Page 83 of Hypnotized By Love

Until then, I would just wing it.

“It has been,” he agreed. “I hope you don’t mind, but I ordered some Chinese food. That’s still your favorite, right?”

I nodded, swallowing back the thickness in my throat, blinking away the tears that suddenly formed. Even when Sierra had been at her lowest points, that was one of the few foods we could offer her that she would eat. Not very much, but she always loved it. I was unbelievably touched that he’d remembered.

We went into the tiny kitchen, where he had a little table covered with Chinese food. He had all of Sierra’s favorites. “Plates? Or do you want to eat out of the containers?” he asked. “And chopsticks or forks?”

“Plates and chopsticks.” I didn’t want to share a container with him. It felt too intimate.

He handed me a plate and a pair of chopsticks and sat down next to me. The table was small enough that his leg kept bumping into mine, and it sent spirals of longing and awareness through me each time it happened.

“How was work today?” he asked.

“Good.” That seemed neutral enough. “What did you do today?”

It occurred to me that I had no idea how he spent his days in his mom’s guesthouse. “I wrote. I actually got an entire chapter done. I’m really excited about this novel.”

“What’s it about?” I asked, because I wanted to know and was genuinely curious. I hoped Sierra didn’t already know.

He described a suspense thriller based on a real-life case he’d read about in which a woman killed her husband using an icicle and the police had no evidence because the murder weapon had melted away. He outlined the twist that he was putting on it to make it original and his own.

It actually sounded pretty good. I wouldn’t have minded reading it.

“It doesn’t sound very much like your first book,” I said. That one had been more of an attempt at “literary fiction.” I had always been a genre girl and didn’t have a lot of patience for books that were basically about middle-aged professors suffering from ennui and contemplating their navels while sleeping with their graduate students.

“You read my first book?”

Sierra hated to read. Whoops. “Of course I did. You’re my friend. Why wouldn’t I read it?”

He shrugged. “I’m glad that you read it. I’m sorry that it wasn’t better. I’m guessing you didn’t read my second because nobody did.”

“At least you earned a lot of money from the first one, right?”

“People don’t usually understand how publishing works. I got a nice advance, but my agent took fifteen percent, and then the advance is split up into three or four different payments at different points. There’s not much of that money left. That’s why I’m here—trying to get my career back on track. My agent suggested that I try writing some articles and using that to build up a new track record. That once I have some articles out online, publishers will be more willing to look at my new book.”

I popped the last piece of egg roll into my mouth. “You’re right. I don’t know much about publishing. What’s your article about?”

He grabbed the beef and broccoli and put some on his plate. “My mom swears at how effective hypnosis is, so I thought I would write an article about that.”

“So it’s important that you sell it.” I hadn’t realized how much he needed it to do well, what he had riding on it.

“It is. And it would be nice to have some cash. Although I guess it could be worse. I could be in medical school right now.”

“Oh yeah. I forgot you were going to be premed in college.”

“My dad doesn’t,” he said, and I couldn’t help but laugh. It was meant to be a joke, but I also heard the underlying sadness that he hadn’t lived up to what his father had expected him to be.

“Speaking of thwarted expectations, how is your dad?”

“The senator is very happy with his new, picture-perfect family and getting ready to run for reelection this fall. Do you know that he’s the reason my last relationship fell apart?”

I let out a gasp. “Did he sleep with your girlfriend?” It was so something his father would do.

“Nothing like that. Didn’t I tell you about when I went out with Virginia?” he asked.

“You dated a whole state?”

“No,” he said with a smile. “She was a girl I met after a book signing. We dated for a long time. I thought things might get more serious, but I discovered that she was only with me because she thought that my dad’s fame would somehow trickle down to me. That she would get more social media likes for her ‘brand.’ We were fine as long as my first novel was doing well, but things fell apart when the second book failed. She was angry that I wouldn’t take her to meet my father, because she wanted to take a photo with him. It took me a bit, but I realized that she was using me.”

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