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Chapter 14
Brooke woke when morning light crept into the blanket fort. Sam was gone, but the sheets and pillows were still warm from his body heat. She buried her face in the penguin pillow, inhaling the scents of citrus, soap, and male before reluctantly pushing the covers aside.
After pulling on her pajamas, she crawled out of the fort, lifting a hand to block the sunlight. He was seated at the table, frowning at his laptop.
“Morning.” He rose and went to the kitchen, returning with a cup of hot coffee.
“How’s it going?” She nodded toward the laptop.
He crouched next to her, balancing on the balls of his feet. His eyes crinkled with a smile. “I’m managing to get the words on the page. Good advice, by the way.”
“I know it’s not always that easy.” She accepted his hand as he rose and helped her to her feet. “I have a bunch of freelance ideas on paper, so the words are there, but the ideas suck.”
“What ideas do you have?”
After sitting at the table, Brooke took a sip of coffee and opened her notebook. “Debt-Free by Forty. Bucket List Adventures From Your Sofa. Inside Your Sewer System.Suffice it to say, if I were an editor, I’d reject myself.”
He smiled slightly. “You’re targeting lifestyle magazines?”
“And society and culture.” She nodded. “Both online and print. My grandpa says that print magazines and newspapers are on an upswing, so it wouldn’t be a bad idea to get my foot in each door.”
“You said you have a deadline?”
“Mid-January. Michael wants me to thinkoutside the boxand come up with a list ofclick-baity, grabbyideas. I’m pretty sure sewer systems isn’t what he had in mind.”
Sam suddenly went very still. “Michael?”
Her stomach dropped. In all her confessions, she’d somehow managed to leave this one out. Maybe because she was still struggling with the whole thing herself.
“Michael.” She swallowed and laced the pen through her fingers. “The same Michael who…well. Yes.”
“What are you talking about?” Sam’s voice hardened. “You’re in contact with him?”
“More than that.” She dropped the pen and pressed her fingers against her temple. “Michael is the editor ofEmpiremagazine.”
Shock poured off him like cold from a glacier. He backed up a step. “You’re working with your ex? After what he did to you?”
“I’m not working with himyet.” Her nerves began to tense. She didn’t expect Sam to be delighted by this revelation, but the thunderous look descending over his face was almost alarming. “I’m just sending him freelance ideas. You said it yourself—Empireis doing really well, and being one of their freelance writers would be a good boost for my career. Which, if you recall, is rather pathetic at the moment.”
“That doesn’t mean you need to rely on an asshole who lied to you,” he snapped.
Brooke pushed her chair back abruptly. “I’m not relying on him. I’m doing what I need to do in order to advance my career.”
“You’re giving him power over your career.” Sam paced to the kitchen and back, his hands fisting. “Overyou. You’re not trusting your own abilities and talent.”
“I’m not giving him power over me.” Her voice sounded unconvincing, even to herself. “Look, I didn’t talk to Michael for months after we broke up. It was all I could do to hold myself together, and then when I discovered Icouldn’tanymore…when I resigned from the dream job and moved back home, I had to convince everyone, myself included, that I’d done the right thing.
“But I was so angry for so long…at myself, at my colleagues, at Michael, at the woman he’d been seeing, at the wholeworld, that even though I was happy to be back in Bliss Cove, the anger and guilt were making me sick inside. So I went to therapy and I did all the things you don’t believe in—meditation, yoga, aromatherapy—to try and find positivity again. That path also meant I had to try and forgive Michael.”
Sam’s mouth compressed into a thin line. “What he did to you was unforgivable.”
“I didn’t try to forgive him forhim.” She spread her hands out. “I tried to forgive him for me. Last fall, he read something I’d written online and he emailed me telling me he liked it. We exchanged a few messages, and he asked me to send him some freelance ideas.
“At first, I wasn’t going to, but then my rejection letters started rolling in, and I figured I didn’t have much left to lose. So I sent him a few proposals. He didn’t like the first batch, but he asked me to come up with more ideas. Honestly, he’s giving me more of a chance than anyone else has yet.”
“You don’t need him,” Sam retorted. “You’re smart, talented, resourceful, a fantastic writer…a fucker like that doesn’t deserve to even talk to you, much less publish your work.”
Though his praise expanded like a balloon in her heart, Brooke hated that he was making her doubt her decision all over again. She straightened her spine.
