Noah
Scarlett, my Scarlett.
Hopefully you don’t find this until you’re halfway across the Atlantic—too far gone to change your stubborn, beautiful mind. I know we agreed, but the thought of not seeing you for months, or years, ruins me. The only thing holding me together is knowing that you’ll be safe. Tonight, before I crept from our bed to write this, I tried to memorize everything about you. The scent of your hair and the feel of your skin. The light in your smile and the way your lips purse when you tease. Your eyes—those beautiful blue eyes—bring me to my knees every time, and I can’t wait to see them against the Colorado sky. You are strong, my love, and braver than I ever could be. I could never undertake what you now face. I love you, Scarlett Stanton. I have loved you since our first dance, and I will love you the rest of my life. Hold on to that while we are an ocean apart. Kiss William for me. Keep him safe, hold him close, and before you even have time to miss me, I’ll be home with you, where there are no more air-raid sirens, no more bombings, no more missions, no more war—only our love.
I’ll see you soon,
Jameson
Stanton. The beautiful, infuriating woman from the bookstore was Georgia- fucking-Stanton.
For the first time in years, I was speechless.
I’d never had that moment I’d so often written about, the one where
someone takes a look at a total stranger and simply knows. Then she’d turned around, holding a book by my favorite author, staring like it had the answers for the sadness in her eyes, and suddenly that moment was me… until it blew apart as I realized what she was saying.
No one writes painful, depressing fiction masquerading as love stories like Noah Harrison. Her earlier statement etched itself into my brain with all the blister and agony of a branding iron.
“Noah?” Chris prompted, gesturing to the last empty seat in what looked like an intervention.
“Of course,” I muttered, but moved toward Georgia. “It’s nice to officially meet you, Georgia.”
Her handshake was warm, unlike her crystal-sharp blue eyes. There was no kicking that feeling, that hit of instant attraction, even knowing who she really was. I couldn’t help it. Her words had left me uncharacteristically stumbling over my tongue in the store, and here I was, choking again.
She was stunning—exquisite, really. Her hair fell in waves so black, there was an almost blue shine to it, and the contrast with her delicate ivory skin brought to mind about a million different Snow White references. Not for you, Morelli. This one wants nothing to do with you.
But I wanted her. I was supposed to know this woman—I felt it with every fiber of my being.
“You seriously bought your own books?” she asked, arching a brow as I let go of her hand.
My jaw ticked. Of course that’s what she’d remember. “Was I supposed to put them back and let you think your opinion had swayed me?”
“I commend you for the follow-through.” A corner of her incredibly kissable mouth lifted. “But it might have made this moment a tad less awkward.”
“I think that ship sailed the moment you said all my books read the same.” And called the sex unsatisfying. All I needed was one night and I’d show her exactly how satisfying it could be.
“They do.”
Had to give it to her; she’d doubled down. Guess I wasn’t the only stubborn one here.
The other woman in the room gasped, and both Chris and Adam murmured, reminding me that this wasn’t a social call.
“Noah Harrison.” I shook the older woman’s hand, taking in her features and coloring. This had to be Georgia’s…mother?
“Ava Stanton,” she replied with a blindingly white smile. “I’m Georgia’s mother.”
“Though they could easily pass for sisters,” Chris added in with a little chuckle.
I controlled the urge to roll my eyes.
Georgia didn’t, which made me bite back a smile.
We all took our seats, and mine was directly across from Georgia. She leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs, somehow managing to look both relaxed and regal in a pair of jeans and a fitted black shirt.
Wait. Recognition tingled in the back of my brain. I’d seen her somewhere—not just the bookstore. Images of her at a black-tie event flashed through my brain. Had we ever crossed paths?
“So, Noah, why don’t you go ahead and tell Georgia—and Ava, of course—why they should trust you with Scarlett Stanton’s unfinished masterpiece,” Chris urged.
I blinked. “I’m sorry?” I was here to take delivery of the manuscript. Period. That had been the only condition of me nearly jumping out of my skin to say yes. I wanted to be the first to read it.
Adam cleared his throat and sent me a pleading look. Was he serious?
“Noah?” His gaze darted meaningfully toward the women.
Guess so. I was caught somewhere between laughing my ass off and scoffing. “Because I promise not to lose it?” My voice pitched up at the end, turning my obvious statement into a question.
“Comforting,” Georgia remarked. My eyes narrowed.
“Noah, let’s step out into the foyer,” Adam suggested.
“I’ll get everyone some drinks!” Ava offered, rising quickly.
Georgia looked away as I followed Adam through the French doors of the drawing room and into the vaulted entryway.
The house was modest for what I knew of Stanton’s estate, but the craftmanship in the woodwork of the crown molding and the banister of the curved staircase spoke for both the quality of the build and taste of its previous owner. Just like her impeccable, captivating writing had been detailed without falling into frilly, the house felt feminine without stumbling into the floral-print-from-hell category. It was understated and elegant…reminding me of Georgia, minus the temper.
“We have a problem.” Adam ran his hands over his dark blond hair and gave me a look I’d only seen once before—when they’d found a typo on one of my covers that had already gone to print.
“I’m listening.” I folded my arms across my chest. Adam was one of my closest friends and as level-headed as they came in New York publishing, so if he thought we had a problem, we did.
“The mother led us to believe that she was the daughter,” he blurted.
“In what way?” Sure, both women were beautiful, but Ava was easily a decade or two older.
“In the who-has-the-rights-to-this-book way.”
My stomach threatened to heave up my lunch. Now it made sense—the mother wanted me on the book…not Georgia. Holy shit.
“Are you telling me that the contract we’ve spent weeks negotiating is about to fall apart?” My jaw clenched. I hadn’t just made time for this project, I’d canceled my entire life for it, come home from Peru for it. I wanted this damn book, and the thought of it slipping through my fingers was inconceivable.
“If you can’t convince Georgia Stanton that you’re the perfect author to finish the book, then that’s exactly what I’m telling you.”
“Fuck.” I lived for challenges, spent my free time pushing my mind and body to the limit through rock climbing and writing, and this book was my
mental Everest—something to push me outside my comfort zone. Mastering another author’s voice, especially one as beloved as Scarlett Stanton, wouldn’t just be a professional feat, either. There were personal stakes for me here, too.
“Pretty much,” Adam agreed.
“I met her earlier today. She hates my books.” Which didn’t bode well for me.
“I gathered that. Please tell me you weren’t your usual asshole self?” His eyes narrowed slightly.
“Eh, ‘asshole’ is a relative term.” “Awesome.” His tone dripped sarcasm.
I rubbed the skin between my eyebrows as my mind raced, thinking of some way to change the mind of a woman who’d obviously sealed her opinion of my writing long before we’d met. I couldn’t remember the last time hard work or a little charm hadn’t gotten me something I wanted this badly, and it wasn’t in my nature to back down or concede defeat.
“How about I give you a minute or two to gather your thoughts, and then you come back in with a miracle?” He slapped my shoulder and left me standing in the entry while Ava puttered in the kitchen.
I slid my phone from my back pocket and dialed the only person I knew would give me unbiased advice.
“What do you want, Noah?” Adrienne’s voice came in over the cacophony of her kids in the background.
“How do I convince someone who hates my books that I’m not a shit writer?” I asked quietly, turning toward the office doors.
“Did you really just call so I could stoke your ego?” “I’m not kidding.”
“You’ve never cared what people thought before. What’s going on?” Her voice softened.
“It’s ridiculously complicated and I have about two minutes to figure out the answer.”
“Okay. Well, first, you’re not a shit writer, and you have the adoration of
millions to prove it.” The background noise quieted, as if she’d closed a door.
“You have to say that—you’re my sister.”
“And I’ve hated at least eleven of your books,” she responded cheerfully.
I huffed a laugh. “That’s an oddly specific number.” “Nothing odd about it. I can tell you exactly which ones—”
“Not helping, Adrienne.” I studied the small collection of photographs on the table, mixed in with a variety of glass vases. The one shaped like an ocean wave looked to be hand-blown, and it sat beside the picture of a young boy probably taken in the late forties. There was another shot that looked to be a debutante ball…Ava’s, maybe? And another of a child who had to be Georgia in a garden. Even as a kid, she’d looked serious and a little sad, like the world had already let her down. “I somehow don’t think telling Georgia Stanton that my own sister doesn’t like my books is going to get me far.”
“What I’m saying is that I hated your plots, not your writ—” Adrienne paused. “Wait, did you say Georgia Stanton?”
“Yes.”
“Holy shit,” she muttered.
“I’m probably down to thirty seconds over here.” I felt every heartbeat like it was a countdown. How had this gone so wrong so quickly?
“What the hell are you doing with Scarlett Stanton’s great- granddaughter?”
“Remember the whole complicated part of this conversation? And how do you know who Georgia Stanton is?”
“How do you not know?”
Ava waltzed through the entry, carrying a small tray with what looked to be glasses of lemonade on it. She shot me a smile, then slipped through the slightly open doors.
Time was running out. “Look. Scarlett Stanton left an unfinished manuscript, and Georgia—who hates my books—is the one to decide if I
get to finish it.”
My sister gasped. “Say something.”
“Okay, okay.” She went quiet, and I could almost see the gears turning in her quick mind. “You tell Georgia that under no circumstances will Damian Ellsworth be allowed to direct, produce, or sniff around the story.”
My brow furrowed. “This has nothing to do with movie rights.” The guy was a shitty director anyway. I’d already shot him down on more than one of my options.
“Oh, come on, if this is a Scarlett Stanton finished by you, it’s going to be huge.”
I didn’t argue with that. Scarlett hadn’t missed hitting the New York Times with a release in forty years. “What does Damian Ellsworth have to do with the Stantons?”
“Huh. I really do know something you don’t. How odd…” she mused. “Adrienne,” I growled.
“Let me savor it for just a moment,” she sang. “I’m going to lose this contract.”
“When you put it that way.” I envisioned her rolling her eyes. “Ellsworth is—as of this week—Georgia’s ex-husband. He was directing The Winter Bride—”
“The Stanton book? The one about the guy trapped in the loveless marriage?”
“That’s the one. Anyway, he got caught having an affair with Paige Parker—ironic, right? The proof is due any day now. Don’t you ever shop at a grocery store? Georgia’s been on the front page of every tabloid for the last six months. They call her the Ice Queen because she didn’t show a lot of emotion, and, you know, the movie.”
“Are you serious?” It was a clever but cruel play on the haughty first wife in that book, who, if I remembered correctly, died before the hero and heroine found their happy ending. Talk about life imitating art.
“It’s sad, really.” Her voice drifted. “She usually avoided the media to
begin with, but now…well, it’s everywhere.”
“Ah, shit.” I gritted my teeth. No woman deserved that. My father taught me a man was only as good as his word, and that’s what vows were, the ultimate word. There was a reason I’d never married. I didn’t make promises I couldn’t keep, and I’d never been with a woman I was ready to forsake all others for. “Okay. Thanks, Adrienne.” I crossed to the drawing room doors.
“Good luck. Wait—Noah?”
“Yeah?” I paused with my fingers on the brass handle. “Agree with her.”
“I’m sorry?”
“This isn’t about you; it’s about her great-grandmother. Check your massive ego at the door.”
“I don’t have a—” “Yeah, you do.”
I scoffed. There was no shame in knowing you were the best at what you did, but romance wasn’t what I usually wrote. “Anything else?” I asked sarcastically. Leave it to my sister to shine a light on every flaw.
“Hmmm. You should tell her about Mom.” “No.” That wasn’t happening.
“Noah, I’m telling you, girls are a sucker for a guy who loves his mom enough to read to her. It will win her over. Trust me, but don’t try to flirt your way through, either.”
“I’m not flirting—”
She laughed. “I know you way too well, and I love you, but I’ve seen pictures of Georgia Stanton, and she is way out of your league.”
I couldn’t disagree with her there. “Nice. Thanks, and I love you, too.
See you next weekend.” “Nothing extravagant!”
“What I buy my niece for her birthday is between her and me. See you then.” I hung up with my sister and walked into the living room. Every face but Georgia’s swung my way, each of them more hopeful than the last.
I took my time as I made my way back to my seat, pausing to examine the photograph that had captured Georgia’s attention.
It was Scarlett Stanton, sitting at a massive desk, her glasses perched on her nose as she typed on the same old-school typewriter she’d written all of her books on, and sitting with her back against the side of the desk, reading on the floor, was Georgia. She looked to be about ten.
She had the rights to her great-grandmother’s book…not her mother, who was Scarlett’s granddaughter, which meant there were family dynamics here far beyond my understanding.
Instead of sitting, I stood behind my assigned chair, gripping the sides lightly with my back to the fireplace as I studied Georgia like I would a cliff I was determined to climb, searching for the right route, the best path. “Here’s the thing,” I said directly to Georgia, ignoring everyone else in the room. “You don’t like my books.”
She lifted an eyebrow, her head tilting slightly.
“That’s okay, because I happen to love Scarlett Stanton’s books. All of them. Every single one. I’m not the romance hater you think I am. I’ve read them all twice, some of them more than that. She had a unique voice, incredible, visceral writing, and a way of evoking emotion that blows me out of the water when it comes to romance.” I shrugged.
“In that, we agree,” Georgia said, but there was no bite in her tone. “There is no one who compares to your great-grandmother in this genre,
but I wouldn’t trust anyone else with her book, and I know more than a few other writers. I am the one you need. I am the one who will do this book justice. Everyone else at the level this book demands will want to twist it their way, or put their own mark on it. I don’t,” I promised.
“You don’t?” She shifted in her chair.
“If you let me finish this book, it will be her book. I will work tirelessly to make sure it reads as if she wrote the last half herself. You won’t be able to tell where she stops writing and I start.”
“Last third,” Ava corrected.
“Whatever it needs.” My eyes didn’t stray from Georgia’s steadfast
gaze. What the hell had Ellsworth been thinking? She was achingly, traffic- stopping beautiful, with curves for miles and a mind sharp enough to match her tongue. No man in his right mind would cheat on a woman like her. “I know you have doubts, but I’ll work until I win you over.”
Keep your mind on the business.
“Because you’re that good,” she said with a heavy note of sarcasm. I bit back a smile. “Because I’m just that damn good.”
She studied me carefully as the grandfather clock ticked by the seconds beside us, then shook her head. “No.”
“No?” My eyes flared and my jaw locked.
“No. This book is incredibly personal to this family—”
“It’s personal to me, too.” Shit. I might actually lose this one.
I let go of the chair and rubbed the back of my neck. “Look, my mom was in a bad car accident when I was sixteen, and…I spent that summer by her bedside, reading your great-grandmother’s books to her.” I left out that it had been part of the penance my father had demanded. “Even the satisfying parts.” My lips quirked upward with her eyebrows. “It’s personal.”
Her gaze shifted, softening for a moment before she lifted her chin. “Would you be willing to take your name off the book?”
My stomach lurched. Damn, she went straight for the kill, didn’t she?
Check your ego. Adrienne had always been the more rational of our duo, but heeding her advice in this instant was about as painless as raking my soul over a cheese grater.
Was it the dream of a lifetime to have my name next to Scarlett Stanton’s? Sure. But it was about way more than that. It wasn’t a lie—the woman had been one of my idols and was, to this day, still my mother’s favorite author…and that included me.
“If taking my name off this manuscript is what it takes to assure you I’m here for the book and not the credit, I’ll do it.” I answered slowly, making sure she knew I meant it.
Her eyes flared with surprise, and her lips parted. “You sure about that?”
“Yes.” My jaw flexed once. Twice. This was no different than not documenting a climb, right? I would know I’d done it, even if no one else did. At least I’d be the first one to get my hands on the manuscript, even before Adam or Chris. “But I would like permission to tell my family, since I already did.”
A sparkle of laughter lit up her face, but she quickly schooled her features. “If, and that’s if, I agree to let you finish it, I would demand to have final approval over the manuscript.”
My grip tightened, digging into the fabric of the chair. Adam sputtered.
Chris mumbled a swear word.
Ava’s attention swung from her daughter’s face to mine like we were a tennis match.
Even with all that going on, it somehow felt like Georgia and I were the only people in the room. There was a charge between us—a connection. I’d felt it in the bookstore, and it was stronger now. Whether it was the challenge, the attraction, the possibility of the manuscript, or something else, I wasn’t sure, but it was there, as tangible as an electrical current.
“We can definitely discuss editorial input, but Noah has had final manuscript approval in his contract for his last twenty books,” Adam countered softly, knowing it was one of my hard limits. Once I knew where a story was going, I let the characters take me there, come hell or editorial high water.
But this wasn’t my story, was it? This was her great-grandmother’s legacy.
“Fine. I’ll agree to being second-in-command of the ship.” It went against every bone in my body, but I’d do it.
Both Chris and Adam gawked at me.
“This once,” I added, glancing toward my publishing team. My agent would lose his shit if I set a precedent here.
Slowly, very slowly, Georgia leaned back in her chair. “I have to read it first, then talk to Helen—Gran’s agent.”
I mentally cursed but nodded. So much for being first. “I’m staying at the Roaring Creek Bed and Breakfast, and I’ll leave the address—”
“I know where it is.”
“Right. I’ll stay through the end of the week. If we work out a contract before then, I’ll take the manuscript and the letters back to New York with me and get started.” Good thing I liked rock climbing, because there was plenty of that to do around here while she decided. As much as I hated to admit it, this deal was now out of my hands.
“Agreed.” She nodded. “And you can put your name on it.” My heart leaped. Guess I’d passed her test.
Chris, Adam, and Ava let out a collective sigh.
Georgia’s eyes flew wide, and her head snapped toward her mother. “Wait.”
Every muscle in my body locked. “What letters?”
