Romance By the Book by Sarah Ready

Jessie

I crackanother egg into the bowl and start to whisk. It’s seven in the morning, Will’s still in bed. I woke up curled into his side, my head on his chest, his arms around me. I smile and start to hum while I whisk up the eggs for omelets.

We stayed up until almost four in the morning talking and making love. There’s not a doubt in my mind—Will is my soul mate. Somehow I misunderstood Miss Erma. Will is mine.

I pour the eggs into the hot buttered skillet and add the ham and cheese while it cooks. I have to be at work by nine, but there’s time for breakfast in bed. Hopefully he likes it. I slide the cooked omelet onto a plate, position it on a tray next to two cups of coffee, buttered toast, blackberry jam, a plate of crispy bacon, and two freshly squeezed orange juices.

“Breakfast? For me?” His voice teases from the entry to the kitchen.

I smile and a happy warmth flows over me. “I was going to bring it up,” I say. I turn around with a grin.

It’s not Will.

My cheeks heat and embarrassment fills me. “Gavin,” I squeak. “Hi.”

I smile and swallow the lump in my throat.

His eyes light with humor. He’s in pajama pants and a t-shirt, and his hair is sticking up.

“I smelled bacon and coffee,” he says. “I didn’t know you were here, I thought you were Will.”

I nod my head quickly, “Mhm.”

I look down and catalog my appearance. When I got up, I threw on my white dress from yesterday. I’m barefoot, but I splashed water on my face and pulled my hair into a ponytail. Thank goodness I decided to get dressed in a proper outfit. I’d forgotten Gavin was here.

He quirks his eyebrows at me, sort of like Will but not, and smiles. It does nothing for me. Nothing at all. I smile with happiness. I love Will. I love him. I want nothing more than to go back upstairs and feed him breakfast and make love.

I beam at Gavin. This is wonderful. I don’t love him, not at all, not one bit.

He looks at me, and a slightly stunned expression crosses his face. I pull back on the full magnitude smile.

“I’m so glad you came down,” I say. Because it proved one hundred percent, without a doubt that he’s not for me. “Have some bacon.”

I shift the plate toward him. He can have all the bacon he likes if it means he’ll go away and I can go upstairs to Will.

I’m going to wake Will up and tell him I love him. Happiness fills me until I feel like I’m going to burst.

“Sooo…I know why you’re here,” Gavin says.

He steps to the counter and leans against it. I look toward the entryway, eager to get upstairs.

“Yeah?” I ask, distracted by the memory of Will half-covered by the bed sheets.

“Because you’re my soul mate.”

His words knock me upside the head. I shake my head and try to rearrange what he just said, but it still sounds the same.

“What?”

His lip curls in a satisfied smile. “You’re my soul mate.”

“Nope.” I hold up my hands and take a step back. “No, I’m not. Not your soul mate.”

His eyes take on a look that I don’t like. Sort of like the expression of someone about to jump out of a plane when they really don’t want to but are determined to anyway.

“I’m really not,” I say.

He nods. “You are. A little old lady from town visited me yesterday. She explained the whole thing. She showed me a book, told me that we’re meant to be, that it’s fate.”

I can’t get a breath. Miss Erma came here? Told Gavin that he and I are…“No.”

He takes a step toward me. My heart thuds.

“She said lots of people fight it, but you can’t deny what’s meant to be.”

Holy crap. My once-upon-a-time fantasy is actually my worst nightmare. Gavin holds out his hand to me. I grab a slice of crispy bacon and hold it up like a sword. He looks at the bacon and lets out a short laugh.

“That’s awesome. En garde.” He plucks the bacon from my hand and takes a bite.

I back away. “There’s a misunderstanding. I’m not your soul mate.”

“This is really good.” He grabs another slice of bacon and takes a bite. “Heck. I’ll love you just for your bacon.”

I sputter. “You don’t love me and I don’t love you. At all.”

He nods and takes a sip of the orange juice.

“Hey! That’s not yours,” I cry in indignation.

“Course it is. You came here to make me breakfast because you can’t resist fate. Just like you always stared at me when we were kids-”

“I didn’t!”

“Did. It’s because we’re soul mates. Same reason you invited me to dinner and out biking. Because I’m like the flame to your moth. The love of your life.”

I shake my head in denial. “You have a fiancée. You’re getting married.”

He scowls and I think I’ve put some sense into him, but then he shakes his head.

“I was bound to screw that up. It’s what I do. And clearly it’s because you’re the one for me. You can’t screw up with a soul mate.”

I let out a frustrated sigh. “You’re delusional.”

He grins at me. “We’ll go to South Africa on safari, see the sunrise on Mount Fuji, dive the Great Barrier Reef—”

“I don’t dive. I don’t climb. I don’t safari. I’m not doing those things with you. I have a few weeks of vacation a year and I’m spending those here, in Romeo.”

He wrinkles his forehead. “That’s weird.”

I throw up my hands. “We have nothing in common.”

“Opposites attract,” he says and nods sagely.

Oh my gosh. Is this what I was like? So blind?

“Look, Gavin.”

“Yes?” He smiles and steps closer.

“We’re not soul mates,” I say slowly.

“Call her.”

“What?”

“Call the lady, see what she says.”

I shake my head. “No. Because it doesn’t matter to me.”

He gives me a skeptical look and I sigh.

“It’s because you know it’s true. We’re meant to be,” he says.

A week ago I would’ve rejoiced at those words. Now I just want him to take them back.

Then, Gavin gets that funny look on his face, like he’s leaping out of that plane. He steps toward me, tips my chin up and swoops down.

In a millisecond I register that he’s kissing me. And his is the wrong mouth, the wrong feel, the wrong everything. It’s…gross.

I move to shove him away but he steps back.

“That was—” he starts. His mouth turns down. Obviously he didn’t like it either. Idiot.

I let out a long breath and put my hand on his arm, ready to tell him it’s his brother who’s mine. “Look, Gavin—”

“The wedding is off, you monumental prick!”

I jerk my hand off his arm and swing toward the kitchen entry.

“Lacey. You’re early,” Gavin says. He sounds dumbstruck.

But I barely hear him. Because standing in the entry next to Lacey, and an older couple, her parents, I think, is Will.

The look on Will’s face—my heart starts to gallop at that look.

His eyes are full of self-mockery and understanding of what he thinks I’ve done. His jaw clenches, his lips flatten, and his eyes that were so full of warmth last night leach back to cold.

“We didn’t, it’s not…it’s not what it looks like,” I say, and then I almost let out a hysterical giggle at how cliché, how stupid that sounded.

“As you were lip-locked in an embrace,” says Lacey’s father, “I’d say it’s exactly what it looked like.” He turns to Will. “The merger’s off. You’ll hear from my lawyers.”

“Lacey,” Gavin says. He starts toward her.

She holds up her hand. “Don’t.” Her face drains of color. She’s in a gray sheath dress and trench coat. She looks smart and stylish and completely heartbroken.

Gavin stops in front of her. “Let me explain.”

A tear trails down her cheek and she angrily wipes it away. She looks from Gavin to me and back at Gavin. I feel ill with shame. I may not have wanted this to happen this morning, but until yesterday I was actively trying to make it happen. I look at the hurt, confusion and pain in Lacey’s face and I realize that I was selfish and pigheaded and plain wrong in my pursuit of Gavin. Of a soul mate. I was wrong. My actions hurt other people.

“I love…loved you,” Lacey says. “I was going to marry you.”

“Please. You don’t understand—” I say.

“She’s my soul mate,” Gavin interrupts.

The words fall like a bomb into the room. I’m stunned into silence. Lacey lets out a strangled laugh. Then she marches over to the counter and picks up the two glasses of orange juice. She flings one in Gavin’s face. He flinches as the juice hits him. Then she dumps the other juice over my head. I gasp as the cold liquid runs through my hair and onto my face.

Lacey sets down the glasses on the counter and wipes her hands.

“I don’t want to hear from you ever again. I’m worth more than a man-child who doesn’t honor his word.” Lacey swipes another tear, then turns away, her head high, and walks out of the kitchen.

Her mom, a small woman who looks just like her but with fine wrinkles and glasses, rushes after her. Mr. Duporte, a big-fisted, ex-football-player-turned-businessman type, puffs his chest out.

“As my daughter said, we’ll communicate through the lawyers.”

Will gives Mr. Duporte a cordial nod. He looks distant and cold. Since I spoke, he hasn’t once looked at me.

“I’ll give you a ride back to your bed and breakfast,” Will says.

“Like hell.” Mr. Duporte swings toward him and levels Will with a glare.

Will quirks an eyebrow. “Your taxi’s gone. It will be another thirty minutes minimum for it to return. Your choice.”

Mr. Duporte scowls. “I’ll meet you outside.”

Will turns to follow him, not even giving Gavin or me a glance. As if, for him, I’ve ceased to exist. Desperation fills me. I thought he’d promised he wouldn’t let me go. That if I chose Gavin he’d steal me and lock me away so I’d always be his. What about that promise?

“Will,” I say.

His back is turned but he pauses at the kitchen entry.

“Please. Look at me.”

He turns around slowly. I wipe the orange juice off my face. When he finally focuses on me I give him a hesitant smile.

His bottom lip quivers, but then he presses his mouth flat. His eyes flicker to a warmer blue at my smile but then they snap to cold and impersonal. My heart cracks. It’s like before, when I’d smile and he’d look away. Except it’s not exactly the same as before, because now I love him and I think he loves me. I’m not choosing Gavin over him, not ever. I’m not choosing some fantasy of a soul mate. I don’t want a fantasy. I want him.

“Will,” says Gavin. “Sorry about the merger. I didn’t want that to happen.”

Will looks at Gavin and gives a curt nod but doesn’t say anything.

“We’re soul mates, Jessie and me, can you believe it?” There’s a hollow note in Gavin’s voice.

Will turns to look at me and lifts an eyebrow sardonically. “No, I can’t. You must be so happy.”

“We’re not soul mates,” I say to Gavin. I turn to Will. “We’re not.”

“Call her,” Gavin says.

“What? Call who?”

“The old lady. Call her. Confirm it. I need to know I didn’t lose my fiancée for nothing.” There’s a desperate light in Gavin’s eyes, as if now that he’s jumped from the plane, he realizes he doesn’t have a parachute.

“Okay,” I say. Then I flush. “I don’t have my phone.”

Will reaches into his pocket and holds his out to me. There’s a bitter twist to his lips. I take it from his hand. He’s careful not to touch me.

Erma picks up on the second ring. I don’t waste time.

“Hi. Miss Erma, it’s Jessie. Yesterday when you came by the Williams’ house did you tell Gavin he was my soul mate?”

“Hmm? I didn’t go by the Williams’ house. I’m on a trip to NYC, I’m seeing the Rockettes with Wanda.” I hear car horns honking from her end of the line. She’s in New York City?

“What did the lady look like?” I ask Gavin.

He frowns. “Well, there were two of them. Looked like sisters, about eighty, one liked to joke, the other didn’t.”

Ohhh. It was Petunia and Gladiola. The meddling old birds. I knew this was a misunderstanding. Erma can clear it up and confirm that Will is mine. And then, Gavin can go and try to fix this mess with Lacey. And I can go hold Will.

“Miss Erma?”

“Yes?”

“Can you please tell me exactly what you saw when you had the vision of my soul mate?”

Will folds his arms over his chest and looks out the window. The sun streaks through the glass and falls across his shoulders. I want to reach out and hold him. Go back to last night and the warmth of his arms.

“Of course I can. I saw you as a little girl, you were sitting in an oak tree.”

“Yes,” I say, and my breath hitches.

Will turns back and watches my expression. His face is neutral, but I can feel all his attention laser focused on me and my reaction to what Erma says. Across the kitchen, Gavin watches tensely. He has no idea that this means more to Will than a failed business merger.

“And in the tree with you is a little boy. He gives you a hanky and you give him a flower. That boy is your soul mate.”

My stomach plummets. Will’s eyes are locked on mine and he sees her answer in my expression.

“Thank you,” I whisper. I disconnect the call. My throat is tight and aching.

Will nods, and in his nod I see a finality. He’s cutting off what we had. He’s cutting the connection between us.

“Well?” Gavin asks.

I lick my dry lips, unable to look away from Will.

“What did she say?” Gavin says.

I swallow, unable to answer. I search Will’s eyes for the man I know is there, but I don’t see him. I see the stranger I thought he was.

Will can read my expression, he knows what Erma said. Before he said he didn’t care, but now, for some reason, he does. He turns and walks out of the kitchen.

“What?” asks Gavin.

“You’re not mine,” I say, then I run after Will.

My bare feet slap against the cold hardwood as I rush after Will. He’s fast. He’s almost to the front door in the wide, formal receiving room. He’s dressed in a tight t-shirt, jeans and leather shoes. His hair is sleep mussed and there’s a love bite on his neck.

My love bite.

“Will. Wait.”

He doesn’t turn. I grab his arm when he reaches for the brass door handle. I pull him around.

“It doesn’t matter what Erma says. I told you that it doesn’t matter to me,” I say.

He looks me over, and I’m suddenly uncomfortably aware that I’m in a wrinkled dress, covered in orange juice.

“You claim that, but the first chance you got you kissed my brother and confirmed with him and Erma that he’s your ‘soul mate,’” he says in that precise, clipped and distant voice.

“He’s not! I didn’t.”

He raises an eyebrow.

“I mean yes, I did. He kissed me, I didn’t kiss him. He misunderstood and thought that just because Erma said he and I are soul mates that I’d want him. I don’t. I want you.”

Hesitantly, I reach out and put my hand on his chest. It’s as hard and unmoving as stone.

I look up at him and as scared as I am, I reach out. “I love you,” I whisper.

I feel his chest shake beneath my hand. Then he steps back, out of my reach.

“It was a game,” he says in a cold voice.

What? I stare at him. Shake my head in denial.

“You were right. I’d do anything to save the merger and keep you from ruining my brother’s life.”

I shake my head. “No.”

He nods. “It was a game. Looks like I lost.” He gives me a cold smile.

“No,” I say again, my lips are numb.

He doesn’t respond. Instead, he turns and walks away, shuts the door.

I stare at the door in shock. Then I sink to the floor, wrap my hands around my knees and cry.