Page 29 of Modern Persuasion

"I was friends with Fredrick in college," I said as I let out a deep breath. "I edited this book nearly a decade ago, and I believe the draft they submitted still had my notes on it."

There was silence on the other end of the call. "Why did you refuse to be his editor? He sent it to your imprint first," Christi finally said.

"I didn't refuse it. I didn't even know about it until you accepted it. I'm not sure about what happened, but I think my notes seemed to cause some of the problems we're both facing."

"Would you have given him a contract if you had read it?" she asked.

I had to think about that one. "No," I said, "but I would have been open about giving it to someone I trust, like you."

Christi was silent again, and I let her think about her response. "You need to be careful," she blurted out. "From the meetings I've been part of, I can tell they are looking for an excuse to fire Karen, and they think you're making the same mistakes."

"I appreciate you telling me that. I wish it had never gotten this bad."

"Me too," she said before we got off the phone.

The Musgroves arrived just before Louisa woke up. As expected, they would not allow her to fly back to New York the next day. There was nothing wrong with her, but they wanted to watch her in case of a concussion. Her parents were just happy she was unhurt. They hugged all of us. When she insisted that Seth stay with her, I knew he didn't have to worry about Louisa's feelings anymore. The look on her face said it all. She had no interest in Fredrick. She was as in love with Seth as he was with her. The Musgroves saw it too and were happy to include Seth in their plans. Fredrick and I were left on our own to fly back to New York. We were too exhausted to fight anymore. I fell asleep as soon as the plane took off and didn't wake up until it landed. When we arrived at Fredrick's New York hotel, Christi was there to greet us.

"Thank you for everything these past few weeks," Fredrick said before I left.

I think I said, "You're welcome."

I spent my first night home in bed, asleep. I allowed myself to release all the emotion I had denied myself for eight years and one month. I called in sick to work the next day even though I was slightly worried about how this would look. I had been focused on taking control of my professional life. I needed to do the same with my personal life. I may not have a chance with Fredrick, but that didn't mean I needed to ignore those memories. I looked around my apartment, and nothing seemed right. I pulled out boxes of pictures from my four years in Chicago, hoping to find an easy solution as I had for work. Looking at the photos, the knick-knacks, and love letters just made me want to cry. I couldn't just put these old things into my current life. It all seemed wrong. I had been ignoring my happiness for so long that I worried I needed a complete reboot.

Chapter Nineteen

I didn't go back to the office before leaving for my Cape Cod vacation. Other than the group still in Chicago, everyone was already there. Elizabeth and my father were settled in our cottage, which had been in my mother's family for generations. My family didn't know that I rented it out in the winter as a writer's retreat. The money went into my father's trust to create a little cushion. I suspected neither my father nor Elizabeth would curb their spending enough to make this unnecessary. I was trying to prevent a real crisis.

I wish I could say that Elizabeth and my father were happy to see me when I arrived, but they weren't. Neither asked how the book tour or PubCon had been. They were too busy going to parties and clam bakes and whatever it was that kept my sister out all night. A part of me hoped Elizabeth's absences were because she was working a secret job. I had a little fantasy that it was something she wouldn't want us to know about and maybe illegal. I just wanted her to be doing something with her life.

My first stop, after unpacking, was to walk over to see my friend Penny Smith. Penny had gone to Northwestern with me and knew Fredrick. She had spent plenty of time with him in the two years he and I had dated. Penny now lived in a small apartment behind an ice cream shop away from the beach. Years ago, she had been in a car accident and lost the use of her legs. Since then, she has become a huge activist for the disabled. She was often asked to speak at conferences, testify to Congress, appear at rallies, and do all sorts of things. She traveled all over the world. She often told me her life hadn't begun until she thought it was over. The last time I had seen her, the year before, she had finished her Ph.D. and decided to write a memoir that I wanted to publish. I had spent many Skype conversations trying to get her to sign a contract. She refused for, what she claimed, were personal objections to my bosses. She thought I worked for jackasses.

"I want to know everything. Please tell me you slept with him," Penny said as her nurse/assistant let me into the apartment.

"Who?" I asked, pretending I was oblivious.

"Fredrick!"

I rolled my eyes. "No, we barely spoke except one day in Chicago when we fought."

She took my hand and squeezed it. "Oh, Emma."

This was when I told her everything that had happened over the past month, including the political games his book had started in the office.

"This is a breakthrough," Penny said when I was done.

"It just feels like a breakdown," I said, feeling just as exhausted as I had been through the tour.

"Nothing is ever broken, Emma." She reminded me with a gesture to her legs. "Now that you've admitted how you feel, you can finally work through it. This is grief, and you know how to pull through that."

"I need a distraction," I said with a wave of my hand.

Penny raised an eyebrow. "I have good gossip. Remember your neighbor Dave?"

"Yes, why?"

Dave had lived in the cottage next to ours for most of his life. The last time I saw him had been the summer after I graduated from college. At the time, I thought he had been dating Elizabeth, but it didn't seem to stick. He was gone by the end of the summer, and Elizabeth never spoke about him again. His family had started renting their house to summer people. There were rumors about how they had a second and third mortgage and needed the rent to pay off the debt.

Penny gave me a wicked grin. "He's here and spending time with Elizabeth. Maybe they're back together?"