you think she said?”

“Nothing.” He set the now empty wineglass down on the nearby table and seemed to exhale—in relief.

“Why?” I demanded sharply. “Are you going to try to tell me it’s not true? Because I was standing right over there when she said it. She and her friend the sheriff’s daughter and their other friend, Sharmaine, all said—”

“Oh, no.” He toed some of the wine-damp sand. “It’s true.”

Then why on earth was he looking so relieved? He should have been looking ashamed—ashamed for being such a judgmental hater of literature for girls (and some boys, and of course non-binary children as well).

“So what happened?” I asked. “Did you think neither of us were going to notice when you decided to talk smack about Kitty Katz to the press? Because I can assure you that I did. My ownfatherwrote to let me know. He has a Google alert on my name. Do you have any idea what it feels like to be called by your dad and told that internationally bestselling author Will Price—who Ithoughtwas a friend of mine—was going around saying that Nicole Woods should have had better taste than to copy me? How do you think that made me feel?”

Finally he looked up. And this time when he did, I could see that there was heat in those dark eyes of his. What kind of heat—shame, anger, humiliation, all three—I couldn’t tell. But something was flaring there, deep inside the darkness.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a voice that was so low, I could barely hear it above the excited chatter of the other dinner guests, the squeaking of wooden chairs as they sat, and the clink of silverware as they hungrily attacked their salads. “I’m so sorry that happened to you. It shouldn’t have.”

Wait. What was going on? Was heapologizing?

“I was going through a difficult personal time.” He was still talking, that deep voice so quiet, it was almost a purr. “I wasn’t as selective of my words as I ought to have been. But I realize that’s no excuse.”

“Wait,” I said, confused.