Page 42 of Based on You

"I'm fine, sir," she said. "Did you need anything else prepared before the London call?"

"No." I sighed. "Thank you, Violet."

She snapped the notebook shut and walked out.

I'd leaned into a dynamic she hadn't invited, and now she was using the same hollow, professional smile she gave everyone else in the building. I was the one who'd forced her to put that armor on. I'd taken a working relationship that had been warm and easy for two years and poisoned it with caution. I'd turned myself into a complication she now had to manage.

The day dragged forward. The London strategy call. The crowded fansign. Beatrice Holm shook my hand and offered a generous compliment about Beckett Media's upcoming catalog, and I recited the polite, correct responses.

Later, the development team ran through the new serialization app timeline; I asked the necessary questions and pushed the project forward. I did all of it while the image of Violet, sitting quietly at her desk outside my door, took up the entire back half of my mind.

It had never been this hard with Lara.

Lara and I had ended things cleanly, without much emotional damage. We were two pragmatic people who'd kept each other good company for a while and eventually ran out of the spark that brought us back for more. I'd been mildly sorry when it ended, but I hadn't lost a single night of sleep over it. I'd never sat through a board meeting distracted by thoughts of her. What I felt for Violet Paige was something else. Heavier, a gravity that had been building without my permission for a long time. That night in the kitchen hadn't been a fluke. It had been the moment the glass finally overflowed.

After the last meeting, I walked out to her desk to tell her we were heading back to the house.

She wasn't there. Her chair was pushed in, her laptop bag gone, her leather notebook closed on the far corner of the desk. I stood in the empty hallway a long moment. In two years, she'd never once left the building without saying goodnight. I'd never demanded that she wait for me, and she'd never set the expectation that she would, but that quiet farewell had always been there, a warm word and a nod on her way to the elevators. Not tonight.

I had Manuel drive me home alone.

I found her curled up on the living room couch. Her personal laptop was open, her wire-rimmed reading glasses perched on her nose, her bare feet tucked under her thighs. A half-empty mug rested dangerously on the cushion beside her. Hearing my footsteps in the foyer, she peered up over the top rim of her glasses, careful.

The second she saw it was me, she snapped the laptop shut.

I hung my suit coat in the closet. I chose the armchair across from her instead of a spot on the couch, keeping the heavy oak coffee table planted between us. She slid her reading glasses off, folding the arms and setting them on top of the closed laptop.

"Long day at the office?" she asked quietly.

"Reasonably." I kept my tone even. "You left the floor before I got out of the app development meeting."

She dropped her gaze back to her computer. "I'd already finished everything on my docket. I didn't think you'd need me for anything else after five o'clock."

"I didn't," I conceded. "You were right to leave."

We sat in the tense, loaded quiet a long moment.

"Violet," I finally began.

She looked up at me, her dark eyes guarded.

"About last night." I forced the words out, refusing to look away. "In the kitchen. I owe you a real apology. You're a guest living in my house. You work for me. I never should have stepped toward you like that without the two of us having a clear, explicit conversation first. I'm sorry for crossing that line."

She stayed quiet. She looked down at her own hands, resting tense on top of the closed laptop.

Then she spoke. "Simon." She used that flat, direct register, the one she deployed at work whenever she was about to correct a spreadsheet error without mercy. "You don't owe me an apology. Nothing actually happened." She paused, taking a slow, shaky breath. "And if it had… I wasn't unwilling."

Before I could process it, she stood up. She snatched her laptop and her glasses, whispered a hasty goodnight, and bolted out of the living room and up the stairs.

I sat frozen in the armchair, my heart pounding.

I wasn't unwilling.

THIRTEEN

VIOLET

I'd been avoiding him.