Her immediate thought was Annie. Then the flat, Ellie, the baby, her parents. Her grandparents had passed away some years ago and she had no other family, but this was the home she knew. She’d gone to School and University here. Her work was here.
He read the worry on her face, his eyes scanning hers. ‘I’ll stay’ he stated, running his fingers through her hair. ‘I’ll work something out. I’ll go back for a week or two and I’ll sort things out.’
She pulled away from him a little. ‘I can’t ask you to put me first.’
‘You don’t need to ask Em. You come first. You always will.’
She had a meeting in the morning, but stayed up a little too late holding onto him. He was distracted and she realised he the surprise he had promised, hadn’t materialised. Whatever it was, was now hidden under the great elephant in the room. The distance between them, and their very different lives. They had to say goodbye before her meeting. She’d never have gone if it wasn’t so important to her, but the publisher had asked to see her and her agent at half nine and they’d never done this before. They were explicit about needing her attendance, so just before eight she had to say goodbye to Luke.
Her head told her it wasn’t forever but her heart worried. The last time a man left her flat she never saw him again. At least not until he revealed himself as a player, and someone she could never be with, someone she was no longer attracted to in the slightest. This time was so different.
As he kissed her, she felt a desperation there, something he wanted to say but couldn’t find the words, and as she kissed him back she wanted to say screw the meeting, but this was something she’d worked hard for. A lot of people were depending on her. This might be the meeting of her life. Knowing she couldn’t make it to Heathrow and back by the time she had to get into Central London for her meeting, she was defeated.
As she dressed for her meeting, her heart wasn’t in it, and even though he’d barely left half an hour before, she felt as if she were missing her right arm. Annie arrived home moments later, and plonked onto the sofa telling all about last night. She tried to listen but all she could hear was what he’d said last night. About her being the most important thing. Never coming second to his work. She remembered his arms around her when she thought he was going to dump her.
Had she given him the impression that she was giving up on him? She hadn’t fought his return to America. She knew he had a really important part to play in the running of Delaware Designs, she imagined he’d worked seriously hard to have such a prestigious company.
Annie stood in front of her snapping her fingers. ‘You didn’t listen to a word I said!’
She shook herself out of the funk momentarily. ‘No, you’re right. Annie, Luke’s gone home.’
She filled her in on what happened when she got home and their somewhat abrupt goodbye.
‘You idiot!’ Annie laughed, humourlessly. ‘That man would do anything for you. What’s keeping you here?’
She looked at Annie wide-eyed as if to say D’uh, EVERYTHING!
‘My job. You guys!’
‘Sweetie Ellie is going back to Florida. She and Mikey want to raise their kid somewhere sunny. And I will definitely not allow you to sabotage your relationship for me! Don’t make excuses, these kinda things, they are all or nothing. You can’t push obstacles in the way. You hate writing kids books, you do it as a means to an end. You can do that anywhere in the world.’
She was stunned. And a little put out. Annie had been worried she would lose Ellie to the States, yet right now she seemed ready to lose Emily.
‘You want me to go?’
Annie sighed, and sat down on the sofa, kicking off her kitten heels.
‘I don’t want you to go. I need you to. You deserve this happiness. I’m not gonna stand in the way of my best girl being with the guy she’s destined to be with.’
As Emily sunk down beside her, she felt Annie’s hand on her shoulder. ‘Go to the meeting. See what they say and then get your arse in gear and rescue this relationship. That guy was made for you.’
Caroline O’Flaherty, her agent reminded Emily of Angela Lansbury. If you squinted, they could actually be twins. Once or twice she nearly giggled listening to her speak, she had that same soft spoken tone and in the past, she was close to asking whether they were related. As she slipped into the chair next to her, Caroline regarded her with a tense smile. They hadn’t a clue about what was to happen next. Moments later, Edward Reacher, her editor strutted in, and taking the seat next to Caroline he grinned broadly.
‘Hey Emily’ he smiled. ‘I have a really good feeling about this meeting.’
She looked around the room. Posters featuring various popular book characters were a reminder of the market she was in and how much competition there was. It wouldn’t surprise her if this meeting was to deliver bad news.
Suddenly, Maryam Parsi, practically the reigning queen at Puffin Books stepped into the room. All high heels, tanned skin and an air of authority, she realised Edwards attention had left her entirely. He was transfixed. She shook their hands, and sliding behind her desk she gave a bright Hollywood white smile.
‘Well Miss Clement. I have to say your sales are going through the roof and we’ve started to get requests from parents flooding in weekly for a t.v show. I wont beat about the bush, this is a huge opportunity for you, and for us.’
She was shocked. Never in her wildest dreams would she have expected those words to come out of her mouth. Edward was practically jumping in his seat, and even prim Caroline’s eyes lit up at the thought of profits.
‘We had some people from a popular childrens tv network take a look at your work. We really think this is something that could just take off.’
Shaking her head in disbelief, she could barely speak.
‘It’s gonna mean a lot of work Emily. Lots of work writing the episodes. They’ll have a writing team on hand to help transfer what you write to the screen, but from now on it’ll be full steam ahead.’
Caroline leant forward, and engaged Miss Parsi in talk about their suspected time scale to get this off the ground, and the logistics. Edward seemed transfixed on Maryam’s cleavage and Emily herself didn’t know how to feel. This was massive. If this went well she’d be set for life, no more worries about paying the bills, no more living in that tiny flat with the dodgy door. She could do anything she wanted, live anywhere she chose.
Everything she had worked so hard for was now coming to fruition. Maybe not in the way she had planned it, but the extra cash would be amazing, wouldn’t it?