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I follow suit and move toward her.

“Savannah,” she says, her voice warm. “I was actually just thinking about you.” She waves at a nearby table. “Have a minute?”

I hesitate.

And by this I mean I force myself to hesitate.

My immediate, natural reaction is to hop the railing and sprint toward her until I’m hugging her knees. But instead I give a slight nod, hoping I’m communicating something halfway between Oh, what does it matter? and Oh my gosh, yes! Yes! YES!

“Sure, I’ll just . . . get a cup of coffee and join you,” I say in my poshest, most casual demeanor, like we’re old friends who do this all the time. Like I always have coffee with the chief editor of Baird Books. Like we email Pinterest recipes to each other late at night with messages like, “This’ll be perfect for our brunch next week.”

No. Big. Deal.

I’ve only dreamed about this moment every single day since last January.

I get my coffee and slide into the chair across from Claire just as she finishes taking a sip of her tea. As she sets it down, I see the same down-to-earth warmth in her eyes I found last year as we stood in that long line, chatting for the hour we waited for a moment with Margaret Atwood. We were such kindred spirits then, just two editors enthusiastic about the same literature and dogs and movies. When she said she acquired romance authors, I told her about my manuscript. At first I didn’t claim the story, leaving it open as just a manuscript I was looking over. But eventually she probed. And eventually I told her the truth. That it was my own. That I’d been working on it since college. That my dream was to see it out in the world one day, just like I cheered on my authors as their books went out in the world. She liked the hook enough that we exchanged business cards, her telling me to send it over when it was ready. It was only when I looked down at her card that I realized exactly with whom I had been speaking. Not just a nice editor at a nice house. The chief editor at the house. The Baird Books. The house to beat all houses. Even Sterling Publishing walks in Baird’s shadow as far as romance is concerned.

And those same warm eyes are looking into mine now, easing all my fears. What have I been so worried about? I think, taking my first sip of coffee. Why have I built this whole thing up in my head? This isn’t scary. This isn’t intimidating. She simply called out to me.

Asked me to sit for coffee.

She’s smiling.

It’s alllll going to work out—

“I got your email last night.”

My attention snaps at her words. “Oh?”

This is it. The moment of truth. The moment all my dreams come true. Or don’t.

And then, with those warm, down-to-earth eyes, Claire Donovan blinks, and in that moment the corners of her eyes dip ever so slightly down. As though she knows what she’s about to say.

Knows it. And hates it.

But of course she does.

Because we are kindred spirits.

And I, too, hate with every empathetic fiber of my being this part of the job.

Delivering . . . rejection.

“We need to talk.”

Chapter 6

I force myself to stay glued to my chair, hands clasped neatly on my lap, ankles crossed politely beneath my chair. Even though every part of me wants to run.

The volume in the world around us has turned down, lowering to a quiet hum. Time slows. My palms feel warm and sticky as they clasp one another, like two hot pancakes stacked together. I’m suddenly kicking myself for putting on that expensive, made-from-organic-tree-bark-while-saving-Liberian-puppies deodorant Olivia prodded me into buying so I could “do my part to save the planet” while ensuring the aluminum in the regular stuff didn’t seep through my pores and give me dementia. Right at this moment, I’d give anything for a good, cheap, all-body rubdown of aluminum.

“Sounds good,” I say at last, forcing the conversation to come to its inevitable destination. My voice is almost normal, except for the raspy rise as I finish the word. What I’d intended as a carefree tone turns out be to an anxious, mousy squeak. I lower my voice an octave and press on. “I’m impressed you’re even checking your email given everything going on this weekend.”

She waves a hand with a companionable smile. “Oh, you know how it is for us workaholics. It’s never that easy to leave the work behind.” She gives a little self-deprecating laugh, and I chuckle along.

“Isn’t that the truth,” I say and try my hardest to muster up the biggest smile I can—which isn’t saying much. I feel I can’t keep up with this shabby attempt at lighthearted preamble. It’s time to get on with it. Both thankfully and horrifically, she senses it too.

“Anyway,” Claire says, her voice instantly more businesslike. “I opened your email last night for a reason. When you shared with me the hook of your story last year, I was intrigued. A recovering shopaholic and your personal finance radio personality fall for one another in a coffee shop, only to then have to settle out their differences? It was so charming. Truly. But the story you told me last year and the story I saw on the page last night are two very different things. What I wanted—” She pauses. “What I really hoped for was that story.”