“Sorry. We had a few last-minute customers, and then there was a ton of stuff to reshelve.” The mingled aromas of garlic and oregano enveloped her as she followed him inside. “Oh no, I’m screwing up your dinner again.”

“Our dinner. Please tell me you like spaghetti.”

“I love spaghetti, but I didn’t come to eat. I can come back, really.”

“Don’t be silly. You’re here, and there’s enough to feed a small army. Besides, we’re not discussing anything until you’ve been fed.” He turned, heading back to the kitchen. “If you get any thinner, you’re going to disappear on me completely, which would stink since I think we’re actually on the verge of becoming friends.”

Christy-Lynn found herself grinning. When had he become charming? “So I’m being blackmailed?”

“Precisely.”

She had no choice but to follow him to the kitchen where a pot of sauce bubbled on the stove. She watched as he dropped his spoon in then lifted it out for a taste. “I think I might just have pulled it off.”

“I thought you only tackled things you could cook on the grill.”

“Well, I cheated a little. I started with the bottled stuff, then doctored it up. But I think it’s pretty good. The salad’s made. All I need to do is throw the pasta in to boil.”

Christy-Lynn eyed him warily. He was too cheerful, too chatty. It set off warning bells in her head. “Is this your way of softening whatever you’re about to tell me? A high-carb meal?”

“Actually, it’s my way of avoiding work. My writing day pretty much sucked, so I thought I’d try my hand at cooking instead.”

Christy-Lynn wandered to the small bistro table in the corner as he wrestled with a box of vermicelli. His Mac was there and open, a Word document up on the screen. She had just begun to read the opening lines of chapter eighteen when Wade snaked an arm past her and lowered the screen.

“Please don’t read that.”

“Sorry. Force of habit. The editor in me, I guess. I should have known you’d be the protective type. A lot of men are.”

“More like the embarrassed type,” he corrected with a scowl. “Not one of my better efforts, I’m afraid. In fact, I meant to delete the whole scene.”

“It isn’t as easy as it looks, is it?”

“What?”

“Writing the great American novel.”

“I take it that’s a shot about my lack of reverence for your husband’s work?”

“No. Just an observation. You did call him a hack though, which is a pretty harsh thing to say to a man who’s cranked out a dozen bestsellers.”

“Cranked being the operative word.”

Christy-Lynn bit back her initial response, confused by a knee-jerk need to defend Stephen despite the validity of Wade’s criticism. Habit, she supposed. Or misplaced loyalty. Like the night she had unloaded on him in the bar at the Omni.

“It doesn’t really matter now, does it? Can’t we just drop it?”

Wade gave the pasta a quick stir then set down his spoon. “I just think if you’re going to put a hundred thousand words on paper, you should take the time to choose the right ones, instead of just grabbing the ones on the bottom shelf. Writing should be about quality not quantity.”

“I agree with that. In fact, I tell my writers the same thing. But there’s a lot less time to reach for those top-shelf words when you’re writing to contract. Deadlines are real, and if you want to keep getting paid to write books, you treat them as sacred. It’s a matter of finding the line between efficiency and integrity and then walking it. It’s tricky.”

“Did Stephen walk that line?”

“What do you mean?”

“Do you think your husband cared about integrity?”

Christy-Lynn stared at him, wondering if she’d lost the thread of the conversation. “Are we talking about writing or something else?”

“I’m talking about both—about everything. Integrity isn’t something you have in some parts of your life and not in others. You either have it, or you don’t. I’m asking if you think Stephen did.”

Christy-Lynn was both startled and confused by the intensity in his tone. “Under the circumstances, I’m not sure I’m the right person to ask.”

“You were married to him. That makes you the perfect person to ask.”

“I can tell you he was dedicated to his career, that he worked all the time and never missed a deadline. He started every morning at five and worked past midnight a lot of nights. Sometimes he’d even go off and check into a hotel somewhere so he could—” She stopped midsentence, letting the words trail away. “Except he wasn’t working, was he? He was with her.”

Wade dropped his gaze to the floor. “I didn’t mean to dredge up—”

“Your pasta’s about to boil over,” she said flatly, cutting him off and effectively ending the conversation. The sooner they got through dinner, the sooner she would have her answers.

They ate out on the deck or at least attempted to. Thirty minutes in, Christy-Lynn gave up the pretense and pushed back her plate. “I’m sorry. I just can’t.”

“You didn’t like it?”