The Reluctant Heiress: A Novella(47)
These days, I’m pretty handy in a garden.
the end
Note from the Author
Thank you for reading The Reluctant Heiress. I hope you enjoyed this whirlwind novella and Candace’s journey to finding love, acceptance, and herself. Oh, and Sebastian. Drool. Some of you have been waiting for this a long time—thanks for hanging in there!
Believe it or not, I started writing The Reluctant Heiress shortly after finishing work on The Reluctant Socialite. My initial plan was to publish both within months of each other. What’s my excuse? In a nutshell, life happens. More specifically, I hit an emotional wall when I realized to do Candace justice, I needed to write about breast cancer.
The topic is a painful one for me. I’ve lost people, one of my sisters among them. I’ve also watched warrior-women fight and overcome this terrible affliction. I found it incredibly tricky to navigate the line between my emotional response and the purity of the love story. Frankly, the first draft was sad. Really, really freaking sad. S-A-D.
So I cut, rewrote, cut some more, and ended up with what you have in your hands—a story about a woman who (like most of us) has some hangups and unhealed heart-wounds, and finds the courage to let it all hang out on the road to happiness.
All my love,
LM
Turn the page for an exclusive excerpt of The Muse, available now on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited!
The Muse
1. aesthetics
The three flights of stairs before me might as well be Everest, only instead of snow and rocks barring my way, it’s students loitering before their first class of the quarter.
Like them, I’m late. Unlike them, I hate being late. Especially today, as my class is a thousand times more important than whatever introductory English course these fresh-faced undergrads are too lazy to reach on time.
For starters, I’m not a student. At least not at the moment. I’m supposed to be assistant teaching a small group of English majors in a classroom that still, after two flights of stairs, seems to be a continent away.
On the plateau before my final ascension, I’m confronted by a group hogging the space. They’re talking and laughing loudly, unmindful of those of us who actually give a shit about academics.
“Excuse me, please!”
Despite my lofty graduate-student status, no one bothers moving. I’m forced to dive through them like I’m spelunking instead of mountain climbing. Not an uncommon occurrence, unfortunately. I blame my mother, who bestowed upon me her diminutive stature, pale blonde hair, and perpetually fey features.
A glance at my watch tells me I have less than a minute until I’m going to make a terrible first impression on the professor.
I break into a run, messenger bag bouncing against my hip as I dart up the final staircase and down a rapidly emptying hallway. Ignoring the twinge in my bad knee, I skid to a stop before the desired door and yank it open.
Thank God.
Pre-class antics are still taking place. Students are chatting, slapping notebooks and pencils on desks, fiddling with smartphones, or surreptitiously slurping coffee and munching breakfast bars.
A glance toward the head of the room gives me my first look at Professor James S. Beckett, who was supposed to be at the faculty luncheon yesterday but never showed. On paper he’s scary as hell: acclaimed poet, award-winning, New York Times Bestselling author of crime fiction, and newly appointed Director of the Creative Writing Program.
Thanks to borderline-obsessive Google searching, I know what he looks like. But all I can see right now is longish brown hair tousled to the kind of accidental perfection normally not seen out of magazine spreads. His face is downturned, eyes on the open notebook on his desk. He writes furiously, the movements harsh and slashing. Left-handed.
As I walk closer, I have an unhealthy urge to snatch the notebook away and read it.
“Professor Beckett?” I ask breathlessly.
He grunts, not looking up. A glance back at the class shows me faces angled toward us in curiosity. Some are familiar from previous courses, and I trade a few smiles.
“Are you going to talk or just stand there?”
The rude question is made irritatingly musical by a smooth British accent. My head whips back around, a flush rising to my face.
“I’m sorry?” I squeak, then clear my throat. “I’m Iris Eliot. Your TA.”
The pen finally stops moving—it’s not a slow fading of mind-body transfer but a savage stop. His head comes up, vivid green eyes narrowing on my face. I stop breathing for a few moments, feeling like an insect under a pin. The dissection of my person lasts long enough that I hear students begin to whisper.
Then, with no shift in expression, he glances over my shoulder toward the wall clock. “You’re late,” he says sharply, and stands with a screech of wooden chair legs to address the class.
Still frozen like a brainless golem beside his desk, I watch him similarly dissect the fifteen faces seated before him.
“If you’re here, it means you want to be writers. Maybe you want to teach, too, but this class isn’t about teaching. It’s about writing.”
Stalking around the desk, he leans against it to cross arms over his sweater-clad chest. After another sweep of his gaze across the classroom, he continues, “If even the smallest part of you is unsure about your identity as a writer, pack up your things now.” He points at a student in the front row, a mousy girl not more than twenty-one, with thick glasses and lustrous dark hair. “Are you a writer?”