Page 87 of Slow Burn Summer

“Oh, and Charlie?”

He turned back in the doorway.

“Kate might want to watch theGood Morning Show”—she looked at her watch—“in about five minutes’ time.”

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Kate flipped the open signover toClosedand dashed upstairs to turn the TV on. Charlie’s text had been short and sweet, passing on Fiona’s message, leaving her with an ominous sense of anticipation in her gut. The show had been on for a while and she was beginning to worry she might have missed whatever it was she was supposed to catch, when the camera panned to Ruby and Niall on the sofa.

“And now for our special guest, international bestselling crime author Hugh Hudson,” Ruby said, as the shot widened to include a distinguished guy sitting on the sofa opposite. Kate leaned in, remembering how it felt to be under that exact spotlight.

“Welcome, Hugh,” Niall said, a hardback sample of Hugh’s upcoming novel in his hands. “I have to confess to being a major DI Rivers fan—this copy might just be finding its way home with me.”

“It’s been a long time coming,” Hugh said, and Kate slid forward in her chair, her eyes glued to the screen. She’d know that voice anywhere. Hugh Hudson.H.So it hadn’t been a random letter after all. Her mind went back to Charlie’s advice when she was choosing a pseudonym—stick to something that still feels like you. Hugh would have known that perfectly well, of course.

She drank in the details of his face, slotting him in to her memory as the man in the T-Rex costume, the guy she’d been swapping emails with all of these months. She listened as he answered a few perfunctory questions about his latest book.

“I’m afraid this won’t be in the bookstores for a little while yet,” he said, prying the hardback from a disappointed Niall’s hands. “And they say you should never judge a book by its cover.” Hugh’s rich Welsh baritone was music to Kate’s ears. “Which happens to be especially true in this case.”

He peeled the DI Rivers dust cover from the book and revealed a second cover hidden underneath:The Power of Loveby Kate Darrowby. It was clear from their slack jaws that neither Ruby nor Niall had seen it coming, and Hugh took advantage of the lull to control the interview.

“I’m the mystery author who wrote this book,” he said, swallowing. “It’s about my beautiful wife, Eleanor, an attempt to navigate my way through my grief. It was a meditation and a relief, of sorts—balm for my soul, if you will. I didn’t intend it for publication, that all came afterward, and I certainly didn’t intend for anyone else to get dragged into the whole circus it’s turned into.”

Ruby had recovered herself enough to take the reins. “Wow, Hugh, that’s a real bolt out of the blue! Of all the names in the frame, I don’t think I’ve ever heard mention of yours.”

“A grisly old crime writer doesn’t fit the bill, eh? Especially a male one?”

He was doing himself a great disservice there, but neither of them corrected him because he was right about one thing—everyone had assumed it was a woman.

“I’d like to publicly apologize to every author whose name has been dragged into this, I owe you all a drink or ten. But most of all I’d like to say thank you to Kate Elliot, the woman who’staken so much heat about this, it’s a wonder she hasn’t spontaneously combusted.”

“We had her here on the show just a few days ago,” Niall said.

“I know you did,” Hugh said. “I watched it. And I hope she’s watching this now, and that everyone will listen when I say that without her this book would never have seen the light of day. It’s been agony watching her name dragged through the mud, she’s an absolute diamond.”

“What’s made you decide to come forward now, Hugh?” Niall said.

Hugh rubbed his hand across his eyes and sighed. “I’m a crime writer, Niall, I don’t like loose ends. I thought in the beginning that this book was too different for my readers to stomach, and if I’m honest, part of me didn’t want to be labeled a romance writer.”

“And now?” Ruby said.

Hugh shrugged. “Now I know I was being a prize fool,” he said. “Losing Eleanor ripped my heart out. I’ll never get over it, and nor do I want to. But I wrote this book for her, and it did her the greatest injustice for people not to know that our love story inspired this one. She’d have wanted the world to know, and so do I.”

Ruby looked misty-eyed. “I love that, so romantic,” she said.

Niall nodded. “But just to be clear, youarestill releasing the next DI Rivers soon, aren’t you?”

“Of course.” Hugh looked at the book in his hands. “But right now I’m proud ofthisbook, and I’m proud to call myself a romance writer.”

Ruby and Niall wrapped the interview up, and Kate sagged against her chair, tear-stained and overwhelmed with affection for Hugh Hudson: the man, the T-Rex, the romance writer.

Dear Hugh,

Thank you, you didn’t need to do that, but I’m so grateful that you did, and that you’re proud to claim the book as yours. Your love story deserves it.

Yours,

Kate x

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