Page 7 of Slow Burn Summer

“I’m forty next birthday, bit late for my gap year,” Kate said. “I don’t want to run away, Liv, but Alice does have a point. I need to do something to spark my life up, and I think it might have just landed in my lap.”

Liv topped up their wineglasses. “So what did you think of Charlie Francisco?”

Kate huffed. “Nothing like his father, that’s for sure.”

“He was a one-off, to be fair,” Liv said.

Jojo had been in Kate’s life for barely two years, but in that time he’d been a wise teacher, an unpredictably brilliant agent, and sometimes a fatherly shoulder. He’d certainly guided her well, straight into the casting department of one of the country’s longest-running soaps. She remembered his joy in personally delivering the news that she’d landed the part she desperately wanted, his pride when she won Most Promising Newcomer at the Soap Awards the following year. He’d helped Liv out backthen too, putting her in touch with TV and film costume departments she’d never have gotten a foot in the door with otherwise. He was that sort of man, expansive and generous with his knowledge and his little black book of contacts; he’d taken both sisters under his wing, and Kate’s resignation like an arrow to the heart.

“Charlie’s overconfident,” Kate said. “Suntan. Bit flash.”

Liv sniffed. “I did some digging. Word is he cheated on his wife, Tara, more than once.”

Liv had a direct hotline to Hollywood gossip through her indiscreet circle of costume department friends; she’d known about several movie-star scandals before even the pushiest of journalists. Not that she ever told anyone but Kate, which didn’t count as they were two sides of the same coin.

Kate sighed. “I’m not shocked. He didn’t exactly remind me of Richard, but there’s something about him I didn’t one hundred percent trust.”

“He’s hot, though, right?”

“Oh God, yeah. Seriously hot.”

“There’s that,” Liv said.

“I thought he was the secret author at first. It’s no big leap from writing rom-com movies to novels, is it?”

“Who knows.” Liv shrugged. “I bet Tara wrote the movies anyway and let him take the credit.”

It was a disappointing but not altogether surprising idea. Richard’s infidelity had layered cynicism into Kate’s everyday thought patterns, her rose-tinted love goggles flung into the nearest dustbin.

“Watch yourself around him,” Liv said. “All that”—she pointed toward her own face and made circles in the air—“can be distracting.”

Kate knocked back the last of her wine. “He should watchhimself around me,” she said, then laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ve got his number. He might be wolfish, but I’m no Red Riding Hood.”

Liv gathered her stuff together to head home. “You do look good in red, though,” she said. “That dress I made for your engagement was killer.”

Kate handed Liv her keys. “Shame it didn’t actually kill Richard, it would have saved me a whole heap of trouble.”

She didn’t mean it. Not entirely. Without Richard there would be no Alice, and in truth the early years of their marriage hadn’t been without their good times; but the shock of adultery and divorce had rattled every bone in her body.

Alone again, she flopped back on the sofa and picked up the plain white book, writing her name on the cover with her fingertip. There were few silver linings to her reduced circumstances, but at least there were no inquisitive neighbors or close friends to explain her sudden new author life to. As ghost authors go, Charlie Francisco couldn’t have picked a better person for the job.

Hi Charlie,

Thanks for seeing me last week, and even more so for offering me such an incredible opportunity. I’ve read the book (twice—I couldn’t sleep last night for thinking about Leanora’s story, she’s jumped off the page straight into my heart) and you were right, it’s…I don’t even have the words for how much I’m in love with it.

It would be an absolute honor to be its official representative, if the offer is still open. Please let me know what I should do next.

All my best,

Kate

Hi Kate,

That’s great news, I was very much hoping to hear from you today.

Give me a couple of days to discuss things in-house and I’ll get back to you.

Let me know if any days and times are better at your end.

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