“That was unhinged. You spent months perfecting the roast profile.”
“And now I’m engaged to the love of my life.” He spreads his hands. “Results speak for themselves.”
I slump back in my chair, defeated by his annoyingly functional relationship. “It’s not the same.”
“Why not?”
Because I’m secretly V. Langley, and she’s secretly J.A. Reads Romance. Because she told the world my writing lost its soul while I had her removed from my ARC team for telling the truth. Because we’ve been corresponding through anonymous letters for six months and she’s told me things—vulnerable, beautiful, devastating things—that she’d never say to Scott Avery the corporate villain.
Because I’m lying to her in approximately forty different ways, and when she finds out, she’ll hate me.
And she’ll be right to.
But I can’t tell Grayson any of that without explaining the secret author identity I’ve hidden for fifteen years, and that’s a conversation I’m not prepared to have. Today or possibly ever.
“It’s complicated,” I say again, because apparently that’s my entire vocabulary now.
Grayson sighs. “For what it’s worth,” he says, standing to leave, “Jessica caught the bouquet at my wedding. And Amber said she saw you watching her with so much intensity it should probably come with a warning label.”
“Amber talks too much.”
“But she’s perceptive.” He pauses at the door. “She also said you looked like a man realizing he was in love and having a complete crisis about it. Her words.”
“I was not having a crisis.”
“You spilled red wine on the mayor’s wife.”
“That was—” I stop. I don’t actually have an excuse for that. I spilled red wine on the mayor’s wife because Jessica looked at me across the room while holding that bouquet, and my brain completely short-circuited.
“The mayor’s wife is still upset,” Grayson adds helpfully. “That dress was dry-clean only.”
“Thank you for the reminder.”
“What are friends for?” He opens the door, then turns back. “Just think about what you actually want, Scott. Not what the numbers say. What you actually want.”
He leaves before I can answer.
Which is probably for the best, because what I actually want is impossible. I want Jessica to look at me the way she looks at her favorite books. I want to stop being the villain and to tell her everything—about the writing, about the letters, about the fact that I’ve been in love with her since she passionately defended the romance genre to a condescending tourist and made me want to applaud.
But that would require honesty and vulnerability, the willingness to let someone see the real me and risk them finding me wanting.
And I’ve spent forty-five years building walls specifically to prevent that.
So instead, I pour myself a drink, sit in my expensive uncomfortable chair, and stare at the harbor view that cost a fortune and means nothing.
This is fine.
Everything is fine.
Two hours later,I’m back in my writing office, tipsy and fully committed to making questionable decisions.
I’ve pulled up the email I use for V. Langley correspondence, and there’s a message from my agent, Rodney.
Your new manuscript pages are incredible. This is your best work in years. When can we send it to the publisher?
Never. Not while every page reads like a confession to a woman who doesn’t know I exist.
I close the message without responding and do the thing I definitely shouldn’t do.
