Writing erotic stories had proved enormous fun. The secret vice had made her feel dangerously naughty while at the same time allowing her to remain totally in control of the events she was describing. The adrenaline rush of writing them also conveniently sublimated her sex drive. As her inhibitions over seeing her words in print loosened, her brief sexual fantasies grew longer and more involved, the writing more explicitly erotic, her characters more complex and plots more complicated until she’d realised that she had the equivalent of two short novels stored on her computer.
She would never have plucked up the courage to do anything with them if, one day, the wind hadn’t whisked away one of the discards she was burning in the garden incinerator and been fielded by Sebastian. He had teased her that the scorching words hardly needed a match to ignite them, but instead of betraying her secret or scoffing at her efforts he had told her he could recommend her to a contact at a London publishing house which specialised in women’s erotica.
Jennifer had been far too timid to take him up on it, but Sebastian, after he had got back to London, had sent her the publishing house’s address and told her that she could deal in complete anonymity if she chose—even the publisher need not know her real name if she cared to go to the bother of concealing it through an agent or lawyer—and that a number of Velvet authors chose to similarly protect their identities for both personal and professional reasons.
Four years later Jennifer had nine books to the credit of ‘Lacey Graham’ and two more in the works, and still hadn’t figured out a way to admit to her mother that the majority of her income was now coming from something other than the bed and breakfast business. The last six-monthly payment of royalties had been the most substantial yet, and her editor had been encouraging her to be even more prolific.
Her editor.
Her interest had been piqued three years ago, when her previous, female editor had left Velvet and a witty letter had arrived from the new one, jokingly introducing himself under the pen-name ‘Sariel’, a play on Jennifer’s persistent refusal to provide any personal information about herself. She had replied in similar vein, saying that a fantasy editor was the perfect choice for a fantasy writer, and that she appreciated the added buffer from reality since she found the idea of working with a male rather inhibiting. That exchange had set the tone for their diverting professional relationship. Lacey had remained Lacey and Sariel had remained Sariel ever since. The fact that he was male had been less important than the fact that he proved a superbly inspirational editor and an extremely entertaining correspondent.
She realised that Rafe was wearing ‘that look’ again, and hastily said, ‘Well, I guess she has good reason for avoiding interruptions. Most writers are rather solitary by nature, aren’t they?’
‘Mmm? Oh, yes, I suppose so.’ Instead of placing the last book on the shelf with the others he began to idly thumb through it. From the title she realised it was one of her earlier works, written before he had become her editor.
‘Do you, uh, work with many other writers?’ She wanted to know whether her ‘special’ relationship with Sariel was so special after all.
‘Not directly. I selected a few I thought had special potential to work with when I first took over as editorial director, but I’m mainly in a consulting role now that Velvet is strongly established. I kept Lacey, though, because we’re such a successful combination it would be a shame to break us up, and working with her still gives me an enormous kick...’ He smiled down at the page, whether at something he read or at his own thoughts she couldn’t tell.
So now she was a kept woman. Kept by Raphael Jordan. Father of her child. Goodness, he was already paying her child support and he didn’t even know it!
Far from being a stranger, in some ways Rafe knew her almost as well as she knew herself. No wonder they had been so attuned to each other in bed—they had been sharing erotic fantasies for years!
Although she knew he must be very familiar with her work, and was probably regarding it with a serious professional eye, it gave her a shivery feeling of vulnerability to see him leafing through her book.
‘Here, I’ll put that back if you want to go and have your shower,’ she offered, attempting to slip it out of his hand.
He waited until her fingers were almost touching it, then snapped it closed and tucked it under his arm. ‘No, thanks,’ he said. ‘I think I’ll re-read it. I did read Lacey’s backlist when I took over as her editor, but I only vaguely remember what this one was about.’
He watched her seethe in thinly veiled frustration, intrigued by the definite tinge of urgency in her haste to get him off the subject of Lacey Graham. She was embarrassed, certainly, but there was something more...
‘I’m sure there are other books here that you haven’t read that you’d find interesting,’ she was lecturing him. ‘Ones that were written for men...’
He bit back a smile at the unspoken ‘real’ hanging in the air before ‘men’. She must be desperate if she was standing there, pregnant with his baby, her body barely cooled from their hot night of love, trying to hint that he was less than masculine.
‘I’m sure there are, but I’m not sexist in my reading habits. I want to read this one.’ He patted the book under his arm. ‘In fact, while I’m here I might re-read the whole set of Lacey Grahams.’ He paused. ‘Does that bother you, Jennifer?’
She bared her teeth at him. ‘Of course not. But doesn’t that make it a bit of a busman’s holiday?’
‘Not if I read them for pleasure,’ he told her, effectively securing the last word as he sauntered off to the bathroom, still carrying the book.
Jennifer stumped downstairs to track down her dog-napped underwear, then had to hear her mother’s fond assurances that naturally they hadn’t expected the honeymoon couple to join them for breakfast.
‘We’re not on our honeymoon, Mum,’ she protested, firmly shutting the door on memories of last night.
‘No, but you can pretend,’ said Paula, using her stick to limp back and forth across the living room floor as she sorted out cartons of clothes and magazines for the church bazaar. ‘Anyway, the Wrights didn’t get up for breakfast, either. They said they didn’t get in until gone three a.m., but they got some marvellous footage of the eruption. I gave them some muffins and pikelets and a flask of coffee in lieu of breakfast, and they went off to see if the Department of Conservation would let them film some of the lahar sites. Do you think you’ll
ever wear this again, Jen?’
Her mother held up a crocheted orange mini-dress and Jennifer couldn’t help smiling. She had been a schoolgirl when she last wore it. Her mother was a sentimental pack-rat. When Jennifer had converted the attic to a bedroom Paula had insisted on moving everything to the garage, and only when they had been unable to get the car in far enough to shut the door had she consented to winnowing out the chaff.
‘I don’t think so. Certainly not in the next six months,’ she said drily.
‘Did you get a chance to tell Rafe about the baby?’
Jennifer busied herself with sorting and folding. ‘Yes.’
‘I’d bet he was surprised.’