by Jae
Table Of Contents
Other Books by Jae
Acknowledgments
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Epilogue
About Jae
Other Books from Ylva Publishing
Coming from Ylva Publishing
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www.ylva-publishing.com
Other Books by Jae
Standalone Romances:
Perfect Rhythm
Falling Hard
Heart Trouble
Under a Falling Star
Something in the Wine
Shaken to the Core
The Hollywood Series:
Departure from the Script
Damage Control
Just Physical
Portland Police Bureau Series:
Conflict of Interest
Next of Kin
The Vampire Diet Series:
Good Enough to Eat
The Oregon Series:
Backwards to Oregon
Beyond the Trail
Hidden Truths
The Shape-Shifter Series:
Second Nature
Natural Family Disasters
Manhattan Moon
True Nature
Acknowledgments
While my name is on the cover, writing and publishing a book is always a team effort. First and foremost, I want to thank my wonderful team of beta readers, who are reading every chapter as I go. Anne-France, Christiane, Claire, Danielle, Erin, Trish, and Melanie, you are worth your weight in ice cream!
Thanks also to my editor, Robin Samuels, to my proofreader, Laina Villeneuve, and to Glendon for the great cover.
Last but certainly not least, thank you to my readers. Your enthusiasm for my stories and my characters keeps me writing.
Chapter 1
“We need to talk,” Abby said from somewhere behind her.
Claire barely heard her over the rattle of plates she was stacking on the buffet table. She threw a glance over her shoulder and laughed. “You might want to check out my latest podcast, honey. I just told my listeners never to start conversations with their spouses using those four little words. They make it sound as if something bad is going on.”
“But we really need to talk,” Abby said.
“One second, honey.” Claire slid the flower arrangement in the middle of the table more to the right. “Can you see if the bartender has everything he needs?”
“Claire, please.”
Something in Abby’s tone made the hairs on Claire’s neck stand on end, but she shook off the feeling. It was the day of their engagement party. Nothing unpleasant was allowed to intrude. She turned around.
Abby stood in the middle of their dining room, her back ramrod straight, her face pale, and the cocktail dress Claire had picked out for her to wear to the party suspiciously absent.
Claire tensed. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you dressed yet? Our guests will be arriving any moment.”
“I know, but I…” Abby’s gaze darted to the bartender and to the cellist they had hired to provide unobtrusive background music. “Can we talk in the kitchen for a second?”
After one last glance back at the buffet table to make sure everything was the way she wanted it, Claire nodded and followed her.
Abby pulled out a stool from the kitchen island. “Sit.”
That strange sense of dread niggled at the back of Claire’s mind again. She eyed the stool. “We don’t have time right now. Can’t this wait?”
“No,” Abby said, stony-faced. “It can’t. I’ve tried to talk to you all day, but you haven’t sat still even for a second.”
Heat suffused Claire’s face. “I want to make sure everything is perfect.”
Abby squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again. For the first time in seven years, Claire couldn’t read the look in the familiar blue irises. “Listen, Claire. I love you.”
Claire beamed. “I love you too.” She chuckled. “Which is a good thing since we’re planning to get married.”
“But I’m not in love with you anymore,” Abby added.
The floor tilted beneath Claire’s feet. She swayed and grabbed hold of the stool. “W-what? D-did you just say…?”
“I can’t marry you.”
A whooshing sound started to pulse in Claire’s ears. “You don’t mean that!”
Abby looked at her with a grave expression. “I’m afraid I do.” Her voice was low and shaky, yet there was conviction in her tone too.
“But…but w-why? Is there someone else?” The thought stabbed her in the chest like a dagger.
“No. But going through with this would make us both unhappy.”
“Unhappy?” Claire echoed. That was something her clients said during their couples therapy sessions. It didn’t apply to her and Abby. “How can you say that? We’re perfect together!”
“Perfect?” Abby laughed, a sound bare of any humor. “We rarely see each other. That’s not perfect in my book.”
“So we both have demanding jobs.”
“No, Claire.” Abby roughly shook her head. “I have a demanding job. You have an obsession. I’m tired of playing second fiddle to your job.”
Claire bit her lip. “I could tell our office assistant not to fill my six o’clocks anymore and come home an hour early.”
Abby’s closed body language never changed. Her arms were folded over her chest so tightly that Claire wondered how she could even breathe. “Yeah, but that’s the thing. Even when you’re home, you never stop. You do a lot of things that your job doesn’t really require. You’re either recording a podcast, planning the next seminar, or working on your book. Other psychologists don’t do all that stuff.”
“Yeah, but other psychologists also don’t want to take over a counseling center one day. I have to get my name out there, so just counseling clients isn’t enough.” Claire struggled to keep the defensiveness from her tone but had a feeling she was failing. “Besides, I’m done with the book now, so there’s nothing stopping us from spending more time together.”
Abby sighed. “I’m not sure that’s what I want any longer. Even in your private life, you micromanage every little detail.” She waved her hand in the direction of the buffet in the dining room. “It’s exhausting!”
The words and Abby’s tone were like a slap to the face. Stung, Claire flinched back. “I’m trying to create a nice home…a nice life for both of us.”
“It’s not working for me, Claire. I don’t want to hurt you, but…it just isn’t working.”
“And you realize that now—five minutes before our engagement party? If you had any doubts about us, why didn’t you talk to me when I first proposed to you?”
“I…I…I wanted to. Really. But…” Abby shrugged and stared off into space. “I guess I didn’t know how to bring it up, so I tried to ignore it and hoped everything would get better.”
It sounded like a bad joke. Here she was—a successful thera
pist who gave seminars on communication in relationships, and her own fiancée couldn’t even talk to her?
Claire stared at the three-carat engagement ring on her finger. This had to be a bad dream. She would wake up any second, and then Abby and she would laugh about her stupid nightmare.
“Okay, so you have your doubts.” She swallowed heavily. “But that’s no reason to throw it all away. Maybe it’s just wedding jitters or the stress of planning the party and the wedding. Just a rough patch. Every relationship has them.”
That was what she always told her clients, but she had never believed that she would one day experience one too. There hadn’t been any signs.
Or had she just not seen them?
“We can make it work.” Claire tried to reach out and touch her, but Abby pulled her arm away before she could make contact. “We could go to couples therapy. I’m sure Renata could recommend a good thera—”
“No. The last thing we need is for you to tell our therapist what methods to use or how to do her job.”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
Abby snorted. “Yes, you would. I’m done, Claire. I’ll move out first thing tomorrow morning.”
Done. Move out. The words echoed through Claire, filling spaces that had been overflowing with happiness and anticipation only five minutes earlier.
The doorbell rang.
Claire woke from her daze. Our guests! She pressed both hands to her mouth. “Oh God! What are we supposed to tell our friends and colleagues…and my parents?”
“You are the one who cares about appearances. You figure it out.” Abby pushed past her and walked out, stopping at the bar to down a glass of champagne.
Claire sank onto the stool and stared after her.
Chapter 2
Two months later
The ringing of her cell phone made Claire look up from the patient file she had been reviewing. She had been staring at the same sentence for twenty minutes without registering a word. It seemed that was all she’d been doing for the past two months: staring. She had stared at the movers who had carried out boxes upon boxes of Abby’s things, stared at Abby when she had handed over her key and her engagement ring, and stared at Abby’s photo that she couldn’t bring herself to remove from her desk.
She swallowed down the lump those memories had formed in her throat and squared her shoulders. Come on. Pick up. It could be a client in a crisis. But a glance at the display revealed that it was Mercedes, her friend and agent.
Oh, great. Mercedes was traveling a lot, so they hadn’t talked in a while—since before Abby had called off the engagement, actually. Had Mercedes heard about the breakup now that she was back from Europe?
For a second, Claire considered not picking up. She wanted to forget about her failed relationship, not recount the painful details again, but she forced herself to be an adult and lifted the phone to her ear. “Hi, Mercedes.”
“Guess what?”
Claire wasn’t in the mood for guessing games, but she was used to keeping her own emotions in check, so she patiently said, “You won the lottery and are moving to the Bahamas?”
Mercedes snorted. “I wish. Not quite, but I’ve got good news anyway.”
“I could use some good news,” Claire muttered under her breath and then asked more loudly, “What is it?”
“Remember that publisher I pitched your manuscript to?”
Claire clutched the phone. “They want it?”
“It’s not a definite yes, but based on your outline and the first five chapters we sent them, they think it might be a good fit for them. If we play our cards right, that book deal is yours, my friend.”
“Wow, that’s…wow.” She had been working on the book for the past two years, first writing it and then trying to get it published. Now it was finally happening. At least one thing in her life wasn’t falling apart. “So, how do we get the ball rolling?”
“Well, how does your schedule look at the end of June? Ms. Huge, their acquisitions editor, wants to read the rest of the manuscript and then meet you, so if you could take a few days off to fly to New York…”
Claire reached for her planner and leafed through it. The end of June… That would give her two months to clear her schedule. “That should be doable.”
“Great. Then I’ll let Ms. Huge know you and Abby will gladly meet her, provided that Abby will be able to take off a few days too.”
“Sure.” Then it hit her. “Uh, Abby?”
“Yeah. Ms. Huge said she’s looking forward to meeting you and your fiancée.” Mercedes chuckled. “Guess she wants to meet the woman who inspired the book about thriving love lives.”
Claire took off her glasses and kneaded the bridge of her nose. She stared at the slightly out-of-focus version of Abby, who smiled at her from behind the glass of the picture frame on her desk. “There’s, um, a problem with that. Abby and I…” She breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. No matter how often she had to say it, it wasn’t getting any easier. “We called off the engagement.”
A gasp filtered through the line. Then there was only silence for a few moments.
“What did you just say?”
Claire refused to repeat it. Having to say it once was bad enough.
“Jesus, Claire! When did that happen? Your engagement party was barely two months ago, when I was in London!”
“Um, yeah. It happened around that time.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I…I guess I wasn’t ready to talk about it.” So far, she had kept the breakup on a need-to-know basis.
“I’m so sorry.” Mercedes groaned. “Dammit. That might be a deal breaker for the guys from Wishing Tree Publishing.”
“What? But that changes nothing!”
“It changes everything. In the nonfiction sector, the author and her marketability are as important as the book’s content. You’re lucky they didn’t bat an eye at you being gay. But if they find out you’re single, they won’t be happy.”
“So we’ll tell them I’m focusing on my career and the book right now. What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing—if you’re writing a book on how to achieve your career goals. But last year, I pitched them a really good book on parenting. It was the best thing I have ever read on that topic. But they rejected it, just because the author doesn’t have kids herself. It’s about believability. How can they expect their readers to buy a book called The Art of Lasting Relationships if the author can’t even make her own relationship last?”
Claire sucked in a sharp breath and rubbed her breastbone. That was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it? With her decision to call off the engagement, Abby had changed much more than just Claire’s relationship status. Now her work life was in tatters too.
The silence stretched between them until Mercedes cleared her throat and said, “I’m sorry.”
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Claire’s dream of having her book published had been within her grasp, and she wasn’t ready to have that part of her life crumble the way her relationship had.
“Unless you have a replacement fiancée lying around somewhere, I’m afraid that ship has sailed.” Mercedes paused. “Oooh, wait a minute! That could actually work.”
“What could work?” Claire hadn’t heard any workable plan.
“If we find someone who’ll fly to New York with you and pretend to be your fiancée…”
Claire shook her head. “You’re insane.”
“I thought psychologists aren’t allowed to use words like that to label people.”
“The APA would make an exception for this crazy suggestion. Really, Mercedes! How would we even find someone who’d be willing to go along with something like that? Put out an ad on Craigslist? Fake fiancée needed, no wifely duties required.”
“No,” Mercedes said. “Wor
king with an amateur in such a delicate situation wouldn’t be a good idea. We’d enlist a pro.”
“You want me to hire an escort?” Claire blurted. Oops. That had come out a little too loudly. She pressed a hand to her mouth and glanced at the door, hoping no one in the counseling center’s reception area had heard her. She didn’t need any rumors about her hiring call girls on top of all her other problems.
“Not that kind of pro,” Mercedes said. “This is LA, the city of smog and unemployed actors. I bet we could find someone who’d be willing to take over the lead role as your fiancée.”
For a second, Claire was tempted. A business arrangement with clear roles and expectations would be so much easier to handle than messy relationships. But true chemistry couldn’t be faked. No one would fall for it, and even if they did, it was completely unethical. “No, it would never work.”
“Trust me, with the right person, it would.”
Trust me, Claire repeated to herself. That was the problem. She could no longer trust anyone, not even her own judgment. Especially not her own judgment. “No,” she said again. “I guess we’ll just have to keep pitching it to other publishers.”
A knock came at the door. Tanya, the center’s office assistant, stuck her head into the room. “Dr. Renshaw, your ten o’clock is here.”
Claire gave her a nod. “Tell them to come in, please.” To Mercedes, she said, “I have to go.”
Thankfully, her ten o’clock appointment didn’t require much therapeutic finesse. The Varneys had been her clients for half a year, and today was their final session.
Claire sat in her oversized leather chair facing the couch and regarded them across the low coffee table. What a difference compared to their very first session! Back then, both had clung to the armrests on either end of the couch, sitting as far apart as possible. Now they were holding hands, their legs touching from hip to ankle.
Normally, Claire would have been overjoyed. She lived for moments like this, when she realized she had made a difference in her patients’ lives. But today it drove home the failure of her own relationship. Why couldn’t she and Abby have fought for their relationship the way the Varneys had? Had Abby considered it not worth fighting for? Tears burned in her eyes.
