Emma spent the next week with Astrid and Klaus catching up on old times. When they left, Emma promised to keep in touch.

Emma was featured on the cover of one of London’s biggest art magazines and soon her paintings were being sold faster than she could count. She was ‘the hot thing’. Attention was being put on her. She started appearing in the newspapers. What she wore, where she ate, and who she was with become more important than what she painted. Then all hell broke loose when a pictured appeared on the cover of The Sun on a Wednesday morning.

The ringing phone woke her up.

"Hello?" she answered groggily.

"Have you seen this mornings newspaper?" Brian’s voice asked, sounding loud and anxious.

"Do I sound like I have been up?" she asked sarcastically, angry for being woke up so early.

"Maybe I should come over."

Emma sat up in bed, fully awake now. "Brian, what’s wrong?"

"I’ll be there in 10 minutes." And he hung up the phone.

Emma sat in her bed, her heart pounding. Something’s happened, she thought.

The doorbell rang and she ran downstairs to let Brian in. He walked right by her into the living room. She followed.

"You need to sit down," he told her.

Emma sat down in a big overstuffed chair, her hands clasped tightly together in her lap to control the shaking. Her heart was pounding.

Brian threw a newspaper on to the coffee table.

Emma reached over a picked it up. Her mouth dropped open and she saw the cover. Her eyes moved up to Brian. "What is this?" she asked.

"You tell me?" he asked.

On the front cover of one of London’s biggest newspapers was a picture of Paul and Emma embraced in a kiss.

"Oh my god! How did they get this?" Emma stood up, the paper clutched in her hand. "This isn’t good."

Brian walked over to Emma and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "It will be okay."

"How did they get this picture, Brian?" Emma asked though tears. "I’ve never even seen it before. Oh god, people are going to think that this happened recently." She flopped back down on to the chair and let her head fall into her hands. "I don’t need this!" she moaned.

Brian sat down beside her. "We’ll fix this. Why don’t you go get ready and then we can head down to my office and straighten this out."

An hour later, Emma was sitting in Brian’s office reading the article while he made some phone calls. The headline read Beatle Paul finds love with an Artist. "You think they could have been a little more creative," she muttered.

"What?" Brian asked.

"What? Oh, nothing. Have you got this settled yet?" "I just got off the phone with Paul. He’s on his way over."

As they waited for Paul, Emma looked closer at the picture, trying to figure out when and wh and taken it. God, they looked so young, she thought. When had this been taken? "Wait! I know when this was taken!" she cried out loud. "Valentine’s Day 1960, our first." She felt a tear slip down her cheek and quickly wiped it away in hopes that Brian didn’t notice. He had but he didn’t say anything.

Brian’s intercom buzzed. "Mr. McCartney is here to see you," his secretary called.

"Thank you, let him in."

Seconds later, Paul walked into the room. He saw Emma sitting on the couch. He walked over to the other side of the room and stood with his arms folded across his chest.

Brian sensed tension and got right into what he wanted to say. "Do you want to take direct action against the paper and have a retract printed for tomorrow’s papers?"

Emma looked at Paul. "We have to say something. It isn’t true and I’m sure people will get the wrong idea."

"I found out about it this morning when Jane came into the bedroom and started hitting me with a pillow. It took me two hours to convince her that nothing was going on between us right now. So yes, I would like to set this story straight as soon as possible."

"It’s going to be hard to deny," Emma said. "They have a picture of us kissing."

"Nothing is going on though."

Emma was getting upset. How could he act like this? "Well I have a date tonight. Would you like me to notify the press so they can get a nice picture of me kissing my date?"

Paul looked at her funny. "Who is he?"

"Though it really isn’t any of your business, his name is Chris Swanson. He’s a doctor."

Paul laughed.

"What?" Emma demanded.

"I just never pictured you with a doctor," he smirked.

Emma glared at him. Grabbing her bag, she stood up. "Do what you want with the stupid picture. The sooner it gets out of the paper, the sooner I can forget that I ever had a relationship with him!" And she stormed out of the office.

It was true, Emma did have a date with a doctor later that night. He was a pediatrician at the local hospital. She’d met him at a party one night and he seemed really nice.

"I must confess that I haven’t been on a date in a very long time," Emma told Chris as they walked into the restaurant. "I’ve been so busy with my paintings."

"I promise you a good night," he smiled.

They were seated right away and Emma was having a really fun time. Chris was funny and polite and he put her at ease.

"So," Chris said after they ordered. "What is up with you and Paul McCartney?"

Emma groaned. "You saw the paper?"

"Everyone in Great Britain saw that paper this morning!" Chris laughed.

"Nothing is going on between us. End of subject."

And it was ended. Emma had a really great time and she agreed to see him again.

It was three days after the picture had appeared in The Sun that a statement was released in their rival paper. Emma knew nothing about it until she read it in the paper.

‘Paul McCartney and Emma James would like to set the record straight that a relationship between the two has not been going on. One has never gone on and one will never happen. The picture was altered and a false statement stating that the two parties were involved in a heated love affair were completely incorrect. They are sorry to their fans for this cause of confusion.’

Emma read and re-read the statement. She had never agreed to something like this!

Going upstairs, she quickly got dressed and walked down the street to Paul’s house. There were a few gatebirds hanging around.

"We think you’re better than Jane," one of them said as Emma pushed the buzzer on the gate. "Is it true that you aren’t having an affair?"

Emma nodded her head. "There is nothing going on." She pressed the buzzer again.

"What?" Paul’s agitated voice came on.

"Paul, it’s Emma."

The gate opened a bit so she could slip in. As the gates closed, Emma heard one of the girls say in a sarcastic voice, "Yeah, they’re not having an affair!"

That made Emma mad. They weren’t. She knocked on the front door. It opened immediately.

She wasted no time in getting to the point. "What the hell was that statement in the paper all about?" She’d lost a bit of her Liverpool accent after having lived in New York for so long. It came back when she got angry.

"You told me to fix it," Paul defended.

"Not like this! Not without talking to me first!"

"I don’t see why you are so upset," Paul said. "It says that nothing is going on."

"And that nothing ever did!" Emma cried. "That’s what bothers me. You lied. Who knows what else will be sent to the press now. You just made this thing into a bigger mess."

"Then we’ll keep denying it," Paul replied. The tone of his voice indicated that he saw nothing wrong in what he had done.

They were still standing in the front landing. She looked at Paul, really looked at him. He looked the same. A few more lines on his face, a bit more muscle on his body, but still the same. Their eyes met and for a few seconds Emma thought she saw love and passion in his eyes, but just as quickly as she saw it, it was gone.

"You bastard," she whispered.

Paul was taken aback by Emma’s sudden hostility. "Excuse me?"

"For almost two years of our lives we had an intense relationship--"

"And then we ended it and life goes on," Paul interrupted.

"You may have gone on with your life, but I cried myself to sleep every night for two fucking years! You broke my heart and I wanted nothing more than to forget everything that ever happened to us." Her voice was quivering and she knew she was going to burst into tears any minute. "And then you have to be in that stupid café on one of my worst days ever and every memory of us that I had pushed to the back of my head came flooding back. I loved you with all my heart." A tear slipped down her cheek. Paul was just standing there, taking in every word. "I was one of those silly girls who wanted to find her Prince Charming and have him sweep her off her feet. I thought I had found him but then reality hit me. Fairy tale romances aren’t real. I’m sorry I moved to New York, I’m sorry that I couldn’t save Stuart, I’m sorry that stupid picture got into the newspaper and," she paused, taking a deep shaky breath. "I’m sorry I ever met you, Paul McCartney."

She spun around and was out the front door so fast that Paul didn’t have time to respond to what Emma had just told him. He stood there for the longest time, just staring at the spot where she had been standing.

Emma went home and curled up on her couch in tears. Coming to England was turning out to be one of the worst mistakes she had ever made. It was just too emotionally draining. Sighing, she wiped away her tears and got up from the couch and headed into the kitchen to make herself a cup of tea. That’s when she saw what day it was. April 9th. Her birthday was tomorrow, and also the anniversary of Stuart’s death. I hope no one remembers, she thought to herself as she poured the hot water into her cup. It was hard to be happy on the day your best friend died.