Total pages in book: 89
Estimated words: 82940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82940 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 415(@200wpm)___ 332(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
But then she admonished herself. This was Jay Malone. Annoying, loud Jay who was pushy and overly assertive. Jay, who only dated models twice her height and twice as beautiful. More than that, though Jay had always made her feel safe, she still hadn’t lost her fear of being dominated by a powerful man. A fear she’d carried around with her since college. She knew Jay as a friend—but not what he’d be like as a lover or boyfriend. She figured he’d be too possessive and domineering—exactly what she didn’t want in a man.
She turned her attention back to her article, but the fifteen hundred words she’d managed to type swam before her eyes. So she just sat for a few minutes and thought back on the extraordinary revelations Jay had offered her. She still couldn’t believe that in all the years he’d been coming to the Davenport house for family gatherings, she’d never known a thing about his childhood or his humble beginnings. He just had such an aura of success about him that she’d figured he’d gone to some Ivy League school without ever asking. She’d been to Stanford and was used to the blazing confidence so many people had when they got into such a respected institution. But since she wasn’t like that herself, it had been foolish to make assumptions about Jay. And what a shock to discover he hadn’t even graduated from high school. His beginnings were more than just humble—they were, frankly, disadvantaged. And yet look what he’d made of himself. It was the kind of rags-to-riches story that people loved.
And yet, as much as her fingers itched to tell his tale in all its brutal detail, something was stopping her.
She recalled the moment when he’d said, “Do the readers of the Sea Shell really want to know this?” He’d been defending his choice of the kinds of deals he made, but this was a man baring his soul in a way he never had before in an interview. She knew that because she’d done her research and hadn’t been able to find one darned personal thing about his life except for romantic links to a plethora of models. Although he’d told her that he’d spoken candidly because it was her, she couldn’t quite believe this was the whole truth. Could it be that he’d become so lost in talking about the past he’d simply forgotten they were two professionals on the record? Had he felt, as she had, that the whole world had melted away until they were just two souls, showing themselves to each other?
She shook her head. No, she was getting carried away. This wasn’t a scene from one of the romantic movies he never put his stars into.
And yet she couldn’t let the thought go. If he’d opened up because it was her, as he’d explained, then he might have forgotten she was a reporter. If she told the world his painful story, one that he’d never revealed before, would he be filled with regret? See it as betrayal of a family friendship?
There was a reason she hadn’t made a career of hard-hitting investigative news reporting. She didn’t want to humiliate anyone or expose their secrets unless they wanted them exposed. And in this case, she couldn’t be sure.
She blinked at the screen and read over what she’d written about the house he’d bought, which definitely would be of interest to the people of Carmel-by-the-Sea, and some of the funny things he’d said—what it was like to move into a town where there were so many art galleries, fancy pet stores, and real estate offices. She smiled, seeing the town she loved so much through somebody else’s eyes. Through Jay’s eyes.
Her fingers hovered over the keys for a moment and then she continued to type, checking the recording on her phone every so often. She wrote about how he kept dog treats handy even though he didn’t have a dog, because every time he was out walking through Carmel or across the beach, he met the greatest dogs and in this way he was getting to know the locals. She gave space to the highlights of his career, omitting the hard time she’d given him about not putting his actors in romances. The more she typed, the more the words seemed to pour from her fingers, and she entered that flow state where the story felt like it was writing itself.
She was just proofreading her piece before sending it to Pat for an edit, when Clark arrived with a selection of photos to run with it. She was intrigued to see what Clark had captured. Jay photographed well, with those intense eyes in the tough-guy face and the shaved head. He looked relaxed and truly at home in Carmel. The thought made her smile.