29. Twenty-Nine

29

PRESENT

O utside the village hall, it’s started to snow again; tiny, silver-edges flakes which land on the branches of the giant Christmas tree and glitter there like jewels.

Not that I notice any of that.

Well, it’s hard to think about the scenery, really, when you’ve just found out that the ex who may-or-may-not still be in love with you is also the person you’re supposed to be ghostwriting a book for, and now you’re making a run for it; dashing out of the room like Lizzie Bennet after she turns down Darcy’s proposal.

As always, Elliot is the twist in every plot.

“Holly, wait.”

I’ve just passed the Christmas tree and am headed for the inflatable snow globe when Elliot appears at the door of the village hall, with a small crowd of people — including the guy with the giant furry microphone — behind him.

That’s when I start running.

“Would you just back off?” I hear Elliot yell at the photographers and other curious onlookers as he sets off in pursuit. “Give a guy a minute, would you? Holly, wait!”

But I do not wait. I am very much done waiting, actually. Instead, I run all the way to the bookstore — okay, it’s just a few meters, but still — rummaging in my pocket as I go, and almost sobbing with relief when my fingers close around the keys to the shop, which Past Me somehow had the sense to pick up before she left the house. The store is closed today, because everyone’s been at the book festival, but at least it’ll be somewhere to hide until all of this has blown over.

So, about the next hundred years or so, then.

That should just about do it.

The same keys that will allow me to escape the prying eyes of the entire village, however, are also the ones that lose me a precious few seconds as I fumble them into the lock. Those seconds are all it takes for Elliot to catch up with me, and, before I know what’s happening, I’m opening the bookshop door, and we’re somehow going through it together, Elliot slamming it firmly closed behind us.

“Look, I can explain,” he says, holding his hands up as he turns to face me. “I get that this is a shock, and I promise, I can explain, but … just give me the keys first, will you? I’d rather do this in private, if it’s all the same with you.”

No sooner has he spoken than Levi and Paris appear, their faces distorted against the glass as they peer through the shop door. Now it’s like a scene from The Walking Dead .

This day cannot end soon enough for me.

“Holly, let us in,” yells Levi, who’s clearly living in even more of an alternative reality than I thought he was if he thinks he’s getting to film this for his Booktok channel.

I step forward and pull down the blind, hiding them both from view, while Elliot locks the door.

“We do work here, you know,” comes Paris’s voice from the other side. “You can’t keep us out. We have contracts.”

“I’ll pay you double-time if you go home and leave me alone,” I yell back.

There’s a short silence as they debate this, then their shadowy forms disappear from behind the door, leaving Elliot and I alone at last; something I’d have welcomed just a few minutes ago, when he was being all cute and eloquent, and referring to me as ‘the love of my life’, but which is now about as welcome The Grinch on Christmas morning.

I’m about to tell him this, but then I remember how he said he could explain, and, actually, that’s something I’d love to hear around about now.

“Go on, then,” I say, leaning against one of the bookshelves and giving him what I hope is an appropriately forbidding look. “Explain.”

Elliot reaches up and once again tries to adjust the glasses he no longer wears.

“Um. I just need a second,” he mutters, making me sigh in exasperation. “It’s … complicated.”

“Which bit?” I ask, unimpressed. “The bit where you revealed yourself to be Vivienne Faulkner, or the bit where you booked me to ghostwrite a book for you? Because that was you, right? I’m not imagining this? There’s not two Vivienne Faulkners out there, both writing romance books, is there?”

“No, that was me,” Elliot admits, shamefacedly. “Well, it was Harper, really. She’s the one who found you on the ghostwriting site and got in touch. But I asked her to do it, obviously.”

“Harper.” I nod, thinking about how wrong I was when I’d pictured shiny-haired, well-dressed Harper Grant as some kind of jolly old cat lady. “Right. But how did you even know to look for me there? How did you know I was ghostwriting? I only told you about it a few days ago, but I’d already been booked by ‘Vivienne’ before that. Or … wait. Did you use ghostwriters for all of your books as Vivienne? Is that what you’re saying?”

I cross the room to one of the sofas and let myself sink into it as I consider this horrible possibility.

“No! No, of course not!”

Elliot tries to sit next to me, but changes his mind when he sees the look on my face, and takes a seat opposite, instead.

“I wrote every word of those books myself,” he tells me, firmly. “And I didn’t hire you for the latest one because I didn’t think I could write it myself. I did it because I wanted to help you.”

“To help me?” My eyes are so wide the air is hurting them. “Why would you think you needed to help me? And you haven’t answered my question about how you knew I was a ghostwriter in the first place?”

Elliot stares at his feet.

“I found out completely by chance,” he says. “Honestly. I have a lot of contacts in the publishing industry, that’s all. One of them had become a pretty good friend, and he recognized your name from some work you did for his publishing house. He told me because … well, I guess I’d mentioned you a few times. More than a few times, really. Okay, a lot. I mentioned you a lot. And you have quite a memorable name, so…”

“That’s totally unethical,” I interrupt. “All of my ghostwriting was supposed to be confidential. This is a complete abuse of trust.”

“I know,” Elliot says miserably. “And I’m sorry. Really. But once I knew you were writing, Holly, I had to know more. It was the first thing I’d heard about you in years, and I just … I just grabbed it.”

“I can’t believe you let me sit there and tell you all about my amazing new career last night when you already knew about it,” I go on. “Why didn’t you say something then?”

“I wanted to let you tell me in your own time,” he says, looking uncomfortable. “I wanted to tell you — really, I did — but I felt like it should come from you. And, I mean, it’s a hard thing to just blurt out, isn’t it? Especially when we were having such a nice time. Well, I thought it was nice, anyway. I thought we were starting to get somewhere, and I didn’t want to ruin it by suddenly revealing I was Vivienne. I figured it might be a bit of a mood killer.”

“You don’t say,” I reply sarcastically.

“I was planning to tell you, though, Holly,” he says earnestly. “It’s just … last night I felt like you were finally starting to open up to me again, and I didn’t want to ruin that by telling you I’d read all of your books.”

“Oh, God.” I put my head in my hands. Not even Aunt Lorraine has read all of my books. And Dad says they’re ‘not quite his thing’. But now Elliot’s read them, which is all kinds of mortifying, really, until I remember that this is the man who apparently wrote Dancing With a Daydreamer and Passport to Passion , and I feel a bit better.

“Don’t be embarrassed,” he says, chuckling. “I really liked them.”

“Really?” I peer at him through my fingers.

“Really. Boss Babe 101 is my favorite. It’s like a road map for your soul.”

“That’s a line from the blurb.”

“I know.”

He smiles again, and I have to bite the inside of my cheek to stop myself from smiling back at him.

I wish he didn’t have this effect on me. Especially when I still don’t understand even half of what’s going on here.

“I’m not lying when I say I liked the books, Holly,” Elliot says, seriously. “You’re a great writer. I’ve always known that. But I also know this isn’t the kind of thing you want to write. Self-help. Non-fiction. You were born to write stories. And that’s why I got Harper to invent a book for you to write. I thought if I just gave you that nudge you needed, then maybe…”

“Do you have any idea how patronizing that sounds?” I object. “Seriously? The big shot, published author, coming riding to the rescue of poor little Holly, who can’t come up with a plot on her own? And you were going to pay me to do it? Like I’m some kind of charity case? I just … I’m sorry, I still can’t believe this is happening.”

My cheeks are burning with shame as the full weight of what he’s telling me finally hits me.

I was absolutely fine with not being credited for my work when I thought it was someone other than my ex-boyfriend who was paying me for it. But the thought of Elliot doing it fills me with the kind of fury that makes me pop up from the sofa like a rocket about to launch.

“Holly, no,” Elliot insists, jumping up too, and grabbing me by the arms. “It wasn’t charity. It was a fair wage for the work.”

“The work that you were going to take credit for?” I hiss, shaking him off. “Like when you used my ideas in The Snow Globe ?”

Elliot lets go of my arms, his face ashen.

“I was never planning to publish your writing under my name … um, my pen name, I mean,” he says quietly. “I wouldn’t have done that. I was going to tell you who I was. I was going to persuade you to publish it under your own name. I swear to you, Holly; that’s what I was trying to do. It was about you, not about me. And as for The Snow Globe … well, I’ve already tried to explain that to you. I don’t know what else to say except that I’m sorry. I messed up. I really, really messed up.”

He sits back down and puts his face in his hands. I stand there next to him, anger slowly fading as it occurs to me that there’s much more to this story that I still haven’t heard.

“Wait,” I say, going over to one of the display tables and picking up a copy of Vivienne Faulkner’s newest release. “There’s something I still don’t understand.”

I thrust the book under his nose, forcing him to look at the photo of ‘Vivienne’ on the back cover.

“Who’s this?” I demand. “And why did I spend a bunch of my time feeling sorry for her, what with the mystery illness that was apparently stopping her from writing her book?”

Elliot takes the book and turns it over in his hands, as if he’s never seen it before.

“Look, Holly, I never intended for anyone to find out about this,” he sighs at last. “I’ve probably just destroyed my reputation by talking about it now, in fact. That was never part of the plan. I’ve already got at least a dozen missed calls from my publisher on my phone. So believe me when I tell you that I didn’t set out to purposefully deceive anyone with …. this.”

He places the book on the coffee table in front of him, and I perch on the edge of the sofa, interested in spite of myself.

“So, what did you set out to do?” I ask softly. “And who is she?”

“She’s a model,” he replies, shrugging. “She posed for the author photos. We made up a fake biography for her to make it seem real. I did it because I had no intention of ever being associated with those books. I mean, me? A romcom writer?” He laughs without humor. “My family accepted The Snow Globe … eventually … but I’d never had lived down this kind of thing.” He taps the cover of the book in front of him. “Never. Not in a million.”

“But you wrote them anyway?”

“Yeah. Because I enjoyed it. And because I knew you liked romance books. It made me like them too. You’re not the only one who appreciates a happy ending, you know.”

I take the book back and flick through it silently.

“I do like romance books,” I admit at last. “I like yours. Vivienne’s. Whatever. I’ve read them all.”

“Really? Even S’More Than Friends ? I was never really sure about that title.”

“Yup. All of them. Even this latest one. I read it as soon as it arrived. I really enjoyed it. I just can’t believe you wrote it.”

From the cover of the book, ‘Vivienne Faulkner’ beams up at me. It’s strange to think she isn’t real; or isn’t who she seems to be, at least.

Just another thing that turned out to be fake around here.

“I can’t believe I wrote it either,” says Elliot, rubbing his chin. “I can’t believe I wrote any of them. My family doesn’t even know it’s me. Shit. I expect they will now.”

He looks up at me, eyes wide as he realizes exactly what he’s done by deciding to unmask himself on the stage earlier.

“Um, yeah. I’d say so. Levi will have it on TikTok already. It’s probably gone viral by now. No, don’t look,” I add quickly, seeing Elliot reach for his phone. “It’s best not to read the comments. Trust me, I’ve been working with Levi and Paris for long enough to know that you never read the comments when something goes viral.”

“Right. Well, I guess I have a lot to learn.”

“I think we both do.”

We look at each other, suddenly shy. So much has happened over the last 24 hours that it’s almost impossible to process it all.

Elliot is Vivienne.

Martin is a dirty, rotten liar.

Harper Grant isn’t a matronly looking cat lady.

I’m … confused. I’m just very, very confused.

“Come here,” says Elliot in a soft voice. He pats the sofa cushion next to him, indicating for me to sit down. “Come and talk to me, Holly. Properly, I mean. I think we owe each other that much, at least. Don’t you?”

I swallow nervously, then nod.

“Okay,” I say, allowing myself to slide from my position on the armrest down to the seat next to him. “Let’s do it. Let’s talk.”