TEN DAYS Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Blank Page

  Aidan Cross: A Foreword

  Day 1

  A Collision of Memories

  Little Black Dress

  Night 1

  Alone on the patio

  The stories begin

  Shadows and Stillness

  A breath of cold

  Man of Mystery

  Day 2

  Unexpected Ghosts

  Night 2

  Alone In The Study

  Bestselling Author, Consummate Perfectionist

  Day 3

  Captured Moments

  Night 3

  Black Fingernails

  Day 4

  Charades

  Maison de R

  Night 4

  An Unwanted Escort

  Brick Walls

  Day 5

  Aftermath

  Purveyor of Darkness

  Night 5

  Quid Pro quo

  Blind Trust

  The Room

  The Man Inside the Rumors

  Day 6

  Another Summons

  Night 6

  Beneath the Stars

  Keeper of the Shadows

  Day 7

  The Truth About A

  Enough

  Night 7

  More Than Words

  Public Obsession...Private Man

  Day 8

  Nothing is Forever

  Into the Unknown

  The Seduction of Darkness

  Night 8

  No More Chains

  Day 9

  His World, His Story

  Sanctuary

  Piecing it All Together

  Finally, the Beginning

  Night 9

  Checkmate

  Epilogue

  Epilogue v2

  Dream Weaver

  TEN DAYS

  Jenna Mills

  Copyright © 2018 Jenna Mills

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN:

  ISBN-13:

  "in spite of its function as a reservoir for human darkness—or perhaps because of this—the shadow is the seat of creativity...." Carl Jung

  Aidan Cross: A Foreword

  The assignment sounded easy enough. Go to New Orleans. Spend ten days with Aidan Cross. Write an article about the man behind the rumors. I spent countless hours learning everything the Internet and social media could tell me about the secluded mystery writer. I wrote questions and categorized them logically. I made lists of people to interview, places to visit, and photographs I wanted to take. I made plans and agendas.

  Then I stepped off the airplane and into a whole other world, a world of thick muggy air and warm breezes, of majestic oaks and haunting Spanish moss dancing in the wind, a world of resilience and loss and despair. His world. I walked into his world, and all my plans crumbled into nothingness.

  I tried. I tried to stick to my schedule of events. I tried to cram my questions into every moment he granted me—but there weren't enough of those moments for my vision of what was to happen, and the moments we did have, the moments he gave me, unfolded in their own breathtaking tapestry, erasing everything I'd dreamed up while home in Colorado, and replacing them with new questions. New possibilities. Experiences.

  And a new man.

  Not the one I'd expected to find.

  I did my best to document it all, every moment and insight. Every surprise. Every revelation. I opened myself in ways I never imagined. I stepped closer when caution told me to step back. I stayed in the moment. I sought more. And I wrote. I wrote every morning and every evening. I wrote so I would remember. I wrote so I wouldn't lose a single detail.

  I wrote to save the man.

  I wrote to save myself.

  Day 1

  I Arrive

  His house.

  I'll never forget that very first day, standing on the sidewalk and staring at the old mansion on the fringe of the Garden District, with its double galleries and beautiful old ironwork, the dark shutters and heavy, imposing front door. Sometimes I can still feel the push of the breeze as I lifted my hand to the gate separating the moody Italianate from the quiet, shady street. And the heat, the warmth of the early afternoon sun against my face and the burn of the iron gate against my palm. There was a cat stretched on the middle of the three steps leading to the porch, a long, sleek Russian blue with half an ear missing, and another visible through the window, solid white and perched on the back of a chair, watching me. Later, I'd learn she was deaf. But I didn't know that then. I didn't know anything about what awaited me inside, whether I was walking into a dream or a nightmare or some place in between, only that I couldn't stand outside forever, and I wasn't about to walk away.

  There are moments in our lives, small fractures in time that change everything. Who you are. What you want. What is possible. Sometimes you know. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes it's only later when you look back, when you look back and realize the truth. But that afternoon I knew. I knew I was walking away from safe and familiar. I knew I was walking into the unknown.

  And I knew there would be no safety net.

  A Collision of Memories

  A smile. A hello. A handshake. I don't really know what I expected, but I didn't get any of that. I didn't even get him. He wasn't standing behind the door when it opened. He didn't welcome me inside. He didn't offer me a glass of water.

  It was his agent who did all that, his agent who picked up my suitcases and ushered me into the cool, shadowy foyer, his agent who showed me to the large, spacious library off to the right of the long hallway that dissected the house into two halves.

  His agent, Nathan Galloway—my uncle.

  "I didn't know you'd be here," I said, pulling back from one of his hallmark bear hugs. My mother's older brother had always had that way about him, smiling a little brighter, talking a little louder, giving extravagant gifts, as if he could somehow make up for everyone else's shortcomings.

  With his big, animated smile, he looked more like a man pushing forty, than one closing in on sixty. "Wanted to surprise you," he said.

  He'd always had a thing for doing that, too.

  Once he'd lived in New Orleans, but now spent most of his time in New York. "You definitely did," I said. Six months had passed since we'd last seen each other, Christmas at my mom's house in Denver.

  "Excellent!" Despite the fact it was summer and humidity smothered the city, he wore a stylish light grey suit, a dark tie, and easily shifted into professional mode as he led me deeper into the darkly-paneled room. "Let me take your bags to your room, and he'll be with you in a few minutes."

  I eyed him. "Are you sure he's willing to do this?" The whole arrangement still seemed crazy unbelievable to me. Aidan Cross. Bestselling author. And me, Kendall Lawrence. Unemployed recent graduate. (In other words, no one.) For an in-depth interview.

  The first he'd granted in over five years.

  Uncle Nathan put his hands to my shoulders. "I have all the confidence in the world in you."

  In other words, no. He wasn't sure Aidan Cross was on board with the whole be his shadow while interviewing him thing.

  Uncle Nathan's normally laser-sharp grin gentled. "I swear, Kennie. You get more beautiful every time I see you."

  That made me laugh—my uncle could schmooze with the best of them. It was no wonder he was one of the top literary agents in the game.

  "And you're trying to change the subject," I accused with a knowing smile.

  His always-kind eyes twinkled. "Would I do that?"

  Absolutely.

  The small talk went on, until finally he breezed out of the room to make a few phone calls, leaving me alone in the richly masculine s
tudy.

  Warm. That was the first thing I noticed. Dark woods. A leather sofa and chair. Heavy shutters against two tall windows, blocking the view of the front yard, as well as most of the afternoon sun. An empty fireplace. Floor-to-ceiling bookcases dominating two walls.

  But then...cold.

  I stood there, so, so still, with the air conditioning blasting against my bare shoulders, looking from the small accent table to the bookshelves, the walls...around the entire room. And seeing...not a single framed picture. No trinkets or knick-knacks. No abandoned clothing or shoes, not a drinking glass or a pair of readers, or even a paperback novel. No art on the walls. Nothing. Nothing intimate anyway. Nothing that would yield a hint about the man who lived here. Only an arrangement of pillar candles on the gleaming cocktail table, and a few artfully placed magazines. But even those were generic, news-centric rather than anything pertaining to a hobby or interest.

  "Little Kendall."

  I'm not sure how long I'd been standing there with my back to the foyer, when the oddly quiet voice broke the silence. I turned quickly, turned and found him there, in the doorway, watching me. And for a heartbeat, everything flashed, all the online research, the articles and pictures I'd spent hours memorizing. The athletic body. The narrow, intelligent eyes. High, sharp cheekbones. Thin top lip, fuller bottom. Strong jaw.

  Nicky. The name I'd once known him by was there, right there burning against the edges of my memory. But I refused to let it slip any closer.

  As far as I could tell, Nicky Ramirez no longer existed.

  "Aidan," I said instead, coolly, professionally, as I'd practiced so many times. Not only for this moment, for him, but in preparation for all the moments and all the hims. I knew better than to let emotion slip through.

  He looked taller than I expected, taller than I'd realized from the pictures on the web. Taller than before. Despite his reclusive reputation, I'd never imagined how hard it would be to hunt down photos and intel, but my searches had yielded little more than basic, public knowledge. On one fan page I'd read that he was six-foot-two, but the way he stood without moving, framed so perfectly by the dark wood of the doorway, made that number seem too insignificant. His t-shirt was simple and black, snug across his shoulders. The torn, faded jeans were ordinary. And yet...there was nothing plain or ordinary about the low hum moving through me.

  Aidan Cross.

  My uncle's most famous client.

  Of course, there were other adjectives, too... private, crazy-talented...controversial.

  Troubled.

  "Your uncle didn't warn me," he said, the faint curve of his mouth driving home the realization that I was just standing there, staring at him, while second after second dragged by.

  I'd rehearsed our first meet so many times. But from one breath to the next, my well-planned script no longer applied.

  "Warn you?" I asked.

  "I should have realized, though," he said. "Fifteen years is a long time. Even your braid looks grown-up."

  "You remember." The words slipped out before I realized they were there—they were absolutely not what I'd planned. Rehearsed.

  You remember.

  That made it sound like I remembered, too—and that him remembering...mattered.

  Which it didn't.

  But the surprise was there. I had not thought he would remember.

  "That was a long time ago," I dismissed. I'd only been ten, after all, he fourteen.

  "Doesn't mean I don't remember," he said, and his eyes, they were still focused so fully on me, narrowed, intense, as if absorbing me, drinking me in, trying to figure something out. And for an odd, disturbing moment, I couldn't help but wonder if he'd done prep work on me. Then I realized how silly the thought was. There was no way he could have. Having wrapped up grad school only a few weeks before, there wasn't much about Kendall Lawrence to know or find, no web of scandal or gossip decorating my past.

  "You had a blue ribbon in your hair, freckles across your nose, a gap between your front teeth—and a rainbow unicorn on your t-shirt."

  My heart kicked hard.

  He was right. And I didn't need a mirror to know the changes he saw, dark gold hair no longer in pigtails but long and in a single thick braid down my back, the narrowed, watchfulness of my light brown eyes, the engaged, half-smile that always accompanied me on interviews. The cooly sophisticated white, sleeveless blouse and black, linen slacks I'd deliberated over for days.

  "Does that make you uncomfortable?" he asked, stepping deeper into the room. "That I remember?"

  I didn't let myself move. "Not at all."

  I remembered, too. I remembered him long before he became a fixture on top of the New York Times Bestseller List, the skinny kid with the long, stringy hair shooting hoops in Uncle Nathan's driveway. Nicky, he'd been back then. Nicky Ramirez.

  "Then why are you looking at me like you're wondering if there's still time to turn around and walk back out the door?"

  I laughed. It was automatic. I knew what he was trying to do: take control of the moment, and the next ten days. But the questions were mine to ask, not his. He was the one with the damaged reputation and sinking book sales.

  "Good try," I said. "But not even close."

  "As long as you're sure."

  "Very," I said. Absolutely. Completely.

  He surprised me by smiling. "Scholar, award-winning interviewer, honor graduate, tireless blogger....that's an impressive list of accomplishments."

  I stilled.

  "—but tell me," he said, and his voice pitched quieter. "Do you really think you can save me?"

  I stood by the rich leather sofa—his rich, leather sofa—the realization slamming through me. He had done his homework. He'd researched. He'd dug. He'd learned.

  About me.

  "Save you?" I asked. It was an odd choice of words.

  "Isn't that what this is about?" Blue. His eyes were so, so blue. Even in the dim lighting of the study, they gleamed like laser beams. "To save me from myself? Fix me? Make the public not think terrible things about me? Make them love me, so they'll buy my books again?"

  Save.

  Him.

  "That is the goal," I said.

  "Then tell me how," he murmured, and for a second, it almost sounded like he was enjoying this. "How does Kendall Lawrence make Aidan Cross a new man?"

  My throat burned. I wasn't sure why. "By showing another side of you—"

  "Assuming there is one."

  "Assuming there is one," I acknowledged.

  The basic facts were readily available: graduate of Nicholls State University, published first book ten years ago, at nineteen, first appeared on the New York Times bestseller list at twenty-one.

  "I want to show people your world," I told him. Twelve books published, two turned into made-for-television movies. "I want to take them where your stories are, and where they come from."

  Married once.

  "I want you to take me to the places your characters go."

  Widowed.

  "I want to see what they see and feel what they feel."

  Still. He stood there so very, very still. "Are you sure about that?" he asked. "You do know what happens to my characters?"

  Highly reclusive. "It's the only way to bring your world to life." Seen in public so rarely the tabloids dubbed him the Hottest Mystery Man Alive.

  "Isn't that what I do in my books?" he asked. "Bring my world to life?"

  Once suspected of murder.

  "Through my eyes," I amended. "Not yours."

  Those were the facts, the sterile information yielded from my Internet search.

  I wanted what he kept hidden.

  "In ten days," he said simply. "And ten nights."

  Any doubt I'd had about his enthusiasm for Uncle Nathan's last-ditch attempt to salvage a once-bright star faded right then and there. And I knew. I knew what I'd anticipated all along was true.

  Aidan Cross was not going to make my assignment easy.

  "Ye
s," I said. "That's the plan.

  A single corner of his mouth curved. "Where would you like to start?" he asked. "I trust you have questions for me?"

  "Some," I answered vaguely. There were those I could ask right away, that anyone could ask. And there were those that would take a little more time, and a lot more trust.

  "You want to know where my ideas come from," he said. "How I work."

  "Yes."

  "You want to know where I draw the line between fiction and reality."

  He was a storyteller. He got paid to make stuff up. He was good at it. I had to remember that. "Yes," I said. "Provided there is one."

  Many believed there wasn't.

  "And my wife," he said, and with the words, his eyes met mind. "You want to know about my wife."

  Laurel.

  Everything inside me stilled—I had not expected so much so soon. "It would be hard to write about you," I said carefully, "without writing about her."

  He still stood a few feet inside the study. I was still by the sofa. But the walls pushed closer.

  "What about a contingency?"

  "A contingency?"

  His smile was deceptively mild. "A backup—in case your plan blows up in your face."

  The cold was immediate, a needle straight through my core. So I laughed. "Would it be smart to tell you, if I did?"

  Dark. The blue of his eyes went so, so dark. "Not at all."

  "Then I don't."

  This time he was the one who laughed.

  The moment didn't last long. "Your room is upstairs, the second door on the right." He had a key pressed in my hand before I realized he was moving. "You're free to make yourself at home. The downstairs is fully available to you. Closed doors are not."

  I stared down at my palm.

  "Let me know when you leave, and when you expect to be back."

  I looked up.

  "And don't disturb me when I'm working. The carriage house is off-limits."

  "Carriage house?"

  He gestured toward the back of the house. "Outside, beyond the patio. That's where I write."

  "Then I'll need to see—"