The Naughty Nine: Where Danger and Passion Collide

by Nina Bruhns

  “It doesn’t sound crazy at all. My family has a similar beginning. Your stories sound intriguing. Have you written any of these down?”

  “A few, but those stories are all for me. I’d like to take some writing classes at a university and really learn the craft.”

  Margot was apprehensive about presuming she knew how to properly put an entire book together or to admit how many stories she’d written. It showed an obsessive side of her that she didn’t even like her kids to know about. She’d kept it hidden from everyone except Jackie.

  “How many of these stories have you written for yourself? Two? Three? Five? Most beginning writers can’t get past the first book. They tend to write it over and over thinking they have to get it right the first time, never realizing that you only begin to learn your craft on your second novel.”

  “Sixty-seven,” Margot blurted out. “I’ve written ten full length books, five novellas, and fifty-two short stories. I heard Ray Bradbury lecture when he was alive and he said a new writer should write one short story every week for a year. So I did. Crazy, huh?”

  As Antonio held his teacup in mid-air, his face went blank. She couldn’t read him, didn’t know what he was thinking, but it couldn’t be good. She’d been possessed by writing for years, sneaking in a few hours when her kids were asleep, waking up early to write a couple scenes. It had been her only escape during all those lonely years--those years right after she caught her cheating ex and, more recently, as her kids progressed into adulthood, needing her less and less.

  Seconds clicked by. She wanted to take it all back. Rewind what she’d said and restate it focusing more on her book store. How she had paid for college tuition for her kids on what she’d saved and invested and what a fascinating business it was, even though she had long ago decided that she needed a different focus.

  “Are any of these published?”

  “Published? Me? No. I barely made it through high school. I’m sure they’re a grammatical nightmare.”

  “Has anyone read them?”

  “I sent Jackie a couple of my short stories. I don’t know if she read them or not, she never commented. But she’s so busy, I can’t blame her.” She wanted desperately to change the subject. “These tea cakes are fantastic, don’t you think?” And she took a bite hoping he’d do the same and stop asking her questions.

  But he didn’t.

  He carefully placed his teal-colored teacup back on the saucer. “She never commented? Don’t you think that’s a pretty lousy thing to do to a best friend?”

  Margot snitched the last fruit scone, broke it in half and shared it with Antonio, placing it on both their plates stalling for time, trying to gain composure. Perhaps two pots of tea were too much. She felt all jumpy and twitchy as if she needed to change out of her skin.

  “I sort of told her I didn’t want to know. I mean, if she didn’t like them she wouldn’t be able to tell me because I’m her best friend, and if she did like them, I couldn’t trust her opinion. Either way wouldn’t work. Besides, I never purposely gave them to her. I accidentally sent them as an attachment I thought I was sending to myself. I wrote these stories for myself as a way to get through trying times in my life. They were never meant for the general public.”

  “How long ago did Jackie get your stories?”

  “Why? Is that relevant to something?”

  “I’m thinking it is.” He took a small bite of his scone, but Margot could tell his mind was still on her stories, but why? What could possibly be so intriguing about someone jotting down stories for her own consumption?

  Or was this another way for him to try to come on to her? The man was nothing if not a woman charmer.

  “About a month ago.”

  Antonio sat back in his chair, smirked and said, “You have possibly the best friend in the entire world.”

  “Thanks, but I already know this.”

  “Truly, you don’t. Not really.”

  That was nothing new to Margot. Ever since that event with the missing money from the back of the church, Margot felt there were parts of Jackie she wasn’t privy to, and somehow whatever Antonio was keeping from her, happened to be one of those parts.

  “What are you trying to say?”

  He moved in closer to her, and his entire demeanor changed. His manner took on that matter-of-fact tone that Margot had become wary of. As if he was about to tell her something he knew she didn’t want to hear. For her own good, he was going to tell her anyway. Her ex had confessed all his indiscretions with that look, and even her kids had confessed things she’d never really wanted to know . . . with exactly the same look Antonio now wore.

  He took in a breath. “I’m part owner of Market Street, one of the biggest privately owned publishers in the world. Jackie, pretending to be you, sent us your work and we immediately tried to sign her and we’ve been pursuing her ever since. There’s another, more personal reason why I’ve been pursuing her, but I can’t go into that right now.

  “I booked the flight and showed up on her doorstep, only to find you. The author of possibly the best short stories I’ve ever read.” Then he smiled, a big confidant smile as if he was about to say something that would shake Margot’s world and she would be forever more grateful. “They need some good editing, and I’d love to assign one of our best editors to your work. If your novels are anything like your short stories, you’re going to be a very famous woman.”

  Although Margo was flattered with his praise, her heart had once again been shattered, only this time, unlike the betrayal she’d felt with her ex, this was more profound, more soul crushing, just like if someone she loved with all her heart had died.

  Jackie had betrayed her.

  “My stories aren’t finished. They’re my stories, my personal stories and Jackie had no right to give them to anyone, much less an editor at a publishing house. I have to go.”

  She pushed away from the table, grabbed her purse, walked past the piano player, the smiling young women at the front desk telling her to have a nice day, and ran down four flights of stairs as fast as she could without running into anyone. When she arrived on the main floor, a tall, distinguished looking man wearing a sage green uniform opened the door for her.

  “I need a cab, please,” she told the doorman, and like magic a black cab pulled up to the curb. The doorman opened the passenger door and she slid inside. As she drove away she could see Antonio right behind her calling for her to please wait.

  But she didn’t.

  “Where to, Miss?” the driver asked.

  “Heathrow,” she told him.

  It was time to go home.

  * * *

  Antonio stood in front of Fortnum and Mason desperately trying to get Jackie on the phone, but as usual, she wouldn’t answer. Instead he left several text messages:

  Why didn’t u tell me u’r bff wrote those stories?

  Why did u pretend to be Margot?

  Why did she panic when I told her I want to publish her stories?

  When will u return?

  His agitation with the entire situation ran deeper than simply losing a potential author. He liked Margot, genuinely liked everything about her, from the way she cried over art, to her amazement at visiting St. Paul’s, to her appreciation of his cooking, and her outstanding body. He’d never met anyone like her and of all people he didn’t want to offend it was Margot. Problem was he had no idea why she ran out of the store or where she would go now that she was speeding through London in a cab.

  He returned to Jackie’s apartment hoping Margot would be there when he arrived and he’d get a chance to tell her what was really going on. Why he’d come to London, and what else Jackie had done. Margot needed to know the truth.

  But the apartment was disturbingly quiet, with no sign of Margot. Fortunately, her suitcase was in the bedroom, and her backpack was still next to the door, so he knew she hadn’t moved on to that hotel she’d threatened to take that morning. He thought perhaps she just needed to ha
ve some time to think over his proposition. He waited, pacing the floor like a caged animal and then tried to calm himself with a few shots of scotch.

  Nothing seemed to work.

  The whole thing was making him crazy. He tried to read a manuscript he’d been working on, but his mind kept wandering back to Margot. Damn, but he wished he’d taken her phone number. The silence was killing him.

  “What writer runs away when a publisher tells her he’s going to make her famous?” he said out loud, trying for clarity as he sipped his fourth shot of scotch and finished off the last of his fish and chips with a side of peas, a staple the Brits seemed to add to almost every pub entrée. He’d ordered it from the pub on the corner and had it delivered, not wanting to step one foot out the door, and not wanting to take the time to cook anything.

  Then, for some crazy reason, as he was trying to figure out why a writer would physically run from a potential publisher, he thought of Margaret Mitchell.

  He’d read somewhere that Margaret “Peggy” Mitchell had reacted almost the same way when H.S. Latham from the Macmillan Company had asked to see her work. She wanted nothing to do with him, said her ‘journal’ wasn’t finished and later admonished her friend, Medora Perkerson for having suggested it to H. S. Latham in the first place.

  Of course, Peggy finally came to her senses, probably with prodding from her friend and her patient husband, John Marsh, who had watched her write ‘the journal’ for the previous nine years, and brought H.S. the manuscript. Most of the pages were typed but some were hand written on scraps of paper. H.S. had to buy an extra suitcase just to hold all the pages for Gone With The Wind.

  He hoped that Margot, wherever she was, would come to her senses like Peggy had. He reminded himself that writers were eccentric people. All artists were. Van Gogh cut off his ear, and Hemmingway, at the top of his game, shot himself. Then he wondered if Margot was capable of hurting herself. Had he pushed her over the top? Or perhaps she’d merely gotten a better offer with another publisher and she went off to talk to him or her. After all, half of all the publishers in the world would be attending the book fair.

  His mind spun with scenarios, mostly bad scenarios where Margot tells him to fuck off, and runs off with an associate editor from Simon & Schuster, or worse still, Margot runs into some twenty-something, hotshot editor from a digital first company and signs one of those indentured-servant contracts.

  Or she and Jackie had this all planned in the first place, and he’d never see his stolen book or either one of them again. They were busy stealing his identity right that very moment and in the morning his bank accounts would be drained and they’d have charged millions to his accounts.

  He poured another scotch and plopped down on the sofa in a partial stupor. Never had he been taken in by any woman like he had by these two.

  When the antique clock on the mantel chimed eleven p.m., his thoughts took on a completely different scenario. Perhaps something terrible had happened to Margot. Instead of him thinking she went off with another publisher, or was busy draining all his accounts, maybe he should have been thinking her cabbie had a terrible accident and she was in a hospital somewhere, alone. His mind went spinning off into all sorts of catastrophic happenstances, including amnesia. He’d read enough amnesia manuscripts to know it was a possibility.

  And just as he was about to call the nearest hospital to Fortnum and Mason, he heard a key in the door. His heart skipped a beat when he saw Margot standing in front of him, in one piece, without any scars, still the beautiful woman he’d chased that afternoon.

  “I’m not staying,” she said. “I have a cab waiting downstairs and I’m getting a hotel room.”

  Working on pure instinct, Antonio walked over to her, pulled her in close, and kissed her hard on her sweet lips. He was never so happy to see anyone in his entire life.

  * * *

  Margot felt herself melting into Antonio’s arms, surrendering to his desire. His lips ignited a blaze within her she had never felt before. All she could think of was how she didn’t want it to stop. The passion pulsed through her veins like a fire coming into the forest, all at once and with such intensity that it would surely engulf her.

  Then, it was over.

  He pulled back, let her go and she nearly fell into him.

  “I was so worried about you,” Antonio said, his voice deep and troubled.

  “I’m fine. I needed some time to myself.”

  Anger crossed his face. “Is this what you do when you’re stressed? You run away?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve never done anything like that in my life. I’m sorry.”

  He softened. “But you felt you could to this to me. Just disappear without a word as to why or when you’d return?”

  “You’re different.”

  “How so?”

  She didn’t want to answer that. Didn’t want to tell him how she hadn’t been able to think of anything else but the vision of him lying naked on Jackie’s sofa. How she was all mixed up inside over him, and about Jackie, and about his offer for her stories that afternoon. She didn’t want her stories published. And she certainly didn’t want to kiss the very man who had read her stories and knew some of her dark secrets.

  “You shouldn’t have kissed me.”

  “You could’ve stopped me.”

  “Jackie’s my friend. I would never do anything to hurt her.”

  She could still feel his lips on hers and the thought of his body rubbing up next to her sent her pulse racing, but she knew there was no way she would act on her emotions. No matter what, Jackie still deserved her loyalty.

  “You don’t understand our relationship.”

  “It doesn’t matter how you feel about Jackie. What matters is how Jackie feels about you.” She grabbed her backpack and slipped it over her shoulder. “There’s a cab waiting outside.”

  “Don’t go. I’m the intruder here, not you. Give me a few minutes to gather my things and I’ll be out of your hair.”

  He turned and purposefully walked into Jackie’s office. Margot could tell he’d been drinking and the effects had taken hold with a vengeance.

  She watched as he tried to toss his suitcase on the bed, missed, then slammed it down and opened it. Then he began throwing his things inside. Margot couldn’t seem to move. She wanted to slip out without saying another word, but there was a part of her that couldn’t do it, couldn’t walk out on this amazing man and couldn’t allow him to leave. Especially not in his condition. Not only had he stirred all her forgotten passions, he’d also offered to publish her stories, both of which, just a few days before, she thought she never wanted.

  Now she wasn’t sure of anything.

  Instead of going to the airport, she had stopped the cab in Notting Hill and spent most of the day at an organic restaurant/bakery consuming far too many sweets, drinking more pots of tea, and furiously writing another short story, one that involved an editor and a secretive writer. She’d gotten to the dark moment when everything fell apart and she couldn’t seem to go any further.

  The ending eluded her, just as Antonio’s kiss had sent her spinning.

  She watched as he deliberately slipped into his coat, then took one last look around the room and walked out towards her. As he came closer, he held out his hand.

  “It was nice meeting you, Margot James, and if you ever change your mind about publication, don’t hesitate to contact me.” And he handed her his card.

  There was an awkward moment as he played with his gray scarf, trying to get it around his neck. Then he shuffled toward the front door, and she turned to watch him open it, which he barely accomplished.

  A sense of urgency raced through her as she heard her daughter’s voice in her mind telling her not to let him go, just as clearly as she still felt the flush of heat on her lips, the warmth of his arms around her.

  “Did you really like my stories?”

  Everything He Never Wanted: Chapter Five

  Antonio ended up a
sleep on the bed in Jackie’s office, fully clothed, except for his coat, scarf and shoes. Margot wasn’t about to take anything else off or she would have never left the room. The one important thing that Antonio did manage to say right before he drifted off to an inebriated sleep, was to extend an invitation to Margot for the book fair, which she gladly accepted before she turned out the lights, and walked down the hall to her awaiting bed.

  The next morning, after a scrumptious breakfast of scones, fresh jam and tea, Antonio and Margot headed off to the book fair. Margot took her backpack with her mini-laptop in case she had some downtime and needed to write.

  “You’re going to love this,” Antonio said as they approached the exhibition hall. People seemed to be coming from everywhere around them, all headed to the book fair. Antonio stopped to buy a shot of espresso from the Barista Baby stand, an old three wheel service truck that the female owner had turned into a lovely coffee stand, parked right outside the book fair.

  “I have no idea what to expect. I’ve never been to anything like this before,” she told him as she unconsciously took his hand. He grabbed hold, and they walked up the front stairs together.

  “Then prepare to be bombarded with books and authors.”

  Just walking up the front steps to the book fair gave her a shiver. Goose bumps pummeled her entire body. She felt both apprehensive and excited about the prospect of attending something she had only dreamed about. In her mind, the London Book Fair was for real writers, real authors who had worked hard at their craft and had made the New York Times Best Sellers List. Not for someone who journaled like she did, and certainly not for someone who had never attended a writers conference or taken a single class in creative fiction.