Orelia tapped the book’s page before closing the covers and bending sideways to place it in her tote.

She cocked her head back and smiled a proper smile, not the fake smile she’d just worn to freak him out. Of course he relaxed a little. When she said “William, I’m sorry,” he expected this little thing would become something they’d laugh about in the years ahead.

You should be, he’d thought, nestling himself into the chair, preparing for the lecture he would enjoy delivering to her. She now understood who was the boss. He opened his mouth to accept her apology and add, you need to go away and think about your attitude Miss.

When she spoke again, he realized he’d mistaken her words for a truce. His moment of pride in standing his ground was an underestimation of the person he had come to know. He’d even thought then, you never truly knew anyone or their capabilities. Now of course, he understood completely he hadn’t a clue who sat across from him that day.

“You aren’t helping me out of the goodness of your heart,” she said. “You’re helping you. Hubris and vanity fill your heart. Your mentoring is an act of selfish gain, not generosity.”

An odd clicking noise filled the air around him, a frog’s mating sound that belonged in a pond and not inside his head.

What was she talking about? Hubris? Him? She was the one bucking the system in arrogance, defying his experience, the editor’s expertise. Vanity, selfish! How the hell could she say that of him after everything?

The clicking intensified, the clatter rising like a killer wave on the horizon, making him feel trapped as the inescapable bore down on him. The tics echoed and multiplied, smashing against his skull, until a twinge of nausea swam over him.

He must have drunk too much coffee; while wasting considerable precious time with a spoiled brat who imagined she was a best seller in the making.

He’d had enough of her. No number of apologies, even ones accompanied by chocolate, would ever convince him to grant her a second chance. This was it! No going back.

He tried to speak, to answer her accusations, but his skull vibrated so that he felt as if in the next ten seconds his brain would liquify.

He did manage to stammer, “I’m trying to… help you. Don’t listen—at your peril.”

She smiled a demure, cotton-candy smile and he recognized the woman he’d first met back in the Bountiful Books store. This was the woman, grateful for his guidance, enthusiastic and childlike in her wonder of his experience.

Recalling this moment these years later, he tensed, then relaxed, as he did back then. He remembered how it was that moment when the buzz, the clicking-hum annoyance waned, allowing him to gather his thoughts. That was when it hit him then, and even more so now in hindsight.

She wasn’t smiling because she understood his kindness or because she realized her mistake and that he was right and she wrong. Orelia Mason smiled because she’d done something to him and she enjoyed what she’d done.