Total pages in book: 86
Estimated words: 82868 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 82868 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 414(@200wpm)___ 331(@250wpm)___ 276(@300wpm)
“And because she’s incredible at what she does—that’s part of the attraction, right?” he asks. “She’s brilliant.”
He meets my gaze and my heart trips in my chest. He’s looking at me with so much passion and fire—I’ve not seen him like this before. It’s shot him way past adorable to sexy as hell.
Zach nods and types as if he’s taking notes about what I’m saying.
I glance back down at my phone, silently hoping he can’t read my thoughts. “And he’d probably smile at her more than…an ordinary work colleague,” I suggest. I’m monumentally bad at this. How do I know what a guy in love looks like? Looking back, it’s been years since I’d felt anything like that from Shane. I just hadn’t noticed the way our relationship had drained away as the days and weeks and months all bled into each other. In the early years, every time I’d started to question whether I was happy, I’d get distracted by one of Shane’s famous eruptions. That together with the fact that I was so desperate to prove to my parents that everything was great and that Shane wasn’t the man they thought he was, meant I’d just focused on smoothing things over. I forgot to ask myself if I wanted what was left behind. By the end, I was so focused on keeping him happy, I totally forgot that I was supposed to be happy too.
Zach pauses his typing, but keeps his eyes on his screen. I’m grateful. I don’t need another complicated working relationship. I have a plan and I need to stay focused. “But if he’s not a smiler—you know, if smiling didn’t come naturally to him—what else could indicate he was in love?”
Before I have a chance to ask what kind of research project his “friend” is working on, something in the main office hits the door with a blow that makes the entire wall shake.
“Jen?” I call out.
“I’ll have you out of there in a jiffy,” she shouts like we’re ten meters underground.
I glance back at Zach, who’s oblivious. He’s far too busy responding to his “friend.”
Five
Zach
After a full day behind the desk at Wimpole Street, I started out walking because I thought a stroll through Regents Park would be a good time to have a think about exactly how to introduce my main character to the reader. I know Benjamin Butler, the head of hospital security, is an ex-professional football player, a lover of chess, and a man of extraordinary intelligence. And I also know he is still in love with his ex-wife and likes coaching the local football club. I just don’t know how to introduce him to the reader—or, more accurately, I’ve written three opening scenes and can’t decide which one would work best.
My mind shouldn’t be occupied with Benjamin Butler when I’m trying to establish a business. It’s just the first time in so long that I’ve had any substantial time outside of the hospital, and it happens to coincide with a break from my family trying to set me up with various women. Having two days a week when I’m not at the hospital, exhausted from work, or being berated by my brothers is a breath of fresh air, and what’s filled that fresh air are ideas. Not ideas for my new private practice, but ideas for books I want to write.
Benjamin Butler is the main character in a cozy mystery set in a London hospital—an idea I’ve been playing with for years. The last few weeks have breathed fresh life into him, and it feels like an old friend has come to stay. I also had the idea for a series about a primary school teacher who spends her evenings and weekends tracking down stolen goods and reuniting people with objects that were sentimentally valuable to them in various ways. I’ve even had an idea for an ex-Met police officer who retires in Norfolk and finds mystery and murder on his doorstop. The ideas are spilling out of me like pus out of a boil, completely preoccupying my thoughts on Thursdays and Fridays—and increasingly on my days off.
Walking helps me sort through them. I thought I’d get through Regents Park, then pick up a cab before Primrose Hill. But I ended up just walking the whole way, and all of a sudden I’m on Hampstead Heath. The ideas are flowing so thick and fast I’m voice-noting myself so I don’t forget anything.
I check the clock on my phone. I’m going to be about fifteen minutes late getting to Nathan’s for dinner. Given his four brothers and his parents are doctors, he’s no doubt used to it. But not from me. I end my voice note about Benjamin Butler being called to the morgue to discuss another body that’s appeared out of nowhere and message the group chat among the five of us brothers to say I’m going to be fifteen minutes late. It always depends on shifts which brother will be able to make the dinners we arrange together, but all logistics are on the chat together so if anyone can make it last minute, everything is there for everyone to see.