Lily nodded. “Okay.”
Silently, he left her room and shut the door behind him. He walked past her sleeping cousins, sat in the armchair and stared up at the ceiling. Was it possible for him to ever not fuck things up?
In the morning, he took an early train before Lily woke up. And he tried not to think about how it had felt to feel her pulse beating beneath his fingertips.
14
Lily should have been paying attention to the acquisitions meeting that was taking place before her. She sat on the outskirts of the conference table along with the rest of the assistants and junior-level staff, as Edith pitched the next book that she hoped to sign up to Christian Wexler, the president of their division, and the heads of Marketing, Publicity and Sales. The book was a memoir about one woman’s experience working as the assistant to the famous primatologist Jane Goodall at the beginning of her career during the early 1960s.
With notebook and pen in hand, Lily was supposed to be ready to write down any feedback gained during this meeting, but her mind was miles from the assigned task.
She was too busy thinking about Nick.
She hadn’t heard from him since last Saturday night, or rather Sunday morning. He’d left her parents’ house by the time she’d woken up. She hadn’t been surprised necessarily, given the look on his face after they’d kissed. He liked her. She knew that now. The way he’d kissed her was proof enough. She’d felt so close to him after he’d opened up to her about his family, and she’d been seconds away from ripping her top off and risking it all before Violet had texted her about Tomcat. But Nick was too afraid or unwilling to give them a fair chance. He was determined to fight his feelings for her.
You deserve better than me. So much better.
What did he even mean by that? What, in his opinion, would be better? He respected her, and he made her laugh. He was kind and cared about what she had to say. She felt like she could be herself around him. He’d navigated her family with ease, and, for goodness’ sake, he’d made cupcakes for her parents’ birthday party! Those were the things that were important to her.
Did he think of Lily as a princess living in an ivory tower? That he needed to be perfect in order to be worthy of her? She liked him exactly as he was. But he had such a low opinion of himself. Nothing that he’d shown her resembled the things he’d told her about his father and grandfather, but for some reason, he felt as though turning out like them was inevitable. She wished she could convince him otherwise, but she also knew that Nick was a grown man and he’d need to come to that realization himself. She thought that a relationship with Nick could work, but she knew better than to wait around for him to change his mind and see their potential. She’d promised herself that she wouldn’t get caught up with Nick, and now look! She’d made a fool of herself again.
The best thing to do here was put distance between herself and Nick until she felt like she could be around him and legitimately think about only friendship.
“Lily,” Edith hissed, snapping Lily back to the present. “Can you please give everyone the handouts that we made?”
From Edith’s impatient tone, it was clear that she’d called Lily’s name more than once. Lily jumped out of her seat and proceeded to pass out the one-sheets she’d created, which included selling points for the book Edith wanted to acquire, along with the sales numbers of books with similar content. Once Lily finished passing out the sheets, she found her seat again, annoyed with herself. She was usually hyperfocused during any meeting, regardless of how boring. It was unlike her to be distracted this way.
“The sales for these comparative books are pretty low,” Christian Wexler said, sitting at the other end of the conference table. “I mean, honestly, Edith, who wants to read about Jane Goodall’s first assistant? The chimps are all that people really care about.”
“Can we do some sort of nonfiction photograph book of the chimps?” asked Tracy, head of Marketing.
Christian pointed at her. “Now that is a great idea.”
“And think about the distribution we could get at zoo gift shops,” added Randy, head of Sales.
Edith glowered at Christian. He was the big cheese now, but decades ago he’d been her father’s assistant. And once a month, he and Edith had a cheerful breakfast across the street at Maison Kayser, where they reminisced on the good old days. At least that was what Lily assumed they did. What she knew for sure was that at their last breakfast, Christian had encouraged Edith to acquire books with more modern topics because her imprint’s sales were steadily decreasing. Edith later told Lily that she thought Christian was jealous that he hadn’t inherited her father’s imprint himself. So began her conspiracy theory that Christian had it out to shut down Edith Pearson Books. In Lily’s opinion, Christian was smarmy and inconsiderate and often took credit for divisional achievements that he had nothing to do with. But Lily had to agree that Edith’s books were becoming more niche and obscure. Their marketing budget was getting smaller, and fewer people were willing to put in the extra effort to help Edith’s books succeed because she was so unpleasant to work with. Lily had tried to convince Edith to sign up books that talked about tech and global warming, and even dating apps—anything that might appeal to a wider audience. But Edith never listened. She thought Lily lacked vision.