Page 16 of Based on You

I parted my lips, at a loss.

"I'll give you a huge bonus for this." He wouldn't look away. "I'll give you anything you want, Violet, if you find her for me."

SIX

SIMON

Violet had excused herself an hour ago to think over the assignment.

I'd given her the space. The offer I'd made, anything she wanted, felt a little over the top in hindsight. I'd meant every word in the moment, but now, sitting at my desk with an hour to reconsider, I found myself running through the range of things she could ask for.

The company was off-limits. It was the joint legacy of Elena and me, the project our father had financed in a private study twelve years ago, a venture that had long outlasted the original idea. She couldn't have the company. She wouldn't ask for it. I was just being ridiculous.

My car, though, she could have. It was a machine. I could replace it.

I was still auditing my own assets when a sharp knock sounded at the door.

Violet stood on the threshold, her black dress neat, her dark curls falling over her shoulders. She held her chin high, her shoulders squared, the posture she took whenever she'd settled a matter in her head.

"I'll do it." She paused, her face going careful. "But I don't think it'll be easy."

The second half barely landed. I'd already let out a long breath of relief. Beckett Media was in a high-stakes race to uncover Ashby's identity, Forsyth was circling like a shark, and our window was closing fast. Violet would bring everything she had to this. I wasn't about to tell her how much it mattered, but the stakes were sky-high.

"Thank you, Violet." Gratitude weighed the words down.

She held my gaze for a long, searching moment. The corner of her mouth pulled up into a knowing smirk. "So. You did mention something about granting me anything I wanted."

I narrowed my eyes, trying to take back the wheel of the conversation. "What I meant was monetary, Violet. Whatever the amount, I'll happily provide it."

She let out a low, dismissive sound. "I was about to ask for something else entirely."

"Such as?"

She tilted her head, studying me, then flashed a bright, cryptic smile. Without another word, she turned and walked out of the office.

I shook my head, baffled, and went back to my mountain of paperwork.

I ground through the rest of the afternoon. At lunch, I opened my tablet and pulled up the platform where Ashby's books were hosted. I told myself I was just checking the quality of what Olivia was reading. I started Book One.

I ended up reading for forty straight minutes at my desk. I forgot to eat.

Olivia had been right about the prose. The writing was clean, unhurried, and trusted the reader. It read easy because all the work was buried inside the writing itself, the author's effort nowhere in sight. The heroine arrived on the page already whole, not clumsily explained, just there, doing things that told you everything you needed to know without the prose bragging about it. I'd edited enough manuscripts in my career to know how rarely that kind of craft lands.

I closed the tablet at one thirty because I had a two o'clock meeting, but the chapters sat in my head the rest of the day.

That night, I knocked on Olivia's door. She let me in at once, and I told her I'd read the first eight chapters.

She sat up so fast the blanket slid off her knees. "Eight. In a day. You forgot to eat, didn't you."

"I had a meeting at two."

"You forgot to eat." She was already grinning. "Okay. Tell me you hated something so I can prove you wrong."

We argued.

Not a loud fight, a spirited debate over literary theory. I thought the heroine's friend was written too broad, edging into caricature. Olivia insisted I'd missed the joke. I argued the male lead's actions were inconsistent in chapter four, and she countered that I'd missed the emotional point.

She pulled up specific paragraphs on her phone, reading them aloud and daring me to defend my read. I defended some positions badly and caved on others, and eventually I stopped playing devil's advocate and just listened.