When she walks over to the middle, she sees all of the editions of my books. They fill up nearly an entire bookshelf all by themselves. When I first started, I never had author copies made.

I was proud of what I did, but I was also embarrassed by displaying them proudly. It was almost as if I didn't think that my work measured up to the likes of John Irving, Jim Harrison, and other serious American men of letters.

But what makes a writer serious in the first place?

For some reason, if a male author writes about love, the book is considered serious literature but if a female does it then it’s just fluff.

Well, fuck that.

Life is too short to pretend to be someone I’m not.

Millions of people around the world have devoured my work and have proudly displayed it on their bookshelves for everyone to see, so why shouldn’t I do the same thing?

“I'm sorry to bring this up again,” Emma asks, “but when we talked earlier about your writing method, you sort of mentioned what you used to do but not what you're currently doing. Can you tell me more about that? Like, how are you such a prolific author?”

“I realized that I was suffering from burnout when I started to spend a lot of hours out of my day procrastinating. So, I started to research procrastination and productivity. Then I developed a system of writing basically only for an hour a day. I can write for a lot more hours, but I limit myself to one hour exactly. Usually, spread over three writing sprints.”

“Wait, that's all? So, how does that work? I thought you would be writing like six hours a day, seven days a week.”

I laugh and say, “Close, but no. I now write one hour a day five out of the seven days a week. Sometimes, I will do more if I'm in the mood, but most of the time I don't.”

“So, you do writing sprints?”

“Yes, twenty-five minute, twenty minute, and fifteen minute writing sprints. I tell myself that I know exactly what I need to cover or where I'm headed in the story. Then I just grab my phone and start dictating.”

“You dictate?”

“It’s faster than typing and I’ve had issues with carpal tunnel and other wrist problems.”

“How does it work?”

“I sit at my desk and talk into my phone. Sometimes I go on a walk and occasionally, I ride my horse.”

Emma raises her eyebrows in utter shock, but musters to say, “I feel like you live on some other planet.”

I laugh and she laughs along with me. When my hand touches her, accidentally, I don't recoil back and neither does she.

Instead she looks up at me and I lean closer to her.

The gravitational pull that I feel toward her is impossible to deny.

Now that I know that her relationship with Alex is completely over, I don't stop myself.

Our lips touch.

Her mouth is soft and delicate, but our kiss is not. There's a hunger in our kiss and I push her against the bookcase.

I haven't known her long and yet the sexual tension seems to have existed between us long before we met.

I run my fingers up her curvy body. She pulls away, but only for second and then presses harder against me.

I open my mouth slightly and let my tongue find hers. I hold her with both hands.

She kisses me back, harder each time. I push her back against the bookcase more firmly and a few books fall down on top of us.

“Oh my God!” she yelps from surprise.

I laugh and she laughs, too.

When our eyes meet again, she reaches up to kiss me, but I pull away.

“What's wrong?” she asks.

I can hear the disappointment in her voice.

“It's hard to explain,” I say quietly.

“You’re a writer,” she says.

“I know.”

I divert my eyes from her.

I know that if I were to look into them again, she would immediately know the truth about me and every last one of my secrets would be exposed.

“Okay,” she says, straightening her clothes even though they're not out of shape. “I understand.”

She turns around and walks away from me. It takes me a moment to catch up to her, but when I do, I see that she's hiding her face from me.

“Emma, please stop…” I start to say. I pull her hand, but she pulls it away from me. “This isn’t about you. None of this is about you.”

“Of course, nothing is ever about me,” she says.

I search her face, but it's blank. Whatever she's feeling, she's bottling up deep inside and all I see is a wall of anger and disappointment.

“I really like you,” I say.

She doesn't know this, but even saying those words are quite difficult for me.

“Look, I know that I was engaged to your friend and that none of this should be happening between us. I'm not with him anymore so I'm not breaking any rules, but you do have your guy code.”

“Alex and I are not friends. He invited me to your engagement party because he wanted me to invest my money with his fund. We haven't been in touch for years. I just happened to run into him.”

“You haven’t talked to him?”

“No, and I suspect that he didn’t really have much interest in me until we talked about my investment.”

“I can't believe that he invited you to our party to make a business deal.”

“You can't?” I ask.

“No,” she says, raising her eyebrows and shaking her head. “Of course, I can. Work is the only thing that he really cares about.”

“Look, this has nothing to do with Alex. I like kissing you,” I say, “but my life… It's complicated.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I can't tell you. You found out one aspect of my life, but I have others. Things are dangerous for me. I can't say much more than that.”

She stares at me, furrowing her brow.

I look at the crinkle that it makes on her forehead and realize that this is the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

She wants to know everything, not just as a reporter but as a woman.

She deserves to be with someone who can tell her those things. Only problem is that I'm not one of those people.

“I'm going to go,” Emma says.

The tone of her voice gets very low, signifying that she means business.

“Please, don't. I thought you were going to stay for dinner?”

“No, I don't think that's a good idea.”

I ask her to stay again, but again she refuses. I ruined it.

She walks out the front door and slams it shut behind her. I want to follow her out and ask her to stay again, but I hesitate.

I know that it's best for her if she goes.

I'm a dangerous man with a dangerous past.

I'm not just a writer, I have demons hunting me.

More than demons, actual bad men with guns who are determined to get their revenge.

The best thing that I can do is to let her go because I know what happens if I don't. I have lost one person in my life to them, I can't have anymore innocent bystanders paying for my crimes.

I look over to the window and watch her get into her car. More than anything, I want to run out there and ask her to stay.

30

Emma