Page 8 of If I Stopped Haunting You

“Wow,” Daniela cut in. “I feel like I’m on a reality TV show for spurned writers.”

“Not helping, Dani,” Laszlo admonished.

“I can’t do this,” Skinner said. She grabbed her whiskey and turned to go. Neil’s nostrils flared as he watched her.

“How are you ever going to write again if you don’t let this go?” Laszlo called. He turned to Neil, raising his voice over the pub’s music. “You both need this, and you know it. You need this retreat more than you’re willing to admit. What are you going to do without it, huh?” Skinner stopped, back still turned to them, and Laszlo continued, his voice softer. “You two could do so much good together in the book community if you got over this little rivalry.”

“It’s not a rivalry, Lasz,” she said, jaw clenched as she whirled around to face them. “It ruined my career.”

“Yourcareer?” Neil laughed, taking a step toward her. “What about my career? What about what you did to me?” His hands curled into fists at his sides, and his stomach churned when she looked up at him, storm clouds brewing behind black-rimmed frames.

“To you?” Skinner slammed her whiskey on the table. Theamber liquid spilled over her hand, and she shook it off, fingers curling into a fist. He followed the movement warily and thought, almost jokingly, that if anyone were to punch him, it would be her. “You have always been able to float on by without a worry. You have a solid audience. You’re aman. Everything for you is that much easier.”

“Easy?”He took another step forward, towering over her. He wanted to grab her shoulders and shake some sense into her. “I’m a Native man in a white man’s world. Nothing in my life has ever been fucking easy.”

“You had me fooled.”

Their chests rose in time with each other, and Neil wanted to laugh. Even their breaths were in sync. They would fall together and rise together, a tide and a moon connected by some invisible string of fate, whether or not they liked it.

Though they would deny it, they were more similar than either of them would be willing to admit. Stubborn and hell-bent on hating each other, Penelope Skinner and Neil Storm were too like-minded for their own good. He needed this retreat as much as she did. Neil knew that Skinner hadn’t written a book in years, not sinceThe Lies They Told Us. Writing retreats were often a terrific way to meet hard deadlines. And he hated to admit it, but without this retreat, without something to hold him accountable for his writing, Neil was ready to give up altogether.

And from the hard set of her jaw, if he wanted this retreat, he’d have to give in first.

“A temporary truce,” he ground out. God, he hated the sound of those words.

“What?”

Neil cleared his throat and stepped back. “A temporary truce. Civility in the face of foolishness.” He directed the last bit at Laszlo, glaring sidelong at his blushing friend.

“You make it sound so easy,” Skinner muttered.

As if to prove his point, Neil held out a hand. He would be the first, that much he could do. “You and I have both paid for our portion of the castle. We’re already in Scotland. And surely the castle is big enough that we never need to see one another. We’ll sequester ourselves in our respective corners and hunker down to write.” He paused, searching her face. His muscles uncoiled as she scowled at him. “Tell me you don’t need this as much as I do.”

Because he needed this.Fuck,did he need this. Without this retreat, without this week, without the structure, Neil was going to fail. Neil Storm did not fail. He was not used to failing, and he wasn’t going to start now.

She pressed her lips into a flat line, resolve flitting over her features as her eyes flicked from his hand to his face before she turned to Laszlo. “Whatever happens,” she started, grasping Neil’s hand in her small, warm palm, “it’s your fault.”

Laszlo’s shoulders slumped in relief. “I deserve that.”

Neil frowned at their joined hands, confusion warring in him. Her fingers lingered for a moment longer, brushing the inside of his wrist as she pulled her hand back. The touch made Neil unpleasantly warm, and he snatched his hand away with a grimace, wiping it down his jeans like that would make him forget her phantom touch.

Skinner lifted her whiskey. “To not killing each other.”

He could have sworn he heard Daniela say, “Please, do.”

Skinner drank the small bit of whiskey, slamming the empty glass on the table with a gasp. After nodding to Laszlo, she turned and fled.

“I’m going to regret this.” Neil sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose.

“I won’t,” Daniela called cheerfully.

Neil shot her a glare before he, too, slipped out of the pub and made his way back to his hotel, more sober than when his night had started.

The next morning, when Neil rolled up in the rental van to the bed-and-breakfast Skinner was staying in, a bitter part of him hoped she wouldn’t show. He’d spent most of the night tossing and turning, dreaming of a small, angry woman who’d made him doubt his entire career. He’d hoped, when he pulled the van into park and rolled down his window, that maybe she’d decided to go home, give him the retreat. Be the bigger person.

Because he sure as hell wasn’t going to be.

But of course, she was waiting for them outside.