Nothing Less than Magic

by Stacy Finz

Genres: Holiday Romance; Contemporary Romance

Synopsis

When a popular marriage counselor’s own marriage falls apart, she’s forced to question her methods—and discovers the magical ingredient she’s been missing all along—in the dreamiest possible way . . .

Just one year ago, Chelsea Knight was living the life she’d always wanted. Marriage to the perfect guy, a thriving career, and a gorgeous condo overlooking San Francisco Bay. Then out of nowhere, her husband, Austin, left her. Ironic, because Chelsea fixes marriages for a living. In fact, she’s famous for her techniques. Naturally, she’s been using her expertise to win back her ex—and when he invites her for drinks, she’s sure her work has finally paid off. Until he announces he’s engaged.

Devastated, Chelsea seeks refuge in the beloved small-town lake cabin she and Austin now take turns using. When she arrives, the streets are dazzlingly decked out for Halloween, the autumn leaves are exceptionally vibrant, and the locals are especially warm and welcoming. It’s downright magical—and so is Knox Hart, a talented jack-of-all-trades who’s fixing her roof. Chelsea is instantly drawn to him—and to the simplicity of country life. Slowly, she becomes immersed in the townspeople’s problems and finds a sense of belonging—leading her to reevaluate her own path . . .

But something about the idyllic hamlet—and Knox—seems too good to be true. A trick more than a treat. And when she ultimately learns the truth, her heart is shattered. Miraculously, Austin is there to mend it. It’s everything she’d hoped for. Or is it? On the cusp of making all her dreams come true, Chelsea must find the strength to make an impossible choice . . .

Release date: July 23, 2024

Publisher: Kensington Books

Print pages: 304

Sample

As I stand at the Top of the Mark desperately trying to focus on anything other than San Francisco’s spectacular skyline, I’m reminded of how much I dislike heights. Call it a mild case of acrophobia. I can still force myself to fly or visit my uncle’s penthouse apartment, but anything higher than three stories makes my stomach pitch.

And the Mark Hopkins’s iconic sky lounge is pretty much all glass, making it difficult to ignore the fact that it’s nineteen floors up. The whole point of the place is the sweeping bird’s-eye view you get of the city, a view I’d feel much more comfortable seeing in pictures. Or even better, from the ground.

But it’s the restaurant Austin has chosen, and I have such high hopes for this meeting that my queasiness has given way to excitement.

He wants to talk, which I see as an excellent sign.

The hostess shows me to our table. Thankfully it’s at the center of the restaurant, away from the wall of windows, so I don’t have to look down. Although it’s not as private as I would’ve liked.

I’m ten minutes late, and Austin still isn’t here yet. Nothing new about that. Of the two of us, I’m the more punctual one. If not for my BART train running behind schedule, I would’ve been here right on the dot of seven. It’s a long walk from my office in the Financial District. I probably could’ve used the exercise, but I ran out of my apartment this morning without a jacket. And we’re having an unseasonably chilly October, which is usually shorts weather in San Francisco. It’s the summers that are cold and foggy. In any event, it was warmer to take the train. And quicker, even if BART did run late.

I order a martini, which the Top of the Mark is famous for, and examine the 1920s architecture. The story goes that during World War II, servicemen used to come here for a farewell shot before shipping out. Now, travelers come for the skyline.

I’m a little surprised that Austin picked it. He veers toward trendy, and Top of the Mark ain’t that. And of course, my heights issues. But it’s fine, really. It’s a restaurant, not Mount Whitney.

My martini comes, and I check my watch again, letting out a huff. Austin must’ve gotten held up at the office. He’s a divorce attorney, ironic given that I’m a marriage counselor and life coach, helping thousands of couples achieve harmony in their relationships. Whereas Austin helps them cut each other’s throats. Okay, a little hyperbole, but the point is that we make odd bedfellows.

I start to text him, then stop myself, afraid it’ll come off as naggy. Or needy. One of my first rules to a happy, successful marriage is giving your spouse plenty of space. Then again, Austin isn’t my spouse anymore.

We’re coming up on our one-year divorce anniversary. A divorce he wanted—not me—and is now obviously regretting. Hence, this meeting. I get a warm tingle just thinking that there is a possibility he wants me back.

I’m not proud of this, but there were times when I didn’t want to go on without him. I’m not saying I was suicidal but definitely depressed to the point of having to force myself out of bed most mornings. If it wasn’t for work, I probably would’ve stayed cloistered in my apartment in a stained housecoat, fuzzy slippers, clutching a bottle of wine, binge-watching Ingmar Bergman films. But here I am at the Top of the Mark, drinking a most excellent martini, preparing to reconcile with the love of my life.

Austin is still not here, so I order another drink. Why the hell not? It’s not like I’m driving. Besides, I kind of like the gin buzz I’m getting. It helps dull the notion that I’m sitting on top of the San Andreas fault, a bazillion feet in the air.

My server returns with my second cocktail and wants to know if I’d like to order something to eat. I can’t tell if he’s being accommodating or if it’s a subtle hint that the price of two drinks isn’t going to cut it. It is a Friday night, and I’m sitting on a prime piece of real estate.

“I’m waiting for my hus—” I stop before I finish, though it’s a hard habit to break. For six years, Austin was my husband. Then, out of the blue, he came home from work, packed up his stuff, and said he still loved me, but we weren’t working anymore. A year later, and I’m still trying to wrap my head around why. Why weren’t we working anymore?

I should know this, shouldn’t I? I’m supposed to be an expert on marriage.

The waiter nods, but I can tell he’s perturbed. “You know what?” I say, “go ahead and bring out one of those Bavarian pretzel fondue things you’re famous for.” I’m starved, and something about melted cheese sounds good right now.

I’m beginning to worry that Austin got so caught up in whatever he’s doing that he’s forgotten our meeting. It’s not lost on me that standing up your ex-wife isn’t the best start to patching up a broken marriage.

Ah, there he is. He’s standing at the hostess stand, searching the crowd for me. I take a moment to look at him. He’s wearing the navy blue suit I bought him for his thirty-fifth birthday. They were having a sale at Nordstrom, and the color matched his eyes.

Austin still has the power to take my breath away with his classically handsome good looks. I always thought he resembled a young Jon Hamm. All that thick brown hair and the square jawline.

Secretly, I always wondered whether people thought it strange that he hadn’t chosen someone equally as attractive as himself. We all know those couples, the ones about whom everyone says, “Can you imagine how beautiful their children will be?”

I wave to him from across the room, and his face lights up. It’s only been a week since I’ve seen him last, but as he comes toward my table, my heart skips a beat. I notice a few admiring glances from some of the other diners. It’s always that way with Austin.

“Hey, Chelsea.” He leans over me and gives me a quick peck on the cheek. “Sorry I’m late. I got waylaid by Chuck.” Chuck is one of Austin’s partners at Blagojevich, Lemons and Rawlins and is a talker. He once held us hostage at one of Austin’s work functions for forty minutes, recounting scene after scene of a movie he’d just watched on Netflix. It was excruciating.

“I took the liberty of ordering us an appetizer. You want one of these?” I hold up my martini.

“Nah, I’ll wait.” Austin shrugs out of his coat and hangs it over the back of his chair and gives me a once-over. “You look great, by the way.”

I hope so, having spent most of the previous night picking out my outfit. The sweater is tighter than I usually wear, giving me a boost in the chest department, and the skirt shorter, showing off my legs. They’re arguably my best feature. I even managed to persuade Whitney to shoehorn me in this morning for a quick shampoo and blow-out.

Even if I’m reading too much into this date, which I don’t think I am, it doesn’t hurt to look my best.

“Other than Chuck”—I grin—“how was work?”

“Same old. How ’bout you?”

“Same old,” I echo, hoping to dispense with small talk and get right to the point of this meeting. The sooner we reconcile, the sooner we can get back to our old lives when we were together—and happy. At least I was. And I suspect Austin was, too, but it took time apart for him to realize it.

In the last couple of months, he’s been super attentive, almost thirsty, as the kids like to say. He texts me nearly every day, and he’s come over to the apartment a few times. Although it’s always under the guise that he’s there to pick up some of the stuff he left behind when he walked out, we wind up spending most of the evening together. I think it’s sweet. Almost shy, like he needs an excuse to court me.

The last time he showed up, we wound up in bed together. I don’t think that was an accident. And the sex was fantastic, the way it used to be when we first started dating and couldn’t keep our hands off each other.

I suspected then that he wanted us to try again but something was holding him back. And now . . . well, there’s nothing like the holidays to remind you how lonely the world can seem. October kicks off with what I like to call the fuzzies. You know the drill. When even television commercials for decongestants are filled with happy couples dressed in matching autumn sweaters, taking care of each other. And it only gets worse between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

I warn my followers on social media not to get caught up in all the Hallmark holiday schmaltz, that it’s just an illusion created by a billion-dollar industry. But if the season is what it takes for Austin to come to his senses, I’ll take it.

The waiter brings our giant pretzel with a hot pot of fondue.

“You sure you don’t want a martini?” I ask before the server leaves.

“Nah,” he says, surprising me. We’ve never been huge drinkers, but an after-work cocktail has always been our thing. And Austin did choose a bar for our get-together.

“How come?” I tear off a hunk of the pretzel and dip it in the cheese, careful not to drip on my sweater.

“I don’t know.” He shrugs. “Just not in the mood, I guess.”

Austin has his lawyer face on, the one he uses in court when he’s fighting to get his client full custody of a child—or a dog, which is more common than you think. I read his lawyer face, and the fact that he’s not drinking, as a sign that he’s ready to talk. Really talk. Because to this day, I still don’t know what happened that made him leave. He’s too young to be having a mid-life crisis and too old to be indecisive, or ambivalent. And we were a good team.

Next year, we were planning to start our family. At thirty-seven, we knew our optimal baby-making years were behind us, but we wanted to build our careers to a comfortable place before we brought another human into the world. Besides, women these days are having babies well into their forties.

I have spent much of my life mapping out this future. A beautiful loving family. A successful profession. A life that is normal and good. Safety.

Of course, this is what almost everyone wants. Ninety-five percent of the couples that come to my lectures and TED Talks will tell you that. But most of them didn’t have the childhood I had.

This is all to say that our life was moving along to plan, and then boom! He suddenly calls it quits on me.

The server returns, and we order a few more appetizers. Judging from the way Austin keeps fidgeting with his napkin, I can tell he’s nervous. I’ve given a lot of thought to this. Do I make him work for a reconciliation? I mean, he hurt me. A lot of women would force him to pay penance before welcoming him back with open arms. On the other hand, I tell my clients that it’s not healthy to play games. They should keep the lines of communication open. That you can’t have a fulfilling relationship without honesty.

Austin is laser-focused on something on the other side of the restaurant.

“What is it?” I ask.

“I think I recognize that guy, but I can’t place him.” He nudges his head toward the back of the room.

I turn to have a look. “Which one?”

“The man sitting alone near the bar.”

I shift my focus.

“Don’t be so obvious about it,” Austin says. “Does he look familiar to you?”

“No.” I’m not even sure I’m looking at the right guy. There’s at least three men sitting alone in the general vicinity of the bar. “The one in the plaid tie?” I say, because he’s the one who stands out the most. The tie, patterned in a series of black and orange checks, is an odd fashion choice. It almost looks like it’s part of a costume, or a castoff from a thrift store.

“Yeah.”

I try discreetly to have another look, but it means turning around in my chair again. Instead, I scrounge around in my purse for my compact and pretend to fix my lipstick in the mirror, catching a good view of the man’s profile. But I can’t help but shift my gaze to his tie again. It’s the kind of tie that demands attention.

Austin laughs. “What are you, James Bond now? Don’t worry about it, he’s probably a lawyer or someone who works in the courthouse who I’ve run into a couple times.” He reaches across the table and plucks the compact out of my hand and closes it, sliding it back to me so I can return it to my bag.

The rest of our food comes, and despite being anxious about Austin’s and my future, I dig in. Everything smells delicious, and the last time I ate was yogurt for breakfast and a pumpkin spice latte my assistant picked up from the Starbucks in the lobby of my office building.

“Aren’t you hungry?” I note that Austin hasn’t touched any of the small plates we’ve ordered.

“My stomach’s acting weird.” He subconsciously rubs his tummy.

“You want some ginger ale or Seven Up?” I start to flag over our server, but Austin stops me.

“Water is good.” He taps his glass, lifts it to his lips, and takes a visual lap around the bar like he’s searching for something. Or trying to avoid eye contact. “I thought this would be a good place for us to talk. You know, neutral ground.”

A place that neither of us has any sentimental attachment to or a hometown advantage. I talk about it all the time in my seminars. It can be couples counseling or something as simple as a dog park. Just a safe place, where two people can work out their differences, so each of them feels like they’re on equal footing.

Except for the fact that I’m afraid of heights and Austin isn’t, I’d call the Top of the Mark neutral ground. It was never one of our haunts. Like I said, it’s a tourist hangout. And although the lounge is packed, I guess there is some degree of anonymity in a large crowd. In other words, no one will be paying attention to us.

And it is romantic. It’s the kind of place you bring your kids for your twenty-fifth wedding anniversary to say, “This is where Daddy proposed.” Or in our case, “This is where Daddy begged me to take him back.”

“Okay,” I say, waiting for him to go on. “What do you want to talk about?”

“Us. I’d like to talk about us.”

I nod, because I’m not about to play mediator. In this case, I’m the aggrieved spouse, not a marriage therapist. Still, he’s silent, and the anticipation of what he’s about to say is killing me. Just spit it out, I want to scream.

“I love you, Chelsea.”

Finally.

I take a deep breath and reach under the table to take his hand. “I know you do, Austin.”

“I’ve always loved you. Damn, Chelsea, you’re my best friend.” His blue eyes pool, and he swipes at them with the hand I’m not holding.

This past year must’ve been hell for him. In all the time I’ve known him, I’ve never seen him cry. Not even at his father’s funeral. Granted, they weren’t close, but still . . . it was his freaking father.

“That’s why”—he pauses and clears his throat—“I want you to know how sorry I am for everything I put you through. I just kind of lost all sense of myself. Like I woke up one morning and didn’t know who I was anymore. I guess I just needed this time to find myself again.”

A million thoughts go racing through my head, none of them charitable. Top among them is you needed to drag us through a heart-wrenching, not to mention expensive, divorce to find yourself? How very self-indulgent of you. But I focus on the mantra of my best-selling self-help book: Your feelings are valid. In other words, despite how angry I am with him, Austin is entitled to his pity party.

“I’m sorry you lost yourself,” I say, trying to sound like a wife and not do the whole therapist thing, which I recognize may have been one of my overarching problems in our marriage. No spouse wants to be inundated daily with psychobabble. “And I’m so proud of you for doing the work it took to find yourself again.” Okay, a little patronizing, but the truth. I am proud of him.

He nods. “It was a long haul with lots of twists and turns on the way. Lots of self-doubt. About me, about us.” He smiles softly, sadly.

Seeing him like this, so contrite, makes my heart melt. Every bad word I ever called him is forgotten. All I have is love, so much love that my chest aches with it.

“Oh, Austin.” I reach across the table to hug him, already planning our first Halloween together since the divorce. We used to throw a big party for his colleagues in the clubhouse of our condo. Now my condo, after I spent a bundle to buy him out of his share. Oh well. At least we’re back on track, and what was once ours and is now his and mine will become ours again.

Our server returns to the table to see how everything is. His timing couldn’t be any worse, and it takes all my willpower not to shoo him away, because Austin and I are finally getting to the good stuff. He wants me back.

Austin’s stomach must be feeling better, because he orders a gin and tonic. Perhaps he was nervous that I wouldn’t forgive him or at the very least that I would make him grovel. Good. Because after all these years, he should know that I’m not a pushover, even though I am as eager to patch us up as he apparently is.

The waiter leaves, and it’s just us again.

“You were saying,” I prod, impatient for the grand finale. Then we can go back to my place, our old place, and consummate our reconciliation with a marathon sex session, like we used to do when we first met.

“I was saying what a wonderful friend you’ve been to me through all this.” He is no longer looking at me, instead gazing across the restaurant at that man again. The one he doesn’t quite recognize. The one with the distinctive tie.

I clear my throat, and he snaps his attention back to me. His drink comes, and he takes a long sip as I grow ever more anxious.

“And?” I rest my chin on my hands and hold his gaze.

“And”—he blows out a breath—“I have something to tell you. Something . . . well . . . here goes.”

I hold my breath, waiting for it, for the words I’ve been longing to hear since the elevator lurched open on the nineteenth floor of the Mark Hopkins.

“I’m engaged.”

I’m already up, ready to throw myself into his arms, when the words hit me like a sucker punch.

I’m engaged.

If it’s to me, I’m the last to know. Besides, we already did that song and dance. I want to say, what the hell are you talking about? when I realize his lips are still moving but no sounds are coming out. All I hear is a shrill ring. It’s either my own fury or a panic attack.

Get ahold of yourself, Chelsea. You misunderstood. Calm down and listen. Really listen.

And just like that, I switch into Dr. Chelsea Knight mode and take my seat, trying to remain serene, even a little removed. “What do you mean by engaged, Austin?” I ask, as if he’s just another client.

“I met someone.” He takes a moment; then, in a soft voice, says, “Please don’t hate me.”

I blink a few times, wondering if this is a joke. A cruel joke, but a joke just the same.

“When?” is all I manage to eke out before I completely lose it. “When did you meet this woman?”

His face goes white as he realizes what I’m implying. “It’s not what you think. We were in the final stages of our divorce when I met Mary.”

So we hadn’t even signed on the dotted line of our divorce papers when he was out trolling for the new Mrs. Carter.

“Look,” he says, “it just happened. It wasn’t as if I was out there, perusing bars to meet women. I was a mess, Chelsea. Devastated. And Mary . . . well . . .”

“Well what?” I want to wipe the pure look of adulation for Mary off his face with my fist. “A week ago, you couldn’t get me into bed fast enough. Jesus, Austin.”

“Yeah . . . that was wrong. A shitty thing to do.” He cocks his head to the side and stares at me with a pair of hang-dog puppy eyes that I want to poke out with my fork. “I never meant to send you mixed signals.”

“No? How did you think I would take you initiating sex with me?” Because for the first time in his natural-born life, he was the initiator. In the past, I’d always been the one to make the first move in the bedroom. There’s nothing wrong with that, and the sex had always been good. But this time, it was all him. Nothing mixed about those signals.

His face falls, and I see regret. Deep-seated regret.

“You know I could never resist you, Chels.” He says it with such sadness that I don’t know exactly how to take it. Is he sad that he can’t resist me or sad that he’s a duplicitous jackass?

“You and I have so much history, Chelsea. And I’m having trouble letting you go. Really ending it.”

“Then don’t.” I’m near hysterics, so near that I’m willing to beg. “Don’t do this, Austin. We were good together. You said it yourself.”

“Ah, jeez, Chelsea, don’t look at me that way. You know how guilty I feel about this? I debated on whether to even tell you. But it was bound to come out at some point. How do you keep an engagement secret? And you’re the one who is always talking about honesty.” He starts to brush a hair away from my face, and I push his hand away. “Come on, don’t be like that.”

If I hadn’t drained my glass, I’d throw my drink in his face. Instead, I simply sit stock-still with my mouth ajar, not knowing what to say or how to react. How is it that one day he’s in love with me, and the next he’s engaged to someone else? I’m a nationally renowned marriage counselor, for God’s sake, and never saw this coming.

“Say something, Chels.”

“What do you want me to say, Austin? That I’m happy for you? That I hope you and this Mary woman have a wonderful life together? The life we were supposed to have. What I don’t understand is why you led me on all these months? Showing up at the condo. Calling. Texting. Sending me New Yorker cartoons.” When we were together, we used to cackle over those cartoons, when in truth, half the time I didn’t even get them.

“Was I supposed to cut you out of my life?” He holds my gaze, waiting for me to respond. When I don’t, he shakes his head. “Jesus, Chelsea, you’re my best friend.”

“And apparently your fuck buddy.”

He motions for me to keep my voice down. “That’s pretty low. We were together for nearly a decade. It’s only natural that my body still responds to the familiarity of yours.”

“Oh, is that what it was?” I laugh, then lean back, fold my arms across my chest, and try to keep from throwing up in my mouth. “Is that what you told Mary? That it was merely the familiarity of my body that you were responding to?”

“Stop it, Chelsea. It’s beneath you.”

I want to say the only thing beneath me a few days ago was him. But I’m too crushed to go there again. I just want to leave. Run, actually. Grab my purse and take the elevator down nineteen floors until I’m touching firm ground again. But I’m trying to preserve what little dignity I have left. So instead, I’m planning to sit here and eat everything on my damned plate, then stick him with the bill. No, better yet, I’m going to deprive him of the one thing we still share together. The one thing that still means something to him, even if I don’t.

“I want the cabin for Christmas,” I say, jutting out my chin like a petulant child.

Truthfully, I can’t think about Halloween or Thanksgiving, let alone Christmas, right now, because I’ll be spending all three holidays alone. It’s childish of me, but the urge to lash out is overwhelming, and he loves the cabin. Besides, I don’t want him taking his new fiancée there. It was supposed to be the place where we took our children on vacations to make memories, the place he and I would eventually retire to.

“Okay,” he says, far too easily. “I’ll take it on Thanksgiving then.”

“No can do. My sister and her kids are coming up.” The closest my sister ever came to sleeping in a rustic cabin in the woods was a five-star ski resort in Aspen.

Austin lets out a sigh. He knows my sister. He knows she and I rarely speak. “Whatever you want, Chelsea.”

His breezy acquiescence puts me over the edge. Can he really be this insensitive? This oblivious? This cruel? But more important, how did I not see it? This is what I do, what I’ve gained a national reputation for. I am the forgon. . .