Page 10 of How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop

“Anyhow,” Ross continued briskly, “I’m glad we’ve bumped into each other.”

Petra couldn’t imagine how this was true, but it was nice of him to say so.

“I was thinking about dropping in to the bookshop,” he went on, “to buy the Milton, but you’re here . . .” He raised a perfectly formed eyebrow. The effect was devastating.

“Okay! So . . . I am going right back there, right now,” gabbled Petra. “See you in a minute?” she called over her shoulder, not waiting for a reply.

Chapter Five

Panting, Petra burst into the shop, closed the door, and then leaned on it, closing her eyes.

“Are you quite well?” came Flo’s voice, laced with concern.

Petra opened her eyes and stared at Flo, unseeing. “I. Have. Just. Met . . .”

“Who?” pressed Flo. “Your maker? The abominable snowman? The Loch Ness Monster?”

“Ha! Scottish, yes! But ‘Rossie’ not ‘Nessie,’” mumbled Petra, staring into space. The voice—the Scottish accent—had been the same, she was able to appreciate that now. The physical appearance? Unsettlingly different. And, of course, she couldn’t possibly have met the “hot Ross” iteration before, but she still struggled to dismiss the déjà vu vibe—that version of his face with the moody lighting that she felt she was dredging up from her memory banks. It made no sense, though. How would it be possible to meet someone that stunning and not have his image burned onto her eyeballs to the exclusion of everything else from that moment on? It would have been the most memorable event of her life to date. No, the unsettling familiarity must have simply been her brain telling her that—despite being almost beyond comprehension—this demigod and the costumed Captain Hook guy she had been so amused by were one and the same.

“You look as if you’ve seen a ghost,” Flo persisted, her brows knitted, clearly desperate for some better-quality information from Petra about why she was in such a state.

It was too ridiculous to admit to feelings she barely understood herself, thought Petra. And she hardly knew this woman, who had probably now decided she was completely unstable.

“So,” Petra clasped her hands in a parody of enthusiasm, “I think I’ve sold a book,” she explained, trying to adopt a businesslike tone. “That’s all. There’s a man coming in shortly. I just bumped into him. He was looking at a copy of Paradise Lost the other day, and he wants it. Ooh, do the secondhand books have prices on them, by the way?” she added.

“They should have,” said Flo, giving Petra a strange look but then visibly deciding to let it go. “But if there’s no sticker on the book itself, all the secondhand books should be on the system, and the price will be there as well.”

“I’ll go and see,” said Petra, glad to have something to do. She scampered upstairs to find the book still lying on the table where they had left it and—yes—as good as Flo’s word, there was a fresh price label on the back. Yikes. Fifty pounds, though . . . The scruffy version of Ross didn’t look as if he would have been good for fifty pence, let alone fifty pounds. However, handsome Ross looked as though fifty-pound books were very much part of his world.

“Does that sound about right?” she asked Flo, showing her the label.

“I wouldn’t have a clue,” Flo admitted, “but that’s Charlie’s writing, for sure. Charlie,” she explained, “was our antiquarian book expert. He worked here for a few months last year then he got snapped up by Sotheby’s, so he’s in London now. He knows his stuff.”

“Sure, sure,” said Petra, anxious for Flo not to think she was second-guessing former staff. What did she know about secondhand books, after all?

“But it’s totally up to you,” Flo reassured her. “A sale’s a sale. If you want to offer a discount.”

Could she? Should she? Was it really her place to be giving away stock at rock-bottom prices? Surely there were so many other ways she would damage poor Jules and Roman’s business. Doubtless she would soon find out what they all were.

The shop doorbell clanged, and the doorway darkened. The silhouette was unmistakable, those broad shoulders and long legs . . . If she hadn’t appreciated the sheer physical perfection of the man on first meeting him, it would have been that the enveloping great coat had been relinquished in the spring sunshine for this khaki jacket. And it suited him. Very, very much.

Petra drew in a shuddering breath. “Fifty!” she blurted, holding the book out toward him. “But,” she added on reflection, “to you—um—forty-nine pounds . . . and—er—ninety-nine pence,” she went on, lamely, losing her nerve.

Ross chuckled, taking it from her, their fingers touching briefly. He seemed not to notice how Petra froze and then snatched back her hand as if it had been burned by the contact. “A penny off?” he said, examining it critically. “What a tempting offer. I’m going to have to grab it before you change your mind,” he said, grinning at her, apparently relaxed, although he broke their gaze after just a moment.

How could he behave so normally? she thought, resisting the temptation to place a steadying hand over her racing heart. But then, this was her gazing at his beauty; he was hardly going to be having a similar reaction to the sight of her. She, with her London-in-winter pallor and total absence of makeup. Today, having brought few clothes with her, she was in the saggy brown sweater she had been wearing the morning of the unspeakable social media gaffe.

Ross’s newly revealed beauty almost made her want to raise her game.

But the raw material—pale skin, poker-straight black hair in a nondescript bob, and an okay figure, not best served by her normal uniform of jeans and sweater—was never going to elevate her to his levels of personal attractiveness . . . She could maybe iron a shirt or slap on some mascara occasionally, though.

She had her pride.

While Petra was taking the opportunity to examine Ross unobserved, he was engaged in further examining the book, turning it this way and that. “Worth every penny of forty-nine pounds and ninety-nine pence,” he declared. “And I need to build up my collection,” he added. “I’ve probably only got about four copies already. Not this edition though.”

“I’m like that with Jane Eyre,” Petra admitted, as he reached for his wallet, peeling off tens from what looked like a decent roll of cash.

“Please come again,” she said, as she handed him the penny change, grateful that there was no inadvertent touching this time. In fact, he took it with comic precision between finger and thumb, squinted at it, as if to check that it wasn’t counterfeit, then dropped it into the charity collection pot on the counter.