LITMIR.BIZ

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looked into her friend’s eyes and could see that she knew the truth. She sagged against the sink. ‘Okay, yes,’ she sighed. ‘Rick was the inspiration for Vasco.’

      Stella hadn’t set out to write a book with Rick as the hero but Vasco had taken on Rick’s features in a totally organic way. She hadn’t even been truly aware of it until she’d written the first kiss.

      And then it had been so blindingly obvious she’d wondered why it had taken her so long.

      ‘Hah! I knew it!’ Diana clapped delightedly.

      Stella rolled her eyes. ‘This is between you and me, Diana,’ she said, placing a hand on her friend’s arm. ‘Promise?’

      ‘Don’t worry,’ Diana said, waving a dismissive hand, ‘your secret is safe with me.’

      ‘Thank you,’ Stella said, releasing a breath as she shuffled away from the sink and headed towards the fire.

      ‘Well, there’s only one thing for it now,’ Diana said as she followed Stella and plonked herself down on one of the lounge chairs. ‘You have to go with him.’

      Stella looked up from her log poking. ‘What?’

      ‘The man obviously inspires you to write. You need inspiration. You need to write. Problem solved.’

      ‘Joy doesn’t want another Vasco Ramirez, Diana.’

      ‘Yes, she does,’ Diana said. ‘That’s exactly what she wants. Vasco sold like hot cakes. Vasco is king. Of course she wants you to do another Vasco.’

      Stella gave her friend an impatient look. ‘You know what I mean.’

      Diana sighed. She didn’t want to pull out the big guns. ‘Babe, things are going to start to get nasty. And trust me, you don’t want to be with a publishing house that plays hard ball. There’ll be lawyers. It’s time to quit the whole writer’s block nonsense and write.’

      Stella felt Diana’s words slice into her side. ‘You think it’s nonsense—that I’m making it up?’

      Diana shook her head. She knew Stella’s instant fame had compounded her already entrenched second-book syndrome and her father’s death had just aggravated everything further. She totally got that Stella’s muse had deserted her. But...

      ‘The lawyers will think it is, babe.’

      ‘I just need a little more time,’ Stella muttered.

      Diana nodded. ‘And you should take it. Absolutely. Go with Rick, get inspired. Come back replenished.’

      Stella glanced at her friend. She made it sound so easy. She shook her head. ‘It’s crazy.’

      ‘Why?’ Diana challenged. ‘Because you have a thing for him?’

      ‘I do not have a thing for him,’ Stella denied quickly. A little too quickly perhaps. ‘He’s an old, old friend,’ she clarified, not bothering to keep the exasperation out of her voice. ‘We’ve known each other for ever. There is no thing.’

      Diana looked at her friend. Oh, there so was a thing.

      Even better.

      Lord alone knew, if she hadn’t had sex for almost a year on top of fairly pedestrian sex for the previous five she’d be looking at a way of fixing that pronto. And if it so happened that the man of Stella’s fantasies was there at the precise moment she decided to break the drought, then surely everyone won?

      ‘So it shouldn’t be a problem, then?’ Diana asked innocently. She held up her hand as Stella went to speak again. ‘Look, Rick’s right. Just sleep on it. I know it’s a lot to consider but, for what it’s worth, I think you’re mad if you don’t.’

      ‘But the book...’ Stella murmured in a last-ditch effort to make Diana see sense.

      Diana shrugged. ‘Whatever you’re doing here on good old terra firma ain’t working, is it, babe?’

      * * *

      Stella went to bed determined to wake up in the morning and tell both Rick and Diana to go to hell.

      But that was before the dream.

      She dreamt all night of a mermaid following a pirate

      ship. No...

      She was the mermaid and she was following the pirate ship. Inside the hull a lone, rich, tenor voice would occasionally sing a deep mournful song of lost love. It was a thing of beauty and she’d fallen in love with the man even though she’d never laid eyes on him. But she knew he was a prisoner and she knew with an urgency that beat like the swell of the ocean in her breast that she had to save him.

      That he was the one for her.

      Stella awoke, the last tendrils of the dream still gliding over her skin like the cool kiss of sea water. It was so vivid for a moment she could almost feel the water frothing her hair in a glorious golden crown around her head.

      The urge to write thrummed through her veins and she quickly opened the drawer of her bedside table, locating the stash of pens and paper she always kept there. She brushed off the dust and started to scribble and in ten minutes she’d written down the bones of a plot and some detailed description of Lucinda, the mermaid.

      When she finished she sat back and stared at the words in front of her. They were a revelation. And not just because she’d written something she didn’t have the immediate urge to delete, but because it was a whole new approach.

      Stella hadn’t imagined for even a minute that the heroine’s point of view would take precedence in her head. Vasco had been so strong and dominant, striding onto the page, demanding to be heard, that she’d assumed starting with the hero was always going to be her process.

      All this time she’d been beating herself up about not being able to see a hero, getting her knickers in a twist because, no matter how hard she tried to visualise one, no hero was forthcoming.

      And he still wasn’t. But Lucinda was fully formed and she was awesome.

      Lucinda excited her as nothing had since Vasco had arrived. Lucinda was no Lady Mary waiting around to be saved. The world had gone crazy for Vasco last time, this time they would go crazy for Lucinda.

      She could feel it deep inside in the same place that had told her Vasco was special, but she’d been too inexperienced to listen.

      Well, she was listening now.

      God, Joy was probably going to have a fit at her kick-ass mermaid. She could hear her now saying, But what about Inigo, Stella?

      Stella gasped as his name came to her. Inigo. Of course that was his name. Inigo. It had to be Inigo.

      It was working.

      The buzz was back. The magic was here.

      Inigo would be strong and noble, a perfect match for Lucinda because a strong woman required a man to equal her. A man secure in himself. A man who would understand the divided loyalties she endured every day and wouldn’t demand that she chose between the sea and land.

      A subject that Stella could write about intimately.

      God, why hadn’t she thought to approach her story from this way before? It seemed so obvious now. She kicked off the sheets, reached for her polar fleece dressing gown.

      She had to get out of here. Had to get to her computer.

      She almost laughed as she tripped over her gown in haste. The revelation had come just in time. It had saved her. There was no time now for seafaring adventures.

      There was a mermaid to write. A hero to rescue.

      Lucinda was calling.

      Inigo too.

      Stella padded straight to her computer, notes in hand. She drummed her fingers on the desk as she waited for it to power up. As soon as she was able, she opened a new word

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