Then she sees the frame on the wall directly across from my desk with simple black wood and professional matting.
Her words, preserved behind glass.
“‘V. Langley used to write heroes who wore their scars honestly,’” she reads slowly. “‘This book feels like he’s hidingbehind walls while pretending to be vulnerable. The hero’s emotional journey rings false—like the author is writing what he thinks readers want instead of what he truly believes about love.’”
She stops. Turns to face me.
“You framed my review.”
“I’ve read it five hundred times.”
“It was a two-star review, Scott. I eviscerated you.”
“You were right.” I lean against the doorframe, keeping distance between us because if I get too close I might do something stupid like beg her to forgive me. “Every word. I was hiding. I was performing vulnerability instead of living it. I was writing what I thought people wanted because I was too scared to write what was true.”
“So you framed it?”
“To remember—every day—what happens when I stop being honest.”
Jessica looks back at the review. “That’s why you kicked me off the ARC team,” she says quietly. “Not because you were angry.”
“Because I was devastated. Because a stranger on the internet saw through me more clearly than anyone in my actual life. And I couldn’t handle it.” I take a breath. “You broke me open, Jessica. And I was too much of a coward to thank you for it.”
She’s quiet for a long time. Long enough that I start to worry I’ve said too much, handed her weapons she could destroy me with.
Then she says, “Most people just leave bad reviews on Goodreads. They don’t shrine them.”
The laugh that escapes me is raw. “I’ve never done anything the normal way.”
“No. You haven’t.” She turns back to the bookshelf, running her fingers along the spines. “Your romance collection is better than mine.”
“I’ve been building it for twenty years.”
“You have the entire Laura Kinsale backlist.”
“She’s a master.”
“You have foreign editions.”
“The Italian covers are better.”
Jessica pulls out a book—one of my own, a foreign translation—and examines the cover. “This is you, isn’t it? This whole room. Not the penthouse. Not the suits. This.”
“This is me.”
She puts the book back and turns to face me.
“I don’t know what to do with this, Scott.”
“You don’t have to do anything.”
“You’ve been three different people and I’ve been furious at all of them and attracted to all of them and I don’t know which one is real.”
“They’re all real.” I push off the doorframe, take one step toward her. “The businessman who threatened your lease, the author whose books you loved and hated, and the correspondent who fell for you through letters… All of them are me.”
“That’s a lot of people to trust.”
“I know.”
