Don't Tell My Secret no

“"JAMES, I loved your last crime novel it's been a huge success." "Thank you; Fire Games took quite a while to write." James Buxton sat opposite his publicist, Amanda Daltry, a woman who was twenty- years his senior. By interviewing other authors, he discovered she was in her early forties. Somehow, she always managed to get what she wanted. In the four years since they met, she talked straight to the point. She saw things in black and white. A writer either liked or loathed her. James sat on the fence. He respected Amanda for the business-woman she portrayed, and he hated her at the same time. The only place they ever talked happened to be in her office after he'd finished a book. Since their first meeting, he'd seen her out at night only twice. The first time happened by accident when his close friends insisted he go with them to a Melbourne nightclub. He saw Amanda sitting at a table amongst five ladies. She held a wine glass firmly in her hand. The second time they crossed paths he was sitting in his BMW convertible, watching her kissing some bloke in a car at a supermarket carpark. He felt surprised she opened the passenger door to the Mercedes sports car and walked off into the night, seeing how the drizzle had changed to rain. What surprised him even more; Amanda didn't look back at the car. He thought she would change her mind when the driver started the engine. Then he thought she'd wait for the car to draw level with her. Neither guess happened to be correct. The car completed a slow U-turn. At speed the vehicle was driven down the road. It didn't take long for the engine noise to fade and the tail lights to vanish. James sat in the driver's seat of his car thinking about the scene. A crime novel began to unravel in his mind. It was something he'd always been able to do quite easily. He finally made up his mind Amanda must have been ending an affair, though speculation always got him into trouble. Sitting further back in the office chair, Amanda's mini-skirt shortened. She eyeballed James through brown eyes. He saw her frown and flick a few strands of long blonde hair from her face. James used an even pace to walk across the thick cream coloured carpet to the window. He stood watching the cars buzzing past in the Melbourne CBD. He loved the city for the rush. When he needed to, he'd sit at his favorite café observing people going through their daily life while he waited for inspiration to start a new novel. He didn't have the courage to tell Amanda he'd slipped into the vortex of the dreaded writer's block. James turned from the window to focus on Amanda. "From the first day we met, you represented someone who never gets nervous about anything. Today you seem on edge over something?"”