My first reading and signing on campus was shortly after A Poet’s Daughter was released. It was held in a classroom with all of thirty people in attendance, most of them friends and former teachers. James hadn’t shown, but I couldn’t blame him. By that time we hadn’t spoken in close to a year, not since my graduation ceremony.

This event is different on all counts.

The lecture hall is massive and filled wall to wall. A giant video camera is set up to record the evening, and sitting in the front row are top university benefactors and faculty. The audience is also not limited to students and teachers, but filled with people of all ages and walks of life.

And seated beside me onstage is James, waiting for the go-ahead to introduce me at the nearby lectern.

He’s barely looked at me since I arrived. As the silent, tense minutes tick by, I feel so alone, so lost and anxious, that I find myself reaching out to the girl I was when I fell in love with him.

“I think I’m going to puke.”

James finally looks at me, brows raised. “You’ve done events like this, haven’t you?”

“Yes, but not on my home turf, and not with you sitting next to me projecting enough animosity to frizz my hair.”

His lips quirk, humor softening the severe green of his eyes. “Your hair is perfect,” he murmurs, “but you really need to stop fidgeting.”

I clench my hands in my lap and press down to halt the nervous tapping of my foot. The stillness only magnifies the sour rolling of my stomach.

“Distract me,” I whisper pleadingly.

His eyes narrow. “I’m not sure I want to.”

“Please, James.”

He sighs, sprawling back in his chair with his legs crossed at the ankles. He didn’t bother to dress up for the event, opting to wear a casual sweater, worn jeans, and his favorite scuffed boots. If he wasn’t so famous and didn’t bring such renown to the university, he’d be fired for being a disrespectful slob.

“Distracted you,” he says with a wink.

My cheeks go hot. “You couldn’t bother with a suit?”

His eyes drag across my mouth. “Now why would I do that when you love me dressed down?”

Swallowing, I look away. One of the event organizers catches my eye from beside the video camera and holds up five fingers.

Five minutes.

I hope I last that long.

“Tell me a story,” I beg James.

“Hmm, let me think.” He pauses. “All right, here you go. Once upon a time, there was a young woodland nymph with the face of an angel but the eyes of a devil, so dark that to look into them was to see the unplumbed depths of one’s own soul. There was pain in those eyes, and loneliness, but in her long, immortal life, she’d never met anyone who understood her pain and thus became a cold and calculating creature.

“Our nymph spent her days frolicking in the forests of her native Scotland and her nights dancing naked beneath the moon and mist. Ageless and beguiling, she trapped young men for sport, toying with them until she tired of them, then tossing them out of her glade with no memory of the time spent in her arms.”

In my peripheral vision, I see the event coordinator hold up three fingers. I barely comprehend the gesture, all of me focused on the voice of the man beside me.

“Then one day, a strapping young man set out to find the nymph. He, unlike the others, didn’t seek her for pleasure or to win a wager, but because he, too, was alone in his pain. He searched for months, growing ever more tired and ragged, before finally stumbling one evening into the nymph’s glade. She looked at him and he at her, and they knew one another. At their first touch, the young man felt a peace unlike any he’d known before. He instantly fell madly and deeply in love.

“But alas, the nymph wasn’t a human woman, and she didn’t know how to give the man love in return. In time, she rejected him as she’d done all the others. Only when he was gone did she regret her choice and feel again the loneliness he had assuaged. To this day, she waits alone, dancing in the moonlight and mist, for a man long dead to return.”

As the vibrations of his voice fade from my ears, the world rushes to the fill the vacuum. Hundreds of faces engaging in chatter and laughter and sneezes and coughs.

The coordinator holds up one finger and waves urgently at James, but he doesn’t see her. He’s watching me. Watching me blink back tears. Watching me struggle to get my breathing under control.

“Iris,” he breathes.

“Mr. Beckett!” shouts the coordinator.

He finally looks away from me and sees the now-frantically waving woman. Without another word, he stands and approaches the lectern. I watch him visibly regain composure, his spine straightening while his overall posture relaxes.

“Good evening,” he says in his usual cultured, faintly amused tone. “I had a fancy speech prepared but my dog ate it.”

The audience laughs; I smile sadly, thinking of Rufus and how entirely feasible his statement is.

“So instead of blathering on about how proud I am of the woman sitting to my left, how many bestseller lists she’s dominated, and how many stodgy critics she’s romanced with her pen, I’ll tell you something different. Something that we tend to regrettably forget in our worship of the Next Young Talent.

“I assume most of you have read A Poet’s Daughter, but I wonder how many of you understand that the woman whose tale you so greedily consumed is real. Living and breathing despite all that has happened to her.

“Do you know that 33% of women who are victims of assault have suicidal thoughts? That a startling 13% attempt suicide? Here’s another one for you: one in six women in this country have been sexually assaulted.” His eyes flow over the sea of faces. “I’d guess roughly two-thirds of you are women. This hall holds around seven hundred. That means nearly eighty women in this room have been victimized.”

James pauses; the silence is deafening. I can hear the hum of voices in a neighboring hall. I can hear my own pounding heart.

“Do you know that Iris Eliot receives hate-mail blaming her for her own assault? I want you to think about that tonight. Think about the courage necessary to stand up here and be prodded, and criticized, and judged by your peers. Then imagine yourself in her shoes. I guarantee none of you can scratch the surface of this woman’s bravery, intelligence, or depth with a question. I dare you to try.”

He stands still for another moment, then looks my way.

“Ladies and gentlemen, let me present to you the unmatched Iris Eliot.”

Somehow, I get my legs under me and stand. One step at a time, one breath at a time, I make it to the lectern.

The crowd is applauding, cheering, but all I see is James. His white knuckles gripping the side of the podium. The erratic rise and fall of his chest. His eyes, vivid with the same emotion that colored his voice. Anger. Frustration. Appeal.

I think he’s going to grab me. Kiss me in front of all these people. But he doesn’t. He gives me a quick, impersonal peck on the cheek and strides past me to his chair.

My head spinning and body trembling, I face the microphone. The applause fades away.

“Thank you, Professor Beckett.” I clear my throat. “Does anyone have any whiskey?”

James’ laughter rings loudest in my ears.