Tell Him About It Read Online Free

was a wounded look on his face. For a moment or two she felt sorry for him – but then remembered his wife’s side of the story, his drinking and womanising – which she had witnessed evidence of within ten minutes of meeting him. After a short pause however, Adam Cooper snapped out of whatever mood he was in.
    “Yet thanks to the tabloids and various websites you may know everything you need to know about me. But tell me more about yourself Sara,” he remarked, draining the remainder of his pint and then turning to catch the eye of the smiling barmaid again. It struck Sara that he hadn’t known the woman for more than thirty minutes and they acted like they were old friends.
    “What would you like to know?” she replied, a little taken aback due to the fact that most authors were far fonder of talking about themselves.
    “Some say that we are what we read, so tell me about a couple of books you’ve read recently, although feel free to leave out the ones you’ve been obliged to read for your work, including mine.”
    She often spoke to Rosie about the books she read (in regards to people in work they usually only discussed the titles the publishing house released; it never ceased to surprise Sara too just how little some people read, whilst supposedly trying to carve out a career in publishing). And Simon didn’t even pretend to read, or be interested in what Sara was reading, nowadays.
    “Just for fun I’ve been re-reading Jilly Cooper’s early, short romance novels. Before she started writing bonkbusters. Her first books are more about love, than sex. The two are not one and the same.”
    “No. Though it’s much nicer when they share the same bed.”
    Sara didn’t quite know whether to laugh or blush, so she did both. They continued to chat about books, with the conversation spiralling off into different directions. Part of her wanted to act professionally or even coldly towards the author. Before she met him she had predicted that he would be self-obsessed, macho and come on to her – like a number of other soldiers or foreign correspondents turned novelists she had encountered. But he seemed to be healthily self-deprecating, polite and normal (which made him special in a sense, in terms of novelists).
    “And so have you read anything else? You must also tell me if I’m eating too much into your time.”
    “No, it’s fine,” Sara replied, thinking how she was doing what she had been asked to. Namely look after her author. Besides, she was starting to enjoy herself. “While I was at university I studied Romantic poetry, so I’ve just read the newly published biography of Byron. I’ve got quite eclectic tastes. Are you familiar with Byron?” Sara asked, expecting the negative reply that she always received. But Adam Cooper, she was learning, was different.
    “ In secret we met
    In silence I grieve -
    That thy heart could forget,
    Thy spirit deceive.
    And if I should meet thee
    After these long years,
    How should I greet thee?-
    With silence and tears .”
    Sara’s eyes widened, in shock as much as pleasure. She sat, her mouth agape, as if an echo of Byron himself was sitting across the table. Such had been the sadness – and tenderness – in his voice when reciting the lines that Sara imagined that Adam had pictured her as a lost love, or his ex-wife? Melancholy infected his already dark eyes. He looked endearingly vulnerable after quoting the lines, she considered.
    “I read a fair bit of poetry in my youth too. The barmaids love it,” Adam wryly remarked, regaining his composure, politely leaving out the lesson for Sara that she shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
    Sara was tempted to reply that former models and publicity assistants like it too, but she reined herself in just in time. Authors were not supposed to flirt with publicists – but publicists were definitely not supposed to flirt with authors, whether the said authors had become recently single or not.
    “And what have you