Once Upon a Date - Susan Hatler Page 0,11
tightening up again. A second chance from him was the last thing I needed. “I’d like to say it was nice seeing you again, but I’d rather write a book about wrenches than change one page of my novel to suit your unromantic, unrealistic, and unreadable brain.”
With that, I calmly strode out the door and headed for the elevator. Despite my bravado, the further I got from his office the harder I had to blink to keep the tears at bay. I stabbed all of the elevator buttons, not caring which floor it took me to, as long as it was away from this one. I stepped inside, ready to have a private moment to fall apart, but just as the doors slid closed a hand thrust between them and they opened again.
Brooks stepped into the elevator and let the doors close behind him. Great, just great. I kept my gaze on the doors and refused to look his way.
He turned to me. “Look, Michelle, please don’t get me wrong. I loved the book, I really did. And if I were in the market for a modern day fairy tale, I’d have snapped it up. The descriptions were beautiful, the writing was rich and colorful, and it made me laugh many times. But readers don’t want that kind of a romance. They want real life.”
My eyebrows came together as the elevator gave a cheerful ping and we stopped at the next floor on our way down. “That, I believe, is what is called a back-handed compliment.”
“I’m just saying—”
“Your rejection was loud and clear, Brooks,” I said, thinking his “praise” for my writing didn’t do anything to lessen the sting. The elevator door closed and we were moving again. “We’ll have to agree to disagree. Because I know that in real life love can be expressed with those grand gestures from my book, just like two masked strangers can find romance at a charity ball. Not us, though, because you weren’t exactly forthcoming about being an editor who’s pessimistic about love.”
Ping! We stopped at the next floor and the elevator doors opened.
“You didn’t tell me you were an author,” he said.
“Whatever,” I said, pounding on the button until the doors closed again. Then I moved back and glared at him. “The point is that the evening was all fake. Not real.”
“Fantasy,” he said, holding my gaze. “Just like fairy tales,” he said, and to my horror he produced my manuscript from behind his back. My eyes widened as he flicked through the pages, and let them fall open somewhere in the middle.
If there was one thing I hated, it was when people read my work aloud. Well, unless it was to praise it, which I knew wasn’t going to happen with Mr. Negative here.
I held up my hands. “Please spare me—”
“I need to give you examples to help you understand.”
Ping!
“I understand plenty,” I said, wishing I hadn’t pressed all of those floors. What had I been thinking?
“Here, for instance,” he said, sounding annoyingly excited. “Your hero and heroine are in a subway elevator somewhere in New York, when the elevator suddenly stops and they realize they are stuck in it together, just the two of them.”
I shrugged. “So? It happens.”
He raised an eyebrow, a gesture I remembered well. “When? When does that ever happen in real life?”
As if on cue, the elevator shuddered, and then came to a sudden stop.
A jolt of electricity blasted my chest. Oh, no. “Did I ever mention I get claustrophobic?”
He looked at me accusingly. “You did that on purpose.”
“What? With the power of my mind?”
“You must have pressed the emergency stop button.”
I put my hands on his arms and moved him to one side. “Well, seeing as the buttons are all behind you and I had no way of reaching them, I’d say either you pressed the stop button, or this elevator just proved my book right.”
The incredulous look on his face told me all I needed to know and I laughed, not quite sure whether to gloat, or go into full claustrophobia-panic mode.
Chapter Five
“Don’t worry, the elevator will start up again in a minute.” Brooks thrust his hands to his hips, even while clutching my manuscript still, and started pacing (as much as one can pace in a small metal box) from one side of the elevator to the other. “It’s temperamental sometimes.”
“Must be related to you then.” I blew out a large breath, blowing wisps of blonde hair, which had worked their way loose