The Guy Next Door - By Lori Foster, S Donovan, V Dahl Page 0,80
the vacation house next door. Yet I still opened up to you, Jesse! I had the courage to be myself with you!”
He’d never felt this low in his life.
Gail spun around. She headed out his bedroom door and made a beeline directly toward his office, the door to which he’d intentionally left closed whenever she came to the house. Jesse watched her flip on the light and stand in the doorway, nodding.
He came up behind her and leaned an arm on the doorjamb. He’d never before felt queasy with embarrassment at the sight of his framed book covers and rave reviews.
Gail spun around to find that his arm blocked her way out. She stared at him with cold, hard eyes. “The tragedy is that I did love you for who you are—who I thought you were, anyway—and if I’d known from the start that you were some famous mystery writer I would have found a way to love you in spite of it!”
“It’s really more suspense than mystery,” he couldn’t stop himself from saying.
She shook her head in disbelief. “You’re a total dipshit, J. D. Batista. Hey, that must be what the ‘D’ stands for! Dipshit!” She ducked under his outstretched arm and raced down the stairs in her bare feet. He ran after her.
“Gail, wait! You can’t just walk out. We need to talk!”
“I don’t want to talk to you right now,” she said, reaching for the front doorknob and looking over her shoulder. “I’ll let you know when and if I ever feel like talking to you again.”
Jesse placed his hand on her back, but she jerked away from his touch. Those soft brown eyes burned.
“Oh, I almost forgot!” she said, preparing to slam the door behind her. “Thanks for the vacation memories!”
CHAPTER EIGHT
JESSE SAT AT HIS DESK. He stared out the window at the banyan tree, his first cup of morning coffee in his hand, still reeling from what had happened with Gail the night before. What his agent just told him hadn’t improved his mood any, either.
His publisher had said no on the two-week extension request. They wanted the manuscript by 10:00 a.m. the next day. But for good reason, Beverly told him in an excited voice. They’d moved up the pub date of that book by six whole months. And they’d decided to send him out on tour with his summer release.
“This is a sure sign that they believe in you, Jesse, that they’re certain you can turn those numbers around.” Beverly waited for some type of enthusiastic response from him, but when she didn’t get one, she continued on. “I’m not sure you realize how big this is. Authors aren’t getting this kind of support right now, Jesse, not in this economy. And they’re behind you even though your numbers are down.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Jesse? Do you hear what I’m saying? Isn’t this fabulous?”
Not exactly.
Gail was leaving in twenty-four hours, the exact same time his publisher expected to have his completed manuscript in hand. How was he supposed to send in a halfway decent manuscript and win Gail back at the same time?
Jesse got up from his chair and began to pace. “So I guess this isn’t a good time to tell you that I was about to ask for a two-week extension on top of the two-week extension they just nixed?”
Beverly didn’t answer right away. “No,” she eventually said. “That wouldn’t be smart.”
He walked back and forth in front of the eight custom-framed book covers hanging at precise intervals on his office wall, knowing in his heart that Gail had been right. He was a dipshit.
His agent had one more point to make, apparently. “I have to ask you, Jesse, what’s going on in your life that’s more important than your career? You seem quite distracted. You’re not having more problems with that crazy tourist, are you?”
He stopped pacing and leaned a hip up against the windowsill. For some reason, all he could think of was the moment Gail first slipped her hand into his, just before he took her on the moped tour. Before that day had ended, she would have revealed her heart to him, made him laugh and pranced around in a dental floss bikini for him.
Jesse stood straight, the truth of it suddenly hitting him like a boat anchor upside his head. When he’d told Gail he was falling for her, he’d meant it. But it was more than that. Gail Chapman was the only woman he wanted. She