Fliss glanced at Matilda’s bump. “You’re sure that’s a baby and not cookies?”
Matilda laughed and pushed open a door.
The kitchen was large and airy, positioned at the back of the house overlooking the garden and the beach.
Fliss thrust her hands into the pockets of her shorts and stared at the view. “This is incredible. How could anyone cook here and not burn everything?”
“It’s even better from the second level. That’s where most of the living space is. I’m always worried Hero is going to go leap off the balcony, so when I’m on my own we spend a lot of time down here. And we have quick access to the beach.”
Private beach, Fliss noted. And Matilda Adams might not have much visible security in terms of beefy guys with dark glasses and discreet headsets, but she certainly had protection. The house was on its own spit of land, bordered by ocean.
And then there was the dog, of course.
Fliss was in no doubt at all that if his family were threatened, Hero would live up to his name.
“Does your beach connect with the main beach?”
“In one small area at low tide. Hero has been known to escape. Which isn’t great, because as you know there are strict rules on the public beach. Up until ten in the morning they can be loose as long as they’re under voice control. Hero struggles with that.”
“We’ll work on it.”
“He’s not great with authority.”
“Don’t worry. Neither am I.” Fliss glanced around, noticing a laptop set up on a table by the window. Every available surface wa
s covered in paper. “That’s a lot of paper. Did your printer malfunction?”
“It’s my next book. I printed it out to do a final read and then dropped it when Hero used me as target practice. I’ve been putting the pages back in order.”
Fliss stooped and picked up a page that had fallen under one of the chairs. “Page two hundred and sixty-five.”
“Brilliant! I was looking for that one.” Matilda took it from her and added it to a pile on the countertop. “I should have printed it out a chapter at a time.”
“So you make your living writing stories. What kind of stories? Anything I’m likely to have read?”
“I don’t know. I write romance fiction, populated by strong, capable heroines who are nothing like me. Women who would not answer the door spattered in cranberry juice.” She grabbed a cloth and mopped at her shirt.
“So are your heroes like Chase?”
Matilda blushed. “In a way. They’re all versions of Chase, but don’t tell him I said that. He’s very private. He’d hate to think I’d put any part of him in a book. Tea or coffee?”
“Coffee, please. Black and strong.” Trying not to think how it must feel to be that crazily in love with a man who loved you back, Fliss picked up another sheet of paper from the floor. “Page three hundred and thirty-four. Looks important. Sex scene. Wow. This is pretty hot. You wrote this?”
“Yes, and you shouldn’t read it out of context!” Matilda tried to snatch it out of her hand, but Fliss held it out of reach as she read the first two paragraphs.
“Hey, you’re good! So is this kind of thing embarrassing to write?”
“No.” Matilda snatched it from her hand, tearing the paper in the process. “The type of sex I write about is always part of character development. It happens for a reason, and it always changes the relationship.” She added the page to the others.
“And that reason can’t just be because the character gets a little desperate?”
“It could be—” Matilda made coffee using a complicated-looking espresso machine “—but the reason they’re desperate is probably to do with reasons a little deeper than that.”
“I don’t understand.”
Matilda leaned against the counter, waiting while the machine did its thing. “So as a writer if I had a character who hadn’t had sex in a while, I’d be asking myself why. There is always a reason.”
“What sort of reason?” Fliss was fascinated.