Page 38 of The Battle of the Bookshops
In the end, Roman didn’t go back to the party. Instead, he set off up the hill to walk back home to Middlemass. He needed the dark, the physical exertion, and the solitude. His stiff black leather shoes quickly rubbed his heels to blisters, but he barely felt it. As he walked, he berated himself: How had he allowed it to come to this? What on earth had he been thinking, kissing her like that?
In all the years since he first set eyes on her in that green silk dress, he had never once seriously thought she could be his. But he had never forgotten. So, meeting her again, just a few monthsago, he had been amused at first. Intrigued. Perhaps he had even wondered whether the usual hollow dalliance, which he was so used to in his New York existence, would be a diversion for them both—some compensation to him for having to return home to Middlemass against his will.
How much better would it have been if he had refused to come home, if he had stayed safely an ocean away from all this?
And now, with his family’s interest in—yet again—crushing the Capelthornes, he could no longer stomach the destructive, pointless feud he had never understood—not anymore. But the two trains were rushing toward each other on the same track, doomed to destruction, and however much he now admitted to himself that he cared for her, there was nothing he could do to stop the devastating crash that would result.
No, it was a disaster. It could only end in hurt.Wouldonly end in hurt. And hurting that woman was the last thing on earth he wanted to do.
Jules spent most of Sunday in her pajamas, grateful for a day of not having to open the shop. She should be doing the accounts and the ordering really, but she couldn’t settle to anything. Again and again, she relived that kiss, feeling his arms around her, drowning in the feelings it let loose in her.
He was a Montbeau, she kept telling herself. But her heart didn’t want to listen.
Aunt Flo knew there was something up; Jules kept finding the older woman watching her with a secret smile on her face.
“What?” Jules demanded over lunch.
“‘What’ yourself,” Flo had replied, raising an eyebrow and waiting.
She got nothing.
“On another subject,” Flo went on, tactically admitting defeatfor the time being, “what are you going to do with your mother next Sunday?”
“Um... do us all a favor and have nothing to do with her at all?” hazarded Jules. “Why?”
“Because it’s Mother’s Day, you ungrateful child,” Flo chided.
“Aha!” said Jules, who had admittedly forgotten. “I’d better take her out to lunch.” She frowned as she remembered the state of her finances. “I’d rather takeyouout to lunch. We can all go to the Middlemass Arms. You will come to stop us killing each other, won’t you?”
“I certainly will not. You don’t need me,” said Flo, “and if the Middlemass Arms is the plan, you’d better give them a ring to book a table. They’ve got a really good new manager and are extremely busy these days, especially at the weekends. Oh, and I’ve transferred some money into your bank account. You can’t feed her on fresh air, and it’s high time you had some payment for all your hard work.”
“You don’t need to do that!”
“I don’t, but I have,” said Flo implacably. “And I don’t want to hear another word about it. There’ll be more next month too, and then every month from now on. The business can afford it, you know it can.”
Aunt Flo was right, thought Jules later that day. Despite the undoubted challenge from Portneath Books, the figures were looking not too shabby. Charlie was doing a sterling job with the secondhand book auctions online, and trade in the shop downstairs had been pretty good over the last few weeks too; fine weather and an uptick in the economy had brought tourists flooding into town early in the year, bringing their spending power with them.
Now that Jules had taken over marketing and promotions, footfall was higher than the same time last year too. She washead-to-head with Portneath Books on growing a social media presence, and she knew she was because she spied on Portneath Books’ Instagram account all the time. She wondered if Roman and that blond woman—what was her name again? Cally?—did the same with hers. People had really caught on to Jules’s idea that they take selfies with the “Capelthorne’s Books” sign, posting on Instagram with #Capelthornes and #independentbookshops. A few had even done little BookTok posts, showing off their latest purchases from the shop. Jules entered all the posts into a weekly draw for signed author copies of whatever they were promoting that week, and each week they had more entries than the week before.
Often, the prize was a book from one of the (usually) shy local authors who had self-published poetry or essays on the history of the area. Flo always tried to support them when they sidled into the shop, clutching copies of their magnum opus. Sometimes they asked to do signings, which Jules learned to hate on their behalf. She would spend half her day chatting with them to keep their spirits up while they sat with a, more often than not, barely touched pile of books beside them. That said, the local paper was always prepared to do a profile, name-checking the shop, and once or twice Jules even managed to schmooze an author interview on the radio, with Jules briefing them to mention their upcoming signing session with such repetition they tended to come off sounding as if they had some weird form of literary Tourette’s syndrome.
Yes, the marketing and promotion couldn’t have been going better, thought Jules.
She curled up in her little book nook with the latest of the hot, cozy crime novels,Murder at Mass Time. As always, but even worse today, her gaze was drifting constantly to Portneath Books. It was open, of course, but, from what Jules could see, gratifyingly quiet.
There was no sign of Roman. Not that she was specifically looking, but a text or a WhatsApp would have been reasonable, wouldn’t it? Just an indication that his unmistakable passion the previous night hadn’t been a huge mistake or, worse, a cruel manipulation.
Had she been ghosted?
It was four days and counting—not that shewascounting—and Jules was outside the shop with her trusty little “Special Offers” table, focusing on the fabulousMurder at Mass Time. It was the fourth from this author and so brilliant she had decided to put out the debut book on special offer too, in the hope it would get people hooked on the series. The fluorescent orange cardboard stars were so handy, she didn’t know how she had previously lived without them. Satisfyingly, as soon as she marked the price, she had people stopping and taking a look. Sending two more customers into the shop clutching their selections, she was just straightening the piles of books when she became aware of a new potential customer standing in front of her.
Looking up, her eyes widened. “Hello, stranger,” she drawled, unable to fully keep the reproach out of her voice as her heart rate soared.
Roman was drawn and pale, with dark circles under his eyes, his jaw set stern.
“You look terrible,” she added, not sure how sympathetic she truly felt.
“‘Turnover is vanity, profit is sanity,’” he observed, indicating her heavily discounted price signs with a nod of the head.
