“Can I ask you something that probably sounds crazy to you, and I could be wrong. Do you ever want to write? I know I’ve asked you before and you said no, but with your love of books, I just get the feeling there’s a writer in there somewhere. You work for a great writer. You and your father had a passion for crime stories and mysteries. Are you never inspired to write a book too? I think I would be, in your shoes.” A chill ran down her spine when he said it.
“It’s not something you just decide to do,” she said quietly. “It’s a talent that I don’t have. Just being near it doesn’t make you capable of it. People always think they can decide to write a book if they want to and have the time. It doesn’t work like that.” He nodded and realized that what she said was true.
“I used to want to write a book, and then I realized I can’t. I don’t have it in me,” he admitted, and she nodded, relieved to have fobbed him off, but feeling guilty about it too. And after she’d said it, she was quiet for a long moment, haunted by her own lies. He was the one person she didn’t want to be untruthful with, and she just had been again. It felt so wrong to her, although what she had just said to him about writing was true, just not about her. She stared down at her plate lost in thought. Suddenly she had reached a crossroads she had never expected to come to, with this man she loved. And when she looked up at him again, there was something raw and naked in her eyes that frightened him. He couldn’t tell what was on her mind, but he could see that she was upset.
“I don’t want to lie to you,” she said in an agonized voice.
“Have you?” He looked surprised. She seemed like an honest person. She was suddenly afraid. Telling him the truth was so high risk for her. She trusted him, but what if she was wrong?
He could sense that he had ventured onto dangerous ground, and opened a door to something she was afraid of, but he didn’t know what it was. His question about writing had been benign and posed no threat to her, or so he thought. But she seemed panicked, and he had no idea why. She appeared as though she might bolt and run as he reached out and held her hand in his own. Miles kissed her then to calm her down, but there was no turning back now, for her. She realized now that she couldn’t lie to him, or have an honest relationship with him as a man unless she told him the truth.
“I haven’t been truthful with you,” she said in a ragged voice, needing to confess it to him now. “But if I am, you could destroy me. You have to swear to me you will never tell.” He couldn’t even imagine what she was about to tell him, and perhaps the lie was that she was Green’s mistress after all. Miles prayed it wasn’t that.
“I promise you,” he said, holding tightly to her hand to give her the strength to tell him whatever it was that he needed to know. “I promise you solemnly that whatever happens between us, I will not tell anyone what you tell me now.” The look in her eyes said she believed him and he could see her shaking. Whatever it was, it was life-threatening to her, and that was good enough for him. He loved her. “What is it, Alex? Don’t be afraid,” he whispered.
“I’m not who or what you think I am.” He had no idea what she meant and looked mystified, and he was in agony now too. Maybe it was worse. Maybe she was married to Green. He was almost certain now that Alex was the celebrated writer’s lover, and Miles had only borrowed her, or stolen her for a few days. Clearly she wasn’t free, or she wouldn’t be so tortured now. And then she said it, in such a low, small voice that he barely heard her at first. “I’m Alexander Green.”
He stared at her blankly, unable to absorb what she’d said, and sure he had heard her wrong. He thought she had said “I’m Alexander Green’s,” confirming his worst fears that he had fallen in love with another man’s woman or wife, and a very important man to him now. And then she said it louder, more distinctly, seeing that he didn’t understand her.
“I am Alexander Green.” There was no mistaking what she said this time.
He stared at her in disbelief. “You’re what? What do you mean? You can’t be. He’s a man.” And that was one thing he knew for certain she was not. They had demonstrated that fully since they got there.
“I’m him. It’s my pen name. He doesn’t exist. I created an imaginary person, because my father told me no one would ever read crime books if they were written by a woman. I believed him, and I was nineteen when I wrote the first one and no one would have taken me seriously. So I invented the name ‘Alexander Green.’ I lie to everyone about it to protect it, but I don’t want to lie to you,” she said miserably. “I love you too much,” she added, as tears rolled down her face, and he stared at her, too stunned to react at first, and then he wiped the tears from her cheeks and kissed her, while he tried to understand what she had said.
“Wait a minute. Who’s at the house in London? He’s there, for God’s sake.” For a sickening instant, he wondered if she was psychotic and trying to claim Green’s identity and talent as her own. But she looked at Miles steadily, and her eyes didn’t waver. If she was lying now, she was very good at it, or very sick.
“I’m at the house in London. There’s no one else there. He doesn’t exist.” Miles observed her for a long beat and put his head down on the table and started laughing.
“Oh my God,” he said, and raised his head to look at her again. “Oh my God, you are incredible. You write those amazing books that the whole world loves? A little girl like you? You scare everyone to death with the crimes, and write the most intricate plots I’ve ever read? You minx!” He couldn’t stop laughing, and he got up and pulled her into his arms and held her, and she felt safe again. She trusted him completely, and now he could trust her too. She had told him the truth. “I swear, I will never, ever tell anyone. I thought you were going to tell me you’re married to him, or his girlfriend, and you could never see me again.” She smiled at what he said. She was as relieved as he was, having shed the burden of six years of lies and secrecy.
“You can’t tell anyone,” she reminded him again, with a look of panic.
“Of course not. And how brilliantly you created him, the famous recluse. Who else knows?”
“My agent, my editor, and the nuns. And I had to tell my publisher or they wouldn’t buy any more books, after the first three. But they have to pay me ten million dollars if they talk.” Miles walked around the room alternately laughing and shaking his head, so happy that he was free to love her as much as he did, and totally bowled over by the hoax she had perpetrated on the world. And she was smiling too. She was so glad that she had told him. A huge weight had been lifted from her heart. She didn’t have to lie to him anymore. She could be honest with him.
“You’ve played the game masterfully. I never, never suspected it for a minute,” he said, still grinning.
“But I lie all the time,” she said unhappily.
“That’s the price you have to pay for your success. And there is one, for all of us. You cannot ever tell, Alex,” he said seriously. “Your readers would never forgive you for lying to them about being a man. They trust you and idolize you. They’ll feel betrayed now if you tell them the truth. But I think you are absolutely the most brilliant woman I’ve ever met and I adore you.”