“What the actual fuck?” he yells, almost dropping his phone. “How did we not know this? Paris, how did we not know this?”
He glares accusingly at his colleague, who glares back at him, fighting mode engaged.
“I’m going to assume most of you know what a pen name is?” Elliot interrupts them.
I lean forward in my seat, along with everyone else in the room. On the stage, Publicist Woman is frantically stabbing at her phone, a look of panic on her face. The journalist is beckoning frantically to his cameraman to keep filming. Levi appears to be about to explode.
For once, I relate.
“A pen name is a fake name an author adopts when they want to keep their real identity private, for whatever reason,” Elliot explains. “And there are lots of reasons authors do that. Some of them just do it because they want to try out a genre their audience isn’t used to, for instance. Others do it because they want to write smut and they’d rather not have to discuss it with their mom.”
He grins again, and there’s a ripple of laughter from the audience, plus an audible sigh from Sandra, who appears to be quite taken with the idea of Elliot writing smut.
“In my case, I used a pen name because the type of books I started writing were a little different fromThe Snow Globe,” Elliot says. His cheeks are starting to turn red now, and he’s looking more and more like the younger version of himself who would never have believed he’d one day stand in front of a crowded room and … admit to secretly writing smut? Is that what he’s doing here?
“Nottotallydifferent,” he goes on, ignoring his publicist, who’s now abandoned her phone to hover anxiously by his shoulder instead. “They’re still about relationships. But whileThe Snow Globewas a love story, my other books are very muchromance.”
The emphasis on the wordromanceis one that only the kind of people Paris describes as “book people” will understand. But I know what he means. Love stories don’t have to have happy endings. Romance books do. Which means Elliot’s been writing…
“Billionaires,” he blurts out from the stage. “Enemies to lovers. Fake dating. All that kind of stuff.”
The crowd murmurs, not really knowing how to react to this. Well, with the obvious exception of Levi, who appears to have expired, andis being fanned with a book festival brochure by Paris, who isn’t even looking at him as she does it.
“Well, well,” says Dad quietly from beside me. “Who would’ve thought it?”
I grip the edge of my seat tightly, feeling like I’m in the middle of some kind of weird fever dream as I wait for Elliot to finish.
“They’re not the kind of books that tend to win prizes,” Elliot says quietly, once the hubbub dies down. “But they’re the books my girl … that Holly used to love. Because every single one of them has a happy ending.”
His eyes somehow find me, all the way at the back of the room, but I’m finding it hard to focus on him because it would appear mine are somehow swimming with tears.
“I wrote all of my books for you, Holly,” he says. “You’re the heroine of every story; not justThe Snow Globe. And I never knew if you’d read them or not, but I hoped you would. And I hoped they’d bring you some of the happiness I obviously couldn’t.”
“God, he’s good,” sighs a woman standing near me.
“I’ll buy every single one of his books,” agrees her friend. “I don’t care what name he writes them under.”
Everyone in the room is now staring at me; I mean, if I thought all the stuff about me being the inspiration forThe Snow Globewas bad, it’s going to be absolutely nothing compared to this little bombshell. I willneverlive this down. I’ll probably have to change my name and move town. And, honestly, I don’t even care, because it’s embarrassing, and it’s awkward, and when I look back at the footage from today that’s inevitably going to end up on TikTok I’m going to really wishI’d taken the time to style my hair properly before leaving the house tomorrow.
But it’s also kind of wonderful, really. Because the man I’ve loved for a decade now is standing on aliteralstage, telling the entire village that he loves me; and that he’s been trying to tell me that in dozens of different ways for years now.
At least, Ithinkthat’s what Elliot’s saying.
And, if he is, that would definitely explain all of these tears that are suddenly running down my face.
“What’s the pen name, though?” shouts someone from the middle of the crowd. “You have to tell us the pen name! Don’t leave us hanging here!”
I’m not remotely surprised to find the question is Levi’s. I’m slightly more surprised, though, when I look over to see him standing next to Paris, both of them squeezed together on the bronze ‘first kiss’ plaque in a way that suggests they’ve picked this spot on purpose.
If it was anyone else but them, they’d look quite romantic, really.
“Yes,” shouts Aunt Lorraine, who’s materialized beside me at some point during all of this. “Tell us so I can buy every single one of those books.”
The room falls silent.
Everyone looks at Elliot.
Elliot looks at his publicist.
