Mac raised a hand, “It’s okay, Katie. You have every right and I have no right, none at all. But that doesn’t seem to stop me from feeling what I feel.” He stopped short of saying he loved her. It was a slippery slope, saying that would mean things, would promise her things he wasn’t sure he could deliver.
“You should leave me and go be with Nick, but I don’t want you to.
I want you with me, tonight and tomorrow we’ll figure out the rest.”
Kate sat behind her desk, unsure of what to do. She had planned to break up with Mac. Make a clean break and fall in love with Nick. But as the saying goes, we make plans and God laughs.
Mac stood up and walked over to her desk, gently lifting her from her chair.
“I thought of you every day while I was gone and I wished like hell that my life was different. I would love to stand here and promise you that I will leave her, that we will be together forever, but you and I both know it’s never that simple.”
Mac took her in his arms, “You deserve a man who can be with you, body and soul. If I were a decent person, I would send you off to be with a man who could offer you something I can’t: A future.”
Mac kissed her, and all she could think of was how much she wanted him.
They left the offices and headed for Mac’s apartment.
She had promised Grace she would leave him.
She would keep her promise, just not today.
.
Coming Soon:
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Book Two
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.
The bar was packed with people, the conversation floated like a hum through the Fat Cat, where Kate had asked Grace to meet her to celebrate the launch of her latest book. Thankfully this time, the launch had gone off without a hitch. TVs played over the bar, but Kate hardly noticed them. She sipped her drink. She’d done it, she’d pulled this off. Kate could feel herself beaming. After all these years in book publicity, she always felt a surge of pride when an author’s book launch went off flawlessly.
Grace nudged her friend, “Kate, I didn’t know your author was supposed to be on Nancy Grace. Is that a good thing?”
Kate spun in her stool to face the television; she was just in time to see the crawl at the bottom. Someone had been arrested.
Oh, God. It was her author.
“Turn it up!” Hearing Kate’s panic, the bartender punched a button on the remote. The voices on the screen grew louder.
“So as it turns out,” Nancy Grace began in her distinct Southern drawl, “This guy has been doing something not good, in fact it’s downright disgusting. When I tell the whole story, you’ll agree that anything related to this guy, including his newly released book, should be banned.
“I take it you didn’t know about this?” she asked quietly.
Kate didn’t respond. She dug for her iPhone, which was vibrating out of control in her purse. It continued to buzz in her hand as she glanced at the screen. Messages were flooding in, show cancelations, event cancelations. Word of this incident and her author’s unconfirmed involvement was spreading faster than she could have anticipated. Damage control, she thought to herself, she needed damage control. But how do you control this?
Kate pounded the redial button. Mac, of course, was the last person she’d called. She turned her head, trying not to look at the flash of pictures of someone being carted away in handcuffs. The Feds had pulled a hood over his head and he looked sinister.
Mac’s number rang, no answer, voice mail. All she said was “Mac, call me, it’s urgent.” Next she tried his apartment.
Still nothing.
She sent him an urgent text message and waited an interminable five minutes for him to respond. When he didn’t, she realized she couldn’t stay in the bar; the sounds of laugher and conversation had started to grate on her.
“Grace, I need to get out of here.” She slid off the barstool, not waiting for Grace to respond.
Kate wove in a daze through the bar, ignoring the smiling faces. She was fixated on her phone. The night air was cool, the streets teeming with pedestrians. She tried calling Mac again. Nothing.
Finally a text message popped up: Let’s meet at your apartment.
Kate grabbed the first cab she could and was home in ten minutes. By the time she got there and flipped on the TV, every major news station was covering this story.
It was, by all accounts, an unmitigated disaster.
A knock: “It’s Mac.” He said, then slipped his key into the lock. She was standing in front of her small TV, remote in hand, flipping through news stations that were all showing the same footage Nancy Grace had: Hooded author, disgraced.
Mac walked inside and she threw herself into his arms, “Oh, Mac, this is horrible. What are we going to do?”
Mac wrapped his arms around her but didn’t say a word. He kissed the top of her head and stroked her hair, “I’m so sorry, Kate.”
Kate? Mac never called her Kate. A nervous coil of something curled inside her. She looked up, “Sorry, for what? This isn’t your fault.”
Mac could only look at her.
“Mac, say something, you’re worrying me. What’s going on here?”
He walked around the room, his hands deep in the pockets of his coat, which he didn’t see the need to remove. It wasn’t likely he would be staying long anyway.
.
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Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty