He reached for his wallet to grab his Amex when he detected a movement in his peripheral vision, someone standing beside him. Ah, she’d seen the error in her ways and come back to beg his forgiveness.

When he looked up, a self-satisfied smile on his face, it baffled him to see he’d been wrong and nobody was there. The barest whisper of a whomp-whomp filtered through the back of his head and he suspected now a migraine might be on the way.

The image of Orelia staring at him as if he had a problem niggled the hell out of him; just the thought of her, a splinter in his psyche needing to be tweezed. If she called later, begging his forgiveness, he’d give it because that would give him the power to demand they move forward on his terms. He’d tell her that without hesitation.

Hubris!

Really? What a joke. She was Miss Hubris, imagining she’d ever scale the heights he’d achieved with his works of literature, not romance trash like she wrote.

The buzz and whomp-whomp played a tune in his skull, and as he saw himself in the café those years ago, even now he reached for his own temple and pressed. Then he’d thought it was serious, a brain tumor perhaps expanding, morphing into a killer; this sound the warning beacon something was wrong, and he needed to prepare.

He picked up the check, holding the slip and his card in one hand while pushing his other palm against his head to stem the pain.

This was her fault. Orelia Mason, the ungrateful bitch had made a serious mistake.

Good riddance to bad writers, he remembered thinking, they’ll be the death of any professional like himself.

How prophetic he thought as he watched her stand over the poor homeless man and pull out what looked to be the same green book from her bag. The poor loser didn’t have a clue, just like he hadn’t that day. The guy just looked happy as can be to receive a few bucks. A small token, an unfair exchange paid to destroy his life.

You just made the worst mistake of your life, she’d said, no doubt believing she held the best cards. Kudos to her because for all these years she had been winning in a magnificent way. He was quite certain she had wished he’d go away and die, kill himself with an addiction or sleeping pills, or fall foul of an inexplicable accident.

Morris’ last words had been, she’s not somebody to play with and she’s unforgiving. And dangerous.

Well ditto, she’d picked the wrong opponent and he wasn’t in a forgiving mood either.

“Oh no,” he whispered, “You played well, but I see you Orelia Mason, whoever you are, whatever you’ve become, I’ll raise you.”

He didn’t have a full house yet, but he did know what he needed to do next.

53

Nem enjoyed her writing time so much that even while she was at work her mind always drifted to her nook space. She could barely get through the day without the story racing ahead, and her despairing she wasn’t at home writing it down.