Page 42 of Slow Burn Summer

Kate took a gulp of wine. “She terrifies me as much now as she did back then. Although saying that, she once gave me a squirt of her perfume and straightened my collar before I went up for a part. It shocked me so much that I forgot my lines.”

He laughed then. “She is what she is.”

“I feel like a teenager again every time she’s in the room. I have this crazy need to impress her.” She decided to ask a question she probably wouldn’t have without two glasses of wine under her belt. “Were she and your father ever together?”

“In a romantic way?” Charlie said. “No. Great friends, but Bob was the big love of Fi’s life. He’s been gone a good ten years now, maybe even fifteen. She and my dad were too alike, and when they rowed,they rowed.”

She could imagine, they were both such huge personalities. “You must miss him.”

“Every day.” Charlie drained his drink. “I should hit the road, let you get some rest for tomorrow.”

“I’ll walk out with you,” she said. “Grab some fresh air before I head up. You need a degree in engineering to operate the air con.”

He swallowed. “Need a hand with it?”

Kate so nearly said yes. “I’ll be okay, I can always call reception if I get desperate.” He nodded, and she followed him across the quiet bar. Her heels clicked against the marble reception floor as they headed outside into the warm evening.

“It’s quite some view, isn’t it?”

The hotel perched on the South Bank, lit-up London spread out in front of them, the glitter of lights reflected in the river.

“Best city in the world,” he said.

“Different from L.A., I should imagine,” she said, leaning against the hotel wall.

“Another planet.”

“Do you miss it?”

He shook his head, his eyes on the river. “Being back there recently reminded me exactly how much I don’t miss it. It feels as if the sun bleached its soul out. I’d be happy to never see the Hollywood Hills again.”

“Tricky for a screen agent,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “My father was a fish out of water over there too—too honest and direct for the slippery smiles and handshakes. It’s a big old machine, the wheels keep turning with or without you. There’s things I miss about it for sure, and people, but not the life I lived there—” He broke off. “It got complicated.”

She wrapped her arms around herself, aware they’d strayed into uncharted waters. “Love does that.”

His dark eyes met hers, a shared moment of acknowledgment that they weren’t kids, that they’d both been around the block.

“Will you go for coffee with the guy from the train?”

She glanced away, not wanting to talk about it. “Would you go for coffee with the first girl you ever kissed?”

He laughed then. “Jenna Jackson. I was twelve, she was fourteen.”

“Scandalous,” she said. “First kisses are best left to teenagers.”

He side-eyed her. “Don’t say that on TV tomorrow. You’re a romance writer now, remember? You need to believe in the magic moments.”

“The magic moments?” She knew what he meant from the movies, but magic had been sorely lacking from her own love life, even when she was nineteen and Richard proposed in a packed restaurant. He’d had the chef bury the ring in her dessert—summer pudding. It had ended up being a bit macabre, like fishing the diamond out of a bowl of blood and guts. Her fingertips were purple for a week.

“You know,” Charlie said. “The part in the story when one person does or says something unexpected, and the other person looks at them with new eyes.”

“Whiskey and cola,” she said.

He looked at her, quizzical.

“Your eyes,” she said. “They’re whiskey and cola.”

---