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“Seems so.”
“Whew. Then I can insult him all I want. And now we’ll put him aside and focus on you. His leaving puts you in a very awkward but also advantageous position.”
“Not quite seeing the advantageous part,” Daphne murmured.
“He disappeared before a signing. We can’t get hold of him. Well, we don’t want to, but let’s go with ‘can’t’ since no one will requisition our phone records. The show must go on. Therefore you must reveal yourself as the author and even Milner can’t fault you for that.”
Sakura tapped into her phone. “I’ll prep a message right now. I’ll say Chris took off, but we presumed he’d still make the event. Then, at the last minute, we realized he wasn’t going to and you had to come out. I’ll hit Send at the actual last moment, so it notifies everyone but doesn’t give Milner a chance to stop you.”
“Do I have to come out?” Daphne said, her voice quiet.
Sakura frowned over. “What else can you do?”
“Say Zane is sick? I have the bookmarks and such. I can talk about Edge, apologize, give out swag… Oh! And I have bookplates.” Daphne rummaged through her bag and withdrew the box. “About a hundred bookplates that Chris signed before the tour for people who didn’t have a book yet.”
“But this is your chance,” Sakura said. “This is the perfect excuse to—”
Sakura’s phone buzzed. She glanced at it and swore. “Work. Let me take this. I won’t lie and pretend Chris is with us, but let’s hold off on the rest.”
As Sakura took the call, Daphne sunk into her seat and into her thoughts.
CHRIS
Chris had discovered a flaw in his plan. Well, two flaws. First, it presumed Daphne would answer her phone. His calls had gone to voicemail, and his texts sat in Unread, meaning she probably had her phone off. That was fine. He knew where to find her. He just had to get to the bookstore.
That led to flaw 1.5, which presumed he could hail a taxi from downtown at rush hour. He eventually managed to snag a rideshare, but by the time it got him to the store, it was fifteen minutes to showtime.
Then came flaw number two: presuming he could sneak in undetected and talk to Daphne.
Waiting for his rideshare, he’d considered this and affected a disguise. He shaved off the beard shadow, left the glasses behind, and wore Chris clothes—jeans, sneakers, and a T-shirt. Yet the moment he stepped into the bookstore parking lot, two college-aged women did a double take. That did happen, so he told himself they weren’t recognizing him as Zane… until he overheard them whispering about whether they could skip the line and ask him to sign their books now.
Chris slipped off in search of an alternate entrance. It was a big-box store, which meant he had a chance of finding one, but the only doors were into the café or the store, both up front. The side loading dock was firmly shut. He even tried knocking on it. Noticing a fire escape ladder, he considered climbing onto the roof and searching for a way in, but he wasn’t James Bond, so that seemed unwise.
He was running out of time.
He had to speak to Daphne. Apologize, definitely, but right now, he needed to let her know he was there and give her the choice: Did she want to admit she wrote Edge or have him take over for another night? That was why he couldn’t just stroll in as Zane. If she’d decided to come out, then he had to let her keep the excuse that she’d had to step up because he wasn’t there.
Finally he gave up, pulled down the brim of his ballcap, put on his shades, and slid in through the café door. He made his way as fast as he could into the bookstore and then circled around the outer aisles, where he grabbed three books as customer camouflage.
From there he followed the rumble of voices. It didn’t take long to find the crowd. It spilled from the event area into all the surrounding aisles. As he backed up into hiding, he overheard three teens passionately discussing the book, and his heart swelled.
This was what Daphne deserved. A packed store of ardent fans.
She deserved to be the one up there signing the books, the one answering their excited questions, the one basking in their passion for her story.
But she also deserved the choice of when—or even if—she did that.
That was when he saw Daphne, being led by someone from the store, and she looked absolutely terrified.
Yeah, because you abandoned her. You shoved her off the deep end, said “swim,” and couldn’t even stick around to make sure she didn’t drown.
He was here now. If he could get her attention, they could delay the event start and give her the chance to choose.
He slipped around the bookshelves, only to find he couldn’t get to her. Couldn’t even see her.
He heard the store staff member making an introduction, and he eased through a few groups until he could see the podium.
Daphne stepped up, and Chris’s heart plummeted. If she looked terrified before, she looked petrified now. She stood there, frozen, staring out at the crowd.
