Page 80 of How to Find a Romance in a Bookshop

“You think?” Alistair replied. “Forget that, I reckon we hold out for an auction. Have you had any other editors contact you yet? They’ve all had the material since yesterday.”

“No one’s called me,” she told him.

“That’s because we asked them to email in the first instance.”

Alistair waited on the phone patiently while Petra quickly logged in to her emails. She could picture him sitting at his broad oak desk, overlooking the bench in the London garden square where Petra had so often sat to eat her solitary lunchtime sandwich.

Riffling quickly through spam, Petra scanned and reported on several emails. “Okay, we’ve got another pre-empt offer,” she said, “but it’s much lower than—um, the other one,” she found she couldn’t say Henrietta’s name, “and then there are several expressions of interest . . . What should I tell him?”

“You’re his agent,” Alistair reminded her, “but—okay—if it was me, I would advise him to hold out for an auction. Best bids by the end of the day. If you don’t like what comes in, we can almost guarantee the pre-empt will still be on the table. It’s a case of who blinks first.”

It made sense. “The end of today, though?” she queried doubtfully. “That’s very quick, isn’t it? They have to consult . . .”

“I like to drum up a bit of urgency. We’re talking directly to the top bods. And they only have the first three chapters and the concept to read,” Alistair reminded her. “How long do they need?”

When Alistair had let her go, Petra took a deep breath and wiped away two more tears that seemed to have sprung to her eyes against her bidding. She would not cry in front of Ross, but there was no escaping speaking to him.

She found him pouring two cups of coffee from the thermos in the little anteroom put aside for VIP guests.

“I was just going to bring you a coffee,” he said, busying himself with milk and little packets of sugar.

“I’ve had a pre-empt,” she told him, steeling herself.

“Who from?”

This threw her. Surely it would have come out in the pillow talk she assumed he had been having. “From Henrietta,” she said. “It’s high.”

“Should I take it?” he said, staring at the teaspoon on his saucer as if he had never seen one before.

So now he couldn’t even look at her? Petra wanted to take the stupid spoon off his saucer and throw it out of the window. A little bit of wanton destruction might ease the boulder lodged in her chest.

“Up to you,” she told him. “Alistair and I think you should hold out for an auction.”

He still hadn’t looked at her. Petra wasn’t sure she could cope if he did.

“Then that’s what we do,” he told her.

Just then, the door flew open, and Henrietta entered in a flurry of designer tailoring and an oxygen-suckingly strong cloud of a musky, woody perfume that made Petra’s head swim. Or maybe it was the sleep deprivation.

“Thank you, darling,” she drawled, taking one of the coffee cups from Ross’s hand. “I think they’re ready for us.” She gestured to the stage area, where Jess was standing anxiously watching the little trio as the audience for the opening session filed in and took their seats.

“Petra!” came a cry, and Petra turned to see Jemima—a friend from her London life all those millions of years ago. “I saw your name on the email. Representing Ross McCloud, eh?” said Jemima excitedly. “Wow! I mean, when I saw that, I had to come.”

Petra duly returned Jemima’s air-kiss. It was good to see her. Jemima was one of the good guys. She represented some of the better times from Petra’s junior—very junior—editor days. Unlike Petra though, Jemima had progressed in accordance with her superb ability and was now something big at Penguin Random House.

“You mean, you came all this way because of our submission?” Petra asked, scanning the crowd to see if any other editors had done the same.

“Of course, I did,” said Jemima, rather undermining her own assertion that she came because of Petra. “I’m hoping to acquire,” she muttered, tapping the side of her nose. “Nothing like being on the spot to put a good word in.”

It seemed that Jemima and Henrietta had that in common at least. In every other way, though, the two women could not have been more different. As an editor, Jemima ruled by consent. Her authors, Petra knew, felt supported and produced good books partly as a result. Henrietta? Not so much.

“It’s okay to speak to Ross after this, right?” asked Jemima.

“Of course! I’ll introduce you,” said Petra rapidly, just before Jemima scurried to a seat. Jess, microphone at the ready, was stepping forward, and a hush descended.

Petra barely heard a word of the panel discussion, she was so intent on watching the body language between Ross and Henrietta. The woman was basically unable to keep her hands off him. Every few seconds she laid her hand on his arm to make a point or approve of something he had said—not that he was talking much. At one point, Petra thought she was going to pat Ross on the head but instead took a piece of fluff off his shoulder in a proprietary manner and then stroked the nape of his neck as if soothing an anxious horse.

If Ross had returned to the silent, taciturn man she had first met those months ago, Henrietta, on the other hand, was commanding the attention of the whole room. And she was good, Petra had to admit, reeling off figures and quotes about the publishing industry, talking authoritatively about market sectors and growth. Gordon, the agent, was more amusing, though, managing to shoehorn in the odd anecdote, when he got the chance, as Henrietta alternately declared, gushed, and simpered.