“You swapped, for Megan’s ring? Oh, pretty.” Truly looks in the box Jamie has snapped open to show her. “But that’s tacky of you,” she amends.
“Tacky? How? I got a good deal on this,” Jamie protests. “The clarity and cut on this are phenomenal. Tom’s got good taste,” he finishes with his usual lack of tact.
“But this belonged to someone else, and she loved it,” Truly chides him softly. “Whoever you marry one day will have someone else’s ring on her hand.”
“That’s not a practical way of looking at it,” Jamie argues back. “Darce, stop jumping.” He stuffs Megan’s ring in his pocket. “Now you’ve made me think,” he says to Truly, grouchy. “Tom, maybe I want to swap back.”
“Sorry, a deal’s a deal.” Tom is completely unrepentant. He’s crowded me against the pillar again. Behind my eyes, every time I blink, I see sapphires. Black sapphires. Refracting, dark and mysterious and brilliant. I want them. I need them.
I want the name Valeska on me so bad I could scream, and I think he knows it from the way he’s looking at me.
“Oh, that’s us,” Jamie says as boarding is announced. “Let’s go and get elderly.” He gathers up Truly’s bag and begins to herd her toward the gangway.
“I want it.” I touch my fingers to the square lump in Tom’s pocket.
“I know. That’s why I did a deal with the devil.” His eyes shine in amusement as people begin to stream past us. The sound of a thousand suitcase wheels is deafening. “Now, are you sure you want to live in a tent with me when we get back?”
“Very sure. I’m deputy site manager, after all. I need to be on hand.”
He still can’t conceive of it. To him, princesses don’t sleep on the ground. “Because the moment we find a house that you want to keep, I’ll make it your home. Everything you want it to be. It’ll have a photography studio, and—”
“Come on, guys, you can make out on the boat!” Jamie turns and shouts at us. “We’re going.”
“I want it,” I repeat. I mean the house, the ring, and him. The future. “I love you and I want it.”
Tom leans down to kiss my pout. “Have you earned it?”
I falter. I shake my head automatically. “How can I possibly earn you?”
He removes my tremor of doubt as only he can. “You earn me daily. Come on. You know I give you everything you want. Just relax. Let me spoil Darcy Barrett a little, for the rest of her life. Let me get a taste of that feeling.”
All I can say is, it tastes sweet.
Acknowledgments
Thank you to the following people for not bludgeoning me to death during the process of writing this book.
My husband, Roland, always responded You can when I wailed I can’t. Thanks for being right and for supporting me when writing unexpectedly changed my life. My mother, Sue, is my number one fan. My pug, Delia, is my second biggest fan.
Taylor Haggerty from Root Literary is my agent and my lighthouse across the sea. She has cheered me on with unfailing positivity. HarperCollins has been so patient with me as I found my feet again after the unexpected success of my debut. Carrie Feron is my editor and her calm confidence in me has meant the world.
Thank you to my friends, but these two in particular: Tina Gephart messaged me every afternoon to see if I was having a good writing day. Spoiler: I usually wasn’t, but Tina would still check in the next day. Thank you for being a friend and mentor. Thank you to Christina Hobbs for that long Skype call. I picked myself up off the floor one last time, and now I get to write this.
The Flamethrowers are a group of wonderful readers who found The Hating Game and loved the hell out of it. I wrote this book for all of you.
P.S. Insights, Interviews & More … *
About the author
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Meet Sally Thorne
About the book
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Behind the Book Essay
Read on
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99 Percent Mine Epilogue: 1 Percent More
The Hating Game Epilogue
About the author
Meet Sally Thorne
SALLY THORNE is the USA Today bestselling author of The Hating Game. She spends her days climbing into fictional worlds of her own creation. She lives in Canberra, Australia, with her husband in a house filled with vintage toys, too many cushions, a haunted dollhouse, and the world’s sweetest pug.
About the book
Behind the Book Essay
They say if you stare into the abyss too long, the abyss stares into you. Well, I’m here to tell you that the abyss they’re talking about is a blank Microsoft Word document.
When I wrote my first book, The Hating Game, I didn’t even know I was writing a book. Ha ha, I thought, grinning to myself as I tapped away whenever I felt like it. How enjoyable, how droll! How did I do it? Who knows, but it’s printed with a cute cover! What was next?
I opened a new document and I stared.
Picture me, propped up in bed like Beth March from Little Women, slowly fading away from Second Book Syndrome. My expert nurses during this crisis spoon-fed me broth, and assured me it was a very common disorder for new authors and I would survive. I didn’t believe them and honestly thought I was a goner. I doubted my creativity, talent, and skill so intensely that I nearly gave up roughly ninety-nine times.
But I loved my book title. It gave me goose bumps on my forearms. 99 Percent Mine. I’d say it to myself until it became a mantra synonymous with Don’t give up. The outside world faded away and I began to laugh at myself again, as I typed. Ha ha, how droll.