Page 2 of Based on You

I glared at them, half hoping the shelves might cough up a sandwich.

"Why are they serving me a salad? What are they trying to say?" I grumbled, carrying the plastic containers back to my desk.

I was hungry, and the alternative was starving until dinner.

I pulled out my soft-leather notebook and started to eat, my pen gliding across the pages without much thought. This notebook was where my manuscripts lived in their rawest, most vulnerable form, long before I moved a single word to my laptop and gave them shape.

The current arc had been needling me for weeks—a practical heroine who'd let herself get too close to a man she had no business getting close to.

I kept my head down and wrote like a woman possessed until the salad was gone and the fruit half-eaten. Finally, I snapped the notebook shut and dove back into my corporate duties.

At four o'clock sharp, the elevator dinged.

I rose to my feet when a heavy set of footsteps echoed from the lobby. A moment later, Simon rounded the corner. He wore a sharply tailored dark blue suit, the same shade as my trousers. His thick black hair was trimmed an inch shorter than I remembered, faded clean at the sides. His shoulders were broad, his jaw sharp, and his brows thick. He had gray eyes that corporate photographs never quite caught.

On instinct, I pasted on a professional smile as he approached my desk. His driver, Manuel, trailed a few paces behind with stacks of documents from the meetings.

"Welcome back, Mr. Beckett. How was the meeting?"

Simon paused, his gaze sweeping slow over my outfit. "We're matching."

I smiled wider. "I think butter yellow would look rather great on you."

He shook his head, his mouth pulling into an unamused grin as he started walking again. "It's terrible in my eyes."

I stepped forward to hand him the summarized reports I'd prepared. He took them, swept past me, and disappeared into his corner office.

Simon left for the day just before six. He hadn't glanced toward my desk on his way past, hadn't marked the end of the workday or the fact that I was still sitting there.

In the months before his sister, Elena, passed away, he'd sometimes stopped at my desk on his way out. He'd linger to confirm the next morning's schedule or ask a question he'd forgotten in the chaos of the day. Those small, strictly professional things had dried up since.

I hadn't missed it.

But I'd learned to notice a great many things about Simon Beckett.

I pushed the thoughts aside, finished formatting the last of the spreadsheets, packed up my things, and left the office a little past six.

Home meant a quick dinner and a fresh pot of coffee. With a mug in hand, I settled into my plush reading chair by the window. A serialized fiction platform loaded on the screen as soon as I opened my laptop.

Grinning, I logged in using the secret username I'd used for years: V.M. Ashby.

Five million followers sat beneath the bold handle—readers who knew the mind of V.M. Ashby down to the bone and had never once heard the name Violet Paige, who left thousands of comments addressed to a mystery woman they'd built in their own heads.

I took a deep breath and clicked to open a new project. The cursor blinked in the empty title field as my mind circled the email from the people at Forsyth & Webb three weeks back. They were pitching a fat deal to put Books One and Two of my current series into physical print.

But I'd ignored it.

Replying meant deciding, once and for all, whether I was willing to let the world attach a real face to V.M. Ashby. And the thought alone sent a chill down my spine.

My family measured human worth in titles. My father was a respected federal judge, my mother a senior CPA, and my older brother a brilliant surgeon. Romance novelist wasn't a title any of them would ever stomach beside our family name. To them, writing love stories was a silly thing people did on the side—a hobby pretending to be a career.

And I'd spent four years pretending it wasn't real work just to keep the peace. That was easier than finding out what would happen the day I stopped.

I drew in a slow breath and typed out the words:

The Quiet Hour, Book Three. The Assistant.

TWO