Page 98 of The Perfect Rom-Com

Craft.

She wants me to hone my craft.

When I write Amelia Benedict’s books.

I have honed.

I just don’t have the reputation behind me to back me up.

The bill comes, which Florence graciously insists on paying. My chest is a ball of knots and all the while I’m thinking, stewing, trying to come up with a plan for how to convince her.

I want her to accept this manuscript right now.

I need her to declare, “Why, this is exactly what our esteemed CEO has been looking for since our company’s inception in 1952! President Otis is going to be elated!”

“You know, I have to admit, I’m a little surprised.” Florence gives a flourish at the end of her signature. “Jack told me you were in contemporary romance.”

Jack’s name coming from her lips strikes me like a splash of ice water across my face. “Wh—you spoke with him?” I try to say casually, though to my own ears it comes out as anything but.

“Oh, sure,” she says, as though of course she would be corresponding with the agent. In fact, Jack and her professional, successful relationship with Jack is the only real reason we’re having this conversation. At all.

Then she sits back and, to my surprise, gives a dreamy little chuckle to herself as if remembering something quite special. “You know, I believe this is where I met with him last time we had a business lunch. I don’t know who’s more of a fan of the lentil soup, Jack or—” She looks up. Her brows tweak up at the sight of my face. Or rather, the way my eyes are casting about, searching for him. “Are you all right, Bryony?”

“Me?” I point at myself. “Yes.” My eyes are darting around frantically. Searching. “Although I’d like to throw my own name in as a contender for loving the soup the most—” Oof. There he is. Through the doors. Coming straight for the table.

It’s too late.

I’m trapped.

Trapped by the need to be pleasant for the sake of any—slim though the chance may be—relationship with Florence Peters.

“Sorry I’m late,” Jack says. “Traffic was murder.”

“Running all the way from the Strand, were you? I hear Terry Mills is signing over there today. She’s been phenomenal on the charts this past month,” Florence says and stands, leaning over the back of the chair to give him a hug.

He pats her shoulder lightly—and eyes me while doing so.

There’s a little dimple in one corner of his mouth as he says, “Her release has been doing very well, yes. And I was a little bit farther away than that, actually.”

Again, while looking at me.

“I was in a little town out in the middle of nowhere you’ve probably never heard of. Been on the hunt for something the past few days.”

“Never heard of? Try me.”

“Florence.”

“Florence?” she says with a laugh. “Now that is a commute—but I do know it,” she says triumphantly. “You know, I got lost there once. Thought I’d never make it back out to civilization.”

She laughs.

Jack laughs.

I die a bit inside.

“Now where were you all on the manuscript?” Jack takes a chair from the table opposite and swings it around to sit. “Catch me up.”

You know what? I can’t do this.