Despite herself, Sadie felt a smile tugging at her lips.
“God, I haven’t thought about that in ages. I looked like a deranged matchstick.”
“You looked fierce,” Jess corrected. “You were fierce, and you will be again. Great Missenden won’t know what hit it.”
“Okay, I’ll go,” Sadie told her, her voice shaky.
Her eyes stung with unshed tears, but beneath that, she felt something stirring in her chest. Something she hadn’t felt in a very long time.
Jess didn’t miss a beat, yanking her into a hug. Sadie half-collapsed into it, the smell of coffee and faded lavender shampoo grounding her.
“You’re gonna nail this,” Jess muttered, words muffled against Sadie’s rat’s nest of hair. “No one else I’d bet on, not even close.”
“What if I screw it up?” Sadie’s voice came out small, mashed against Jess’s shoulder, doubt clawing at her. “Pearce’ll probably despise me.”
Jess eased back, hazel eyes glinting with that troublemaker spark.
“Then we’ll pin it on jet lag and mail him a pigeon with an apology note. But you won’t tank it—you’re Sadie Reed, the writer-wrangler extraordinaire.”
A ghost of a smile flickered across Sadie’s face. “I think that title’s a bit much.”
“Nonsense,” Jess declared. “I’m having business cards made.”
“Thanks,” Sadie whispered, her breath unsteady.
Jess squeezed her hand. “That’s what friends are for. Now, let’s get you packed. Great Missenden awaits, and it’s your chance to show that sad excuse of an ex what Sadie Reed is really made of.”
Sadie rose and met Jess’s gaze, a spark of hope lifting the weight she had been carrying around for months, possibly even years. Jess was right; she did need this, and Corbyn Pearce was about to be beaten at his own stubborn game.
February 5, 2025
-Corbyn-
The sounds of the stationary bike’s grinding wheels and heavy breathing were the only noises bouncing off the concrete walls of the basement gym. Using a towel, Corbyn wiped away the sweat that traveled down his face only to snag on a network of rough scars that crawled up his neck to his right cheek. Annoyance had him pedaling faster as his mind drifted to the half-completed manuscript sitting on his desk, just a floor above him.
Before the accident, he would have sought to clear his mind in the steep trails around Great Missenden. His body would lean into steep descents, and wind would tear at his face as he pushed his high-end mountain bike to its limits. The burn in his muscles had meant freedom in those days. Now, though, it was just another reminder of how much had been stolen from him, of how he lived like someone much older than his thirty-six years.
His right hand clamped the handlebars, knuckles white, while his left, a mess of surgical scars, barely hung on. His fingers were cramped with pain that the February chill only made worse. The doctors had sworn he’d get movement back, but he had been left with a shaky claw that could barely grip a damn book mostdays. Not that he’d cracked one open lately, with his deadline breathing down his neck.
Riley, his massive Irish Wolfhound, sprawled across the rubber mat next to the bike, a mass of tan fur and lanky limbs. His soulful eyes remained fixed on Corbyn, patiently waiting for his master to finish so he could then go patrol the manor grounds. The hulking beast had become a tower of strength, only asking for a scratch behind the ear or to be taken for a walk to break up the monotony of lying on a rug watching him attempt to write.
“Almost there, boy,” Corbyn rasped, his breathing slightly labored from the pace.
When the phone on the bench, one of the few pieces of technology he allowed himself out of necessity, buzzed, and the name Jessica Harper appeared on the screen, his scowl deepened.
The New York-based editorial director had been hounding him more often lately, and he was well aware of the reason. Her patience frayed a little more with every deadline he’d blown past, and in the wake of a third failed developmental editor, she had to be at the end of her tether. The bike’s rhythm faltered as he lunged for it with his right hand, his left flopping to his thigh.
Corbyn swiped to answer, propping the phone on the bike’s book ledge and tapping the speaker as his legs slowed to a sluggish pedal.
“What is it now, Harper?” he barked as soon as the call connected.
“Good morning to you, too, sunshine,” Jess retorted, her voice too bright given how early it had to be in New York. “Tell me you’ve got something new on those revisions.”
Tension coiled in Corbyn’s stomach, and he hoped she didn’t hear his grimace when he lied, “I’m working on it.”
“You’ve been ‘working on it’ for a month. The deadline was two weeks ago.”
“I told you I needed more time after…”
