Climax: The Publicist, Book Three

by Christina George

  Grace blinked. “Wait, what? You mean you’re going to just leave the ball in his court?”

  Kate nodded, “I am. If he wants this, if he is really ready to try this again, then he needs to be the one to say it. I was pretty honest with him in Mexico about how I felt.” She held up a hand, “And yes, you were right about that, too.”

  Grace sipped her wine. “Of course I was; now, why won’t you call him?”

  “I won’t. It’s not time. I need time. He needs time. Grace, this is big stuff.”

  Grace nodded. The fries arrived and Kate dug in. There was nothing better than a heaping mountain of french fries covered in cheese when the world seemed to be falling apart.

  “I love him, Grace. I have loved him, despite Mac and despite everything, but I love or loved Mac, too. It’s hard to explain. It’s like I just realized that I went with Mac for reasons that didn’t bode well for our future. Whether Mac cheated or not is really inconsequential, because I don’t know that we would have lasted. It’s not as simple as just going to Nick and saying, ‘Let’s try this again.’ I need to process what happened with Mac. I have things I need to do, and what I need most of all is time.”

  Grace nodded, seemingly deep in thought. Her eyes drifted up to Kate and she said, “You’re right, and if you two are meant to be, a little time won’t prevent that and, for what it’s worth, I’m sorry about Mac.”

  The words caught in Kate’s throat. It still hurt, deeply in fact. Despite the fact that there was Nick and that she and Mac had perhaps been doomed from the start, the betrayal still hurt her, as did the loss of Mac as well as their life together.

  Kate ran her fingers up and down the stem of her glass. “Mac was such a powerful force in my life. He was larger than life because he was Mac. He was the kind of guy that when he walked into a room, you sensed he was there before you saw him. He had this aura about him that was impossibly sexy and even more impossible to resist.”

  “Believe it or not, for all that I didn’t trust Mac, I do get the attraction. He was pretty formidable.”

  Kate nodded, “That he was, and Nick is so different. I mean, he hates the spotlight—was never comfortable with it—and when you meet him you don’t get it at first. I mean, it takes a while to realize how really amazing Nick is because he’s just this guy and he’s just there and he doesn’t wear it on his sleeve how good he is. I think there are maybe five guys left on the planet that have his level of integrity.”

  “And you know, he did sleep with you and he has a girlfriend, which is very un-Nick-like. I bet he goes home and breaks up with her, because you know he won’t play that game.”

  Kate smiled, “I don’t know that he’ll break up with her. I mean, maybe he just got caught up in it all—the music, the night, the fact that we were in Mexico and he’d come there begrudgingly, which he told me many times.” The memory made Kate smile. Bless his heart. He’d hated doing it and done it anyway because it was the right thing to do. That was Nick to the core.

  “So, how long are you going to wait for him to come to his senses?”

  Kate shrugged, “I really haven’t thought that far, Gracie. I mean, I think Nick needs time.”

  A thought sparked and her eyes glinted. “He’s coming to town in a month for his sister’s book party. We’re doing a big launch party at a place in the Meatpacking District and inviting bloggers and media to meet Vivienne. He’ll be there for sure. If I haven’t heard from him, I’ll try to talk with him then and work this out.”

  Grace held up her glass. “Fair enough. A toast to Team Nick.”

  Kate laughed. God, how she loved Grace.

  CHAPTER 111

  When Kate left the bar, she realized she’d forgotten her laptop, which she needed for a morning meeting. She decided to stop by the office before heading home. As she got off of the elevator she saw a light on in Mac’s office. Of course, the cleaning crew was there.

  As Kate walked through the office and passed by Mac’s old office, she realized she was wrong.

  It wasn’t the janitor.

  It was Mac. Packing up his office. Kate felt her heart pick up speed. Seeing him there in his office after everything that had happened seemed almost surreal. For a moment, she thought of just walking to her office, grabbing her laptop, and getting out of there. But something inside her stopped her cold. Closure? Whether good or bad, Mac had been a big part of her life. Now he wasn’t.

  Everything ends.

  He had his back to her and was taking some awards down off of the wall.

  “Mac,” the sound of her voice made him jump and he spun around.

  “Katie, I didn’t expect you to be here. Rebecca said you were out this evening.”

  Kate licked her lips, “So you called Rebecca to see if it was okay to clean out your office?”

  Mac set the frames down on the desk. “I didn’t think you’d be open to my calls, and I wanted to spare you,” he motioned with his hand around the room, “this.”

  Kate sighed. Mac was right. She didn’t want to be here when he packed up and moved on. But now that she was here, the sight of it broke her heart all over again.

  “I had big plans for this and for us,” she said quietly.

  Mac nodded, “I know and I get why this won’t work—me here, I mean—but I wish there was another way. Not because I don’t have a job, but because it was the best time in my career.”

  The cosmos she’d had in the bar were not helping this discussion, and all Kate wanted to do was cry. Instead, she said, “You’ll be missed.”

  “By you?” Mac pushed the sleeves of his white shirt up and rolled them over—something to do while he waited for her answer.

  Kate walked into the office further and set down her purse. “Yes, I think by me, too, and in more ways than I can express. We were a great team, Mac. And then we weren’t.”

  Mac nodded, “And that’s my fault for not thinking through my life, for living as I always have, driven by the emotion of the moment.”

  “Or something.”

  “Right, listen. Katie, about what happened on the street…”

  “It’s fine.” She held her hand up for him to stop. “It’s a confusing time for both of us.”

  “I should have pulled you inside. I had no idea someone photographed us.”

  Kate sighed, “Everyone saw that, too. Leave it to us to do something like that on a slow news day.”

  Mac smiled, “You seem, I don’t know, different.”

  Kate sat down in the only chair that didn’t have a box on it. “I feel different. I mean, distance helps, but also I realized something.”

  Mac came around his desk, leaned on it, and crossed his arms. His eyes were still as blue as ever. A shiver crept up her spine. She had been a total goner for this man, and she knew that part of her—perhaps just a small part—may never recover.

  “What did you realize?” he asked.

  Kate wasn’t sure where to begin, so she just started at the beginning. “I went to Mexico and stayed in the house you rented, and while I was there I sort of lost my mind enough to realize that things have to change.”

  Mac frowned, “Kate, I’m sorry. I forgot about Mexico.”

  She shrugged. “No, that’s not why I mentioned it. It’s just that I really got that I’ve let my life get out of control, and so I disappeared into the crowds and just started living for the day, not for the project. I realized that I had lost touch with who I am. Part of it is the crazy work I did when we were at MD, you know, dealing with authors who ninety percent of the time aren’t happy with a single thing you do. Part of me started to believe what they were saying.”

  Mac stood a little straighter. “Kate, you’re better than that, you know.”

  She nodded, “I do know, Mac, but in the end the bad stuff is easier to believe. Little by little, you give parts of yourself away to the job. Most of the time you just never get them back. So, I was there in Mexico, and I realized that while I love my job, I needed to start l
iving for me. Then Nick showed up.” She wasn’t going to go there, but then the words were out of her mouth before she could stop them.

  “Nick?” Mac stood straighter still.

  “Grace was worried,” she waved her hand. “It’s a long story. They all thought I was missing or something.”

  “Why didn’t someone call me?” Mac’s voice had an edge to it, maybe mad? Kate wasn’t sure.

  “Mac, come on. That piece had just appeared in the Post of us tearing each other down on the street, and no one wanted to call you. Well, Lu did, but Grace stopped her.”

  Mac ran a hand through his hair. “Figures.”

  “So, Grace called Nick since he speaks Spanish and knows the area, and he found me down there. It was sort of my personal rock bottom, I guess you could say.”

  “Kate, did something happen between you and Nick down there?”

  She shook her head. “Mac, my personal life stopped being your business the minute you slept with your ex-wife. But suffice it to say that something happened, something that wouldn’t have happened if I had been truly in love with you, the way I should have been. Enough to marry you.”

  Mac frowned, “I don’t understand, Kate.” His voice was hard.

  “I think I was in love with the thought of us more than anything else.”

  Mac leaned forward, “Do you love Nick?”

  “That’s not the point, Mac.”

  “It is the point, Kate, because I’m not done with this, with us. I screwed up, yes, but I wanted us to maybe find a way to work through this, even if it took a long time. I had hoped.”

  Kate shook her head and looked down at her hands that were folded in her lap. “I can’t, Mac. Not ever again.”

  “Because you don’t trust me?”

  “Because I don’t love you.”

  Mac walked over and sat down beside her. “No, Kate, you’re just in shock and confused, and you don’t mean that. I still love you; I want to work this out.”

  Being so close to Mac was still unnerving. He was so familiar to her, yet at the same time, such a stranger. “I-I can’t, Mac. Even if Mexico hadn’t happened, you can’t unring a bell.”

  He was so close to her. His hands brushed hers and she pulled away.

  No more.

  “Kate, please don’t give up on this yet. Couples survive tough things all the time. We can get through this.”

  She looked up at him. His face was only inches from hers. “They have to both want it, Mac, and I don’t. Not anymore.”

  “I’m not giving up, Katie.”

  Kate pushed herself out of the chair and nudged him away. “You should, Mac. Sometimes things just run their course and there’s nothing you can do about it. I never really thought we would, but yet here we are at the end of the line.” Kate swallowed and then shifted her gaze away from Mac. Her throat felt tight. “Now I have to go and leave you to finishing up.”

  “Have you found an editor to replace me yet?” The question was fair, but Mac’s words had an edge to them.

  Kate picked up her purse. Her hand shook slightly. She really needed to get out of there. “Not yet, but I’m meeting with someone tomorrow.”

  “Who?”

  Kate smiled. “An editor.” Rule number one: Don’t share too much with an ex. It always gets you into trouble. “Also, I’m putting in an offer on a new apartment in the Village, so you can have our place back soon. I’ll let you know.”

  “You’re moving, Katie? You don’t have to give up that place.”

  Kate moved towards the door. “I know it, but it was never me anyway, and it’s time that I start doing what I want instead of what makes everyone else happy.”

  “Katie, you are a formidable woman.” Mac’s voice was low and deep.

  Kate gripped the handle on the door. “That’s funny. I just said the same thing about you, too. Too bad we couldn’t be formidable together.” And then she was gone, leaving Mac to clean up his office and leave her life, for good.

  CHAPTER 112

  Estella Travers was in New York for a very good reason. She’d gotten an invitation to a restaurant opening by a fellow chef, Hermann Von den Broeck, who specialized in Belgian cooking and had his own TV show and several bestselling books. It was everything Estella wanted. Although she hated Hermann, she decided to fly into New York anyway, attend the gala opening, and then check in with her publisher to make sure that things weren’t going awry in the wake of MacDermott Ellis leaving. She felt that Kate was still blowing her off and she wouldn’t have it.

  Not one bit.

  The opening was star-studded, thanks to the many celebrity fans of his TV show. Estella never missed an episode and despised all of them. This rugged looking man, not at all polished, would cook his Belgian comfort food in a barn to mimic the Belgian countryside.

  A barn of all things!

  He had a kitchen setup with hay stacked up in the background for effect. Shiny pots and an eight-burner professional cooking stove in a barn, as if people weren’t savvy enough to realize it was all staged. But still the masses flocked to his folksy show. Hearty farm-to-table recipes and anecdotal stories all told in a heavy accent that everyone (except Estella) thought was endearing. She just found his voice grating and obnoxious. As she walked up to the door to enter the new restaurant, Estella seethed with jealously. Her publisher had done nothing at all to help push the idea of a TV show. That Kate, whom she disliked almost more than she did Hermann, kept saying she wasn’t in a position yet to have her own show. She needed to be more famous, like the Pioneer Woman.

  Of all things, comparing her to Ree Drummond. Was Kate serious? It was amazing to her who they’d let run a publishing company these days.

  “Why, Estella, so good of you to make the trip out from Chicago.” Hermann smiled and kissed her on each cheek.

  Always with the Belgian tradition. God, she hated that.

  “I wouldn’t miss your opening night for anything.” Estella’s sweetness was clearly forced, as was her Southern accent, but she hoped with all the cameras going off and all the celebrities—God how she hated Hermann—that he would not notice.

  “I have a table reserved for you. Are you dining alone?”

  Even more upsetting was that she had to come alone. She’d recently divorced her third husband. However, according to some he had been the one to leave her. There had been no time to scare up a date. So yes, Estella Travers would have to suffer through the embarrassment of dining alone.

  Without responding to Hermann’s question, Estella walked inside and was ushered to her table by someone dressed like a chic farm girl, if that was even possible.

  God, she thought, this guy is really taking the whole farmer John thing a bit too far.

  They seated her at a table off in the corner. From her vantage point Estella could see all of the celebrities enter: Sarah Jessica Parker, Beyoncé, and Jay-Z. With each new celebrity, Estella got madder and madder, but the real problem didn’t start until the first course arrived.

  . . . .

  Kate was packing up the apartment with the TV on in the background just for noise. Boxes were scattered everywhere. While most of Mac’s stuff was gone, she found a thing or two among hers. Socks that had gotten intermingled, his running shoes in the back of the closet. Little reminders of a life lived and a life broken. It hurt, despite the fact that she wished it didn’t. But it didn’t hurt in the way she thought it would. The emotional door was closed, and she knew when it came to Mac, it would never open again.

  Something had changed, something big.

  Her offer on her new place in the Village had been accepted and the thirty-day escrow was in process. It was hard to believe it had been less than two weeks since Mexico.

  There was still no word from Nick, not even an email. The waiting was hard. However, she didn’t really expect to come home to a dozen emails, unlike Estella who continued to write her endless diatribes about what she envisioned for her book.

  As she filled up anothe
r box, Kate caught sight of something on the news. It was someone who looked suspiciously like her author, Estella, being placed in the back of a cop car.

  She turned the TV up just as the reporter said, “We’re down here at the star-studded opening of Hermann Von den Broeck’s restaurant, Flanders, where not thirty minutes ago, fellow chef and popular blogger Estella Travers started some kind of a disturbance. Some witnesses say she started throwing plates, and another person said they had to pull her off of Hermann as she started hitting him. Estella has been arrested on charges of public disturbance and assault.”

  Kate dropped herself on the couch. “For the love of God,” she said aloud, exasperated. Just then, her cell phone rang. She picked it up without checking the number.

  “Hello?”

  “Kate Mitchell, this is Estella Travers. I need you to come to the police station and bail me out.”

  . . . .

  Kate arrived at the station, pushing through the throngs of reporters covering the story. She was wearing yoga pants and a hoodie, which she pulled over her face.

  The last thing she needed was to wind up in the newspaper again.

  Kate hadn’t bothered changing. I mean, why dress up for jail? The whole scenario felt so familiar to her. She remembered the night she saw her author Michael Singer being hauled off to federal prison facing charges considerably more severe than just acting like a spoiled jackass at a restaurant opening.

  Still, Kate was tired of being the one to clean up their messes.

  “I’m here for Estella Travers,” Kate said to the desk officer. She mentally urged him to hurry. The faster she got out of here the happier she’d be.

  The officer looked up something and then said, “Right this way. We have her in holding. Are you here to post bail?”

  Kate did not answer at first and then she said, “I need to see Estella.”

  The officer walked her down a hallway and then pushed opened a door to a waiting area.