Page 64 of Kill Your Darlings

Security.Stability.Safety.

The three tenets of my adult life.Every choice I’d made since leaving Steeple Hill for college had been made with those three goals in mind.And I’d achieved those goals.

And then some.I’d achieved everything I set out to achieve.

And the payoff was that I was lonely.

Secure.Stable.Safe.Lonely.

Ironically, I was about to lose all of it—with the exception of the loneliness.

It was going to be a whole lot lonelier moving forward.

Once again, I saw Finn’s expression.The realization.The shock.The withdrawal.

He was one of the good guys, though.He’d help me as much as he could.And once we’d exhausted every possible avenue to delay the inevitable, he’d come and visit me in prison, like he did some of the other felons he felt some affection or responsibility for.He’d speak up at my parole hearings.He’d help me find work when I got out.

Because there was no question I was going to prison.Hopefully, not for fifteen years.Hopefully, I’d get parole.I did not want to try to rebuild my life in my sixties.My fate would depend on a number of things.But we both knew I was going to prison.Which was still better than being dead.

Either way, I was going to lose everything I’d worked for.

Either way, when this was all over, I would be starting from scratch.

Either way, I was going to lose Finn.Maybe not his loyalty.Maybe not his friendship.But any kind of future of together.

Midway through my revelations, I’d watched him fall out of love with me.And that hurt worse than any slap or punch my father had landed.

My cell pinged a notification and I jumped.Grabbing the phone, hoping it was Finn, I scanned the reminder—scanned it again—and swore.

I was supposed to be taking Grace Hollister to breakfast at nine o’clock.

It was eight-twenty now.I closed my eyes, struggled for control.

What was thepoint?

Was thereanypoint to this?Given what lie ahead of me?

No.There was not.

And yet, I was already on my feet, striding into the bathroom, turning the shower taps on full blast.

Grace was a very nice woman and she’d made the trip all the way from the English Lake District.Not solely to have breakfast with me, of course, but she’d wanted to discuss…what they all wanted to discuss: their fucking books, their fucking careers, their fucking marketing budgets.

I sucked in a couple of lungsful of steamy eucalyptus, closed my eyes, and concentrated on how good the jets of very hot water felt on my tired body.My thoughts cleared.

Focus on the here and now.Stay in the moment.

Ofcoursethere was a point to this.

W&W was going to do their best to bully Grace into one of their godawful unfavorable contracts, so of course I needed to prepare her.

We’d signed her after she’d written an engaging non-fiction account of her first trip to Britain and subsequent involvement with a former jewel thief (to whom she was still married!) and the hunt for a missing work by Lord Byron.

Oxygen network had even optioned the book.

She was currently working on a well-researched, witty historical mystery series featuring Lord Byron.Unfortunately, W&W felt the historical mystery market was glutted.

So, yes, we absolutely needed to have this breakfast.