He meows in response.
TWO
SCOTT
Imake it exactly three steps out of The Fiction Nook before I trip over my own feet.
Not a little stumble or a minor balance correction. A full, spectacular near-face-plant that requires grabbing the doorframe like a man who’s just discovered gravity is a personal enemy.
I’m forty-five years old. I own half the commercial real estate in Twin Waves. I’ve closed deals worth more than some countries’ GDP. I once stared down a room full of hostile investors without blinking.
And I just nearly killed myself on a perfectly flat boardwalk because I was too busy looking back through the window at Jessica Wells.
I catch myself with what I desperately hope passes for casual grace but probably looks like a giraffe on ice skates.
Through the glass, she’s watching me with the ghost of a smile before she turns away.
Of course she saw.
The universe has an excellent sense of comedic timing and a personal vendetta against my dignity.
“Smooth, Avery,” I mutter, straightening my tie and attempting to salvage what’s left of my self-respect. “That’ll definitely convince her you’re a competent adult and not a disaster in an expensive suit.”
A tourist family walks past, the father giving me a concerned look.
But to be fair, I am talking to myself on the boardwalk, in public.
I walk back to my condo like everything is normal, refusing to look back or acknowledge that my heart is still racing from the moment her hair fell down and I forgot every word in the English language.
The five-minute walk takes approximately seven years. I replay the conversation on loop—if you can call hostile negotiations peppered with accidental sexual tension a “conversation.”
I focus on the way her eyes flashed when I mentioned the rent increase. How she stood her ground in jeans and a cardigan with a hole in the elbow and still made me feel like the underdressed one. The moment her hair fell down and I nearly forgot every reason I’ve spent six months staying away from her.
That stupid pencil, coming loose at exactly the wrong moment.
Or the right moment, depending on how you define “disaster” and whether you enjoy watching a grown man’s brain short-circuit in real time.
I wanted to touch her, tuck that strand behind her ear and watch her breath catch, to stop being the villain in our story long enough to tell her the truth about everything.
Instead, I threatened to sell her building.
Because I’m a bestselling romance author who can’t talk to the woman I love without sounding like a corporate jerk.
The irony would be hilarious if it wasn’t actively destroying my will to live.
My condo is exactlywhat you’d expect from a man who has too much money and not enough emotional intelligence to decorate with anything resembling personality.
Floor-to-ceiling windows overlook the Atlantic, surrounded by white walls and gray furniture. Not a single personal item is visible because personal items tell stories, and I’ve spent years making sure no one reads mine.
It looks like a luxury hotel designed by someone who’s never experienced joy, and I hate it.
I drop my briefcase by the door. It lands on my foot because today is committed to humiliating me, and I limp toward the one room that matters. The guest bedroom at the end of the hall. Always locked. The only space in this entire hollow apartment that feels like home.
My writing office.
Also known as: the room where I keep all the evidence that Scott Avery, ruthless businessman, is actually V. Langley, romance novelist who writes about feelings for a living.
If anyone ever found this room, my reputation would be destroyed.
