Page 13 of The Story Between Us

Could Meg see the lie on her face? She looked away, just in case.

“Uh-huh.” Meg’s voice had shifted into her marketing-person tone—the one that meant she was about to dig for the real story beneath the press release. So apparently, the answer to the aforementioned question was a brutal yes.

“And this older brother who was around. Was he cute?”

“That’s not the⁠—”

“Was he?”

“It was a long time ago.”

“Livvie. Was Nate Rivers, bestselling fantasy author and current bane of your professional existence, cute?”

And of course, Livvie’s eyes drifted, traitorously, to the bookshelf across the room. The Thornwood Chronicles lived on the top shelf—all four hardcovers, spines cracked from rereading, margins full of notes. She kept them high because she was tired of explaining them to dates. Tired of the questions.

Meg followed her gaze. Then, with the predatory instinct of someone who spent her days figuring out how to sell things to people, she was off the couch and crossing the room before Livvie could stop her.

“Don’t—”

Too late. Meg had The Court of Thorns in her hands, flipping it over to examine the back jacket. The author photos. One of Emma.

One of Nate.

The photo that Livvie had studied more times than she’d ever admit.

Dark curly hair, the kind that looked like he’d been running his hands through it—which, knowing Nate, he probably had. It fell across his forehead in a way that made you want to push it back. A few days’ worth of stubble shadowed his jaw, softening what would otherwise be sharp angles. He was leaning against a wooden doorframe, wearing a charcoal Henley with the top buttons undone, looking at the camera like it had interrupted something important and he was deciding whether to be annoyed about it.

But it was his eyes that got you. Hazel, maybe, or brown depending on the light—the photo made it hard to tell. They held something heavy. Something that said I’ve seen things I don’t talk about and I’d rather be anywhere else and, underneath all of it, a flicker of warmth he probably didn’t know was visible.

The kind of eyes that made you want to ask questions. The kind that made you forget you’d asked them when he looked at you.

“Oh.” Meg blinked at the photo. Then blinked again. “Oh, Livvie.”

“It’s not⁠—”

“This man looks like he was engineered in a lab to be the brooding love interest in a movie where the heroine fixes him with the power of her kindness and maybe some aggressive baked goods.” Meg tilted the book, examining it from another angle as if that might make him less devastating. It did not. “Like someone took ‘mysterious writer in a cabin’ and gave it cheekbones and that mouth and—” She looked up, eyes sharp. “And you knew him? You spent summers with this face?”

“With his sister. I spent summers with his sister, who was my summertime bestie, who—” Livvie’s voice cracked, just slightly. “Who died. Three years ago. I went to the funeral.”

Meg’s expression softened. She set the book down carefully. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to⁠—”

“No, it’s fine. I just…” Livvie returned to the couch, sinking into its uncomfortable depths, pulling a pillow into her lap like a shield. “I haven’t really talked about this. Any of it. And now Richard has given me two weeks to get Nate to turn in a manuscript he’s been avoiding for three years, and if I fail, I’m fired, and he won’t answer my text⁠—”

“Wait—what? You left out that part.”

Oops. “Um. So yes, after I told him how I knew him, he sort of gave me the ultimatum.”

“How generous of him.”

“I think it’s his way of figuring out how to tighten their belts. There’s office talk about a merger, downsizing⁠—”

“Do they even know how much business you bring in? You landed a NYT bestseller⁠—”

“I’m just an assistant. I didn’t land anything. Yet.” She reached for her phone. Meg intercepted her hand.

“Nope. New rule. Every time you check that phone, you have to tell me one thing about your history with the hot grieving author.”

“That’s—”