Cover to Covers (5 page)

She rolled her tired-looking brown eyes. “
Every person here wants to see her. Ms. Delome is the biggest draw at these conventions.”

“I knew she was well-
known, but I never imagined….”

The attendant cautiously inspected him. “Are you a fan?”

“A friend,” Tyler admitted with a slight nod of his head. “I knew her before she became famous.”

The curiosity in the woman’s delicate features peaked. “Then why did you buy a ticket and come to this convention to see her?”

“I wanted to surprise her.”

The woman handed him a red badge with the convention’s name printed on it and a sleeve with a necklace to place it in. “Wear this when you’re on the exhibit floor.” She
handed him a program. “This lists all the exhibits and book signings by the authors. Ms. Delome is currently signing books in the main exhibit hall, and then she is going to attend an author panel in one of the meeting rooms further down the lobby.” She pointed past the entrance. “Just follow the signs to the meeting rooms.”

Tyler put the program and his jacket down
by the booth while he placed the necklace with his red badge over his head. “Do you know where in the main exhibit hall I can find Ms. Delome?”

She motioned to the steady stream of women filtering in through the entrance. “Just follow the crowds
…when you hit the longest line, you’ve found her.”

Tyler
collected his jacket and program. “Thank you.” He gleaned over the program cover and was staring at a picture of a muscle-bound man with his thick arms about a scantily clad woman when the attendant spoke up.

“
I hope you don’t mind my asking, but have you ever read any of Ms. Delome’s books?”

Tyler fought to keep a straight face. “No, I haven’t had the pleasure.”

“Really?” She appeared intrigued. “I’d swear you remind me of Darryl. Then again you look a lot like her Luke, Denver, Blane, and—”

“Are these men from her books?” Tyler interrupted, confused.

“Yes, just some of the leading male characters she writes about. They all look the same. Kind of like you.” She waved a hand down his lean figure. “I think it’s the eyes she always describes best. Dark, cool, detached, and yet mischievous, a lot like yours. It’s as if you’re listening, but at the same time, plotting your next move with a woman.”

Her candid statement took Tyler off guard for a moment, and then he leaned in closer to her booth. “Considering we just met, I’m not sure—”

Her bird-like twittering cut him off. “And I’m sure I’m not telling you something you don’t already know. I’ve got a twenty-four-year-old son a lot like you. He tends to look at women the same way.”

Tyler cleared his throat. “Exactly how many of Ms. Delome’s books have you read?”

“All of them.” The woman gestured to another person who had taken up position behind Tyler. “I hope you enjoy the convention.” She turned her attention to a young woman carting a black suitcase behind her.

A few yards down from the registration area, Tyler
caught sight of the entrance to the main exhibit hall. At the doors, a burly security guard—reminiscent of the muscular gentleman on the program cover— checked his badge and then waved him into the hall.

The floor of the
expansive hall was divided into long aisles cluttered with a variety of exhibitors. As Tyler started down the first aisle from the entrance, he could see each of the exhibitors represented booksellers, publishers, or business owners hocking items that were related to the romance book industry. A few authors had even taken out exhibits to sell their books. The publishers represented ranged from smaller, more modest independent ones to the bigger, more successful houses whose exhibits towered over the rest.

He
searched each of the aisles, checking for the large crowds he had been told to look for. On the third aisle, he spied a long line of women. He quickly proceeded down the black carpet covering the hall floor, and when he finally came to the end of the line, he discovered Monique. She was sitting behind a simple brown table and speaking with a gray-haired woman who was clinging to her every word.

H
e was spellbound by the movement of her pink lips, and how her gray eyes appeared attentive, but when he noted her feet tapping on the floor, he remembered how she always fidgeted when she was getting impatient. As her eyes scanned the line of people still waiting for autographs, she spotted him.

Monique tucked her hair behind her ear as he came up to her.
“I can’t believe you just showed up here, Ty.”

“I figured I should see what it is you really do.” He
rested his hip against her table, and a few angry glances from those still standing in line were directed his way.

“Come around here
.” Monique waved behind the table. “If they think you’ve cut in front of the line, they’ll get testy.”

Tyler
breezed up to her side. While he placed his jacket and program on the table next to Monique, a young girl, no more than fifteen, shyly walked up, holding out a worn paperback book. Tyler was instantly reminded of his stepdaughter, Tessa.

“Could you make it out to Elise
?” the young girl implored. “I just love all your books, Ms. Delome.”

“Thank you.” Monique took her pen and scribbled something on the inside cover of the paperback. “I hope you are going to read my new book,
Blind and Delirious
.”

“Oh, yes, ma’am,” the soft-spoken girl replied. “I
want to get to New Orleans one day and see all the places you write about.”

Monique pushed the signed paperback
across the table to her. “I hope you do.” Monique waited as the pretty teenager stepped away, clutching her newly signed book to her chest.

“You’re a celebrity,” Tyler
commented behind her.

She reached for another book being offered by an enthusiastic fan. “What are you doing here, Ty?”

Tyler eyed the fans still waiting for their books to be signed. “I wanted to see you in action.”

She p
assed the book back across the table to a woman wearing a pair of ill-fitting shorts with overly teased red hair. “You want something. I could always tell when you wanted something. You hovered.”

He
had forgotten how she could read him better than anyone. Easing closer to her chair, he inhaled the faint fragrance of her lilac perfume, and an unfamiliar feeling of calm flowed through him.

“I don’t want anything from you
, Moe. I just wanted to see you again.”

She took the book from the next person waiting in line. “Please, Ty. I know better. You were always very persistent when it came to getting what you wanted. God knows, no matter how many times I
told you no….” She glanced up at the fan before her. “You know what I’m talking about.”

He leaned
in closer to her. “You can’t blame a man for trying, and I respected your wishes. That never happened between us.”

“Because I wouldn’t let it
,” she protested.

“That’s not the way I remember it. There was that one time, when
I cooked dinner for us at my place. You were very drunk and wanted—”

“Where’s your wife?” she
edged in. “Will she be stopping by?” She dutifully smiled at her waiting fan.

“Hadley and I are getting a divorce.”

“Funny, it didn’t appear to me like you two were getting divorced last night when you left the restaurant together.” She scribbled her name on the inside cover of another paperback.

He lightly chuckled.
“Is that a hint of jealousy in your voice, Moe?”

“Christ, Ty.” She shook her head. “You really haven’t changed, have you?” 

Tyler tilted his head slightly to the side and perused the title of the book she was signing. “
The Night of the Hunter’s Moon
?” He knitted his brow. “I thought you wrote romance books?”

“I do.” She pushed the book back across the table. “Some are contemporary romance, and some are paranormal.”

“What’s the difference?” Tyler paused when Chris Donovan bellied up to the table, carrying two white paper cups.

“Ah, Mr. Moore
.” He placed a cup next to Monique. “Your black coffee, my dear.”

“Thank you, Chris.” Monique lifted the cup to her lips.

Chris motioned to the other side of the aisle. “Perhaps we should let her work.”

Reluctant to walk away, Tyler figured it would look better with Monique if he obliged her manager.
“Sure,” Tyler agreed, and then he placed his lips next to Monique’s ear and whispered, “We need to talk. I’m in suite 1201.”

She gave him an angry side-glance and then went back to signing books.

After picking up his jacket and program, Tyler stepped away from the table. 

“Monique tries to give her fans her undivided attention,” Chris explained as
the two men walked over to an empty table across the aisle from Monique. When Chris placed his cup of coffee down, he added, “It’s best if she doesn’t have any distractions.”

Putting his jacket and program on the table,
Tyler then leveled his gaze on the man next to him. “I didn’t realize I was being a ‘distraction.’”

“I think you have always been a distraction for her.”

“I’m not sure what you mean by that, Chris.”

Chris
’s condescending blue eyes dissected Tyler. “She talked about you after your meeting in the bar yesterday. I got the impression things didn’t end well between you two.”

“No, it didn’t
. That is one of my many regrets. Moe was…good to me.”

Chris took in the long line
zigzagging down the aisle from Monique’s table. “She’s always good to people; too good, sometimes.”

Tyler
closely studied the man’s stern profile and stiff posture. “How long have you and Moe been together?”

“Five years
.” Chris gripped the white cup of coffee on the table. “I met her at one of these conventions. She was with a small publisher then, but I read her books and knew she had the talent to go far in this business.”

“So you got her where she is today?”

Chris took a sip from his steaming cup of coffee. “No, she got herself here; I just cleared the path of obstacles. Bottom line in this business is you have to have talent to get anywhere. Readers are pretty picky and when they find a writer that touches them, they tend to stick with them.” He motioned the cup in his hand toward Monique’s table. “That lady touches a lot of people with her words.”

Tyler looked on as Monique posed for a picture with a fan. “I never knew Moe was into writing. When we were together, she never mentioned anything about it. But then again,” he
dipped his eyes to the black carpet, “I wasn’t really paying a whole lot of attention to anybody in those days.”

Chris
gave slight smirk. “She told me she always dabbled in writing as a kid, but did not get serious about it until after she was married.”

“Yeah, she mentioned she was divorced.
Did you know him?”

“It happened before I met her. The guy’s name was Mathew Klein. He’s a big-time neurosurgeon in New Orleans. From
the way Monique described him, he sounded like a real asshole.”

“Asshole? Really?” Tyler
’s eyes returned to her table. “I always hoped she would find a great guy.”

“Mat was far from that,” Chris went on. “They met when he was in his residency and got married when he finished. After he got a job with some big medical group in New Orleans, she was left alone a good bit of the time. And even when they were together, she said it was never quite what she envisioned married life to be. That’s when she
really got into writing. I guess she used it to create the kind of world she had always hoped to have.” He paused and shrugged. “When she started making a name for herself as a writer, Dr. Klein wasn’t too pleased. It seems he only wanted one celebrity in the family.”

“Yeah, sounds like a real asshole
,” Tyler concurred.

“I’ve only met him once, when he came to one of her book signings in New Orleans.” Chris snickered slightly. “Son of a bitch had the nerve to show up with his new wife and baby in tow.” He
nodded to Monique. “I thought she was really going to lose it that day, but she was a lady about the whole mess. Was very cordial to her ex and his wife…even held their little girl. But when I got her in the car to take her home after, she broke down.” He eyes plummeted to the coffee in his hands. “It tore me up to see her like that.”

Tyler contemplated the concerned glint in Chris
Donovan’s eyes. “You care for her, don’t you?”

“Enough to not want
to see her get hurt.” Chris placed his coffee cup on the table next to him. “I don’t know you, Tyler, but I know your kind. A lot of men have tried to worm their way into Monique’s life, but she never paid attention to any of them, until you. When I saw her at the bar with you yesterday, I knew you were trouble. Don’t come here and think you can win her over again. She’s not the same woman you knew. She’s been through a hell of a lot, and I plan on protecting her from people like you for as long as I can.”