Page 44 of Based on You

"You almost kissed your boss in his kitchen."

"Also unfortunately, yes."

"While sleeping in his guest room."

"Sloane, I'm fully aware of the optics."

She made a choked sound, not quite a laugh. "Are you scared?"

I leaned my head back against the hard metal chair and looked up at the dark sky. "Yes."

"Scared of him finding out about Ashby, or scared of him not feeling the same way?"

"Both. In equal measure."

"Vi." She exhaled slowly, her tone going dead serious. "Listen to me right now. Coming out publicly as V.M. Ashby is not going to destroy your whole life the way you're catastrophizing. He might be surprised. He might even be upset that you kept it from him for so long. But a man who leaned in like that in his own kitchen is not going to look at you and suddenly see someone he can't forgive."

She paused, letting it land. "And if he does? If he genuinely can't get past it? Then he doesn't deserve you in the first place. Full stop. But also, Vi… it's going to come out either way. That's just the truth of it. The longer you wait to tell him, the harder the landing's going to be."

"I know," I whispered.

"There's also the huge fact that he's been trying to find Ashby," I added, the guilt creeping back. "He wanted her to meet Olivia. He thought it would mean something to her, his grieving niece reading her work. He asked me to coordinate the corporate search, and I've been secretly running it, and I have no idea what to do with any of it."

Sloane let out another long, tired breath. "Vi. This has officially turned into a tangled mess."

"I know."

"Like, a genuinely career-ending mess."

"I know."

"You're literally coordinating a corporate manhunt for yourself."

"I'm painfully aware."

"So, what are you going to do?"

I pressed my lips together. "I honestly don't know yet. I'll think of something."

"I don't trust you," Sloane warned, playful.

"Don't worry about it."

"I'm going to worry about it."

"Sloane."

"I love you, but I'm definitely going to worry about it." I could hear the tired smile in her voice. "I'll call you the second the lab results come back."

"Please do. I love you."

"I love you too. And Vi? Think fast."

She hung up.

I sat alone on the chilly balcony with the cold night air biting at my bare arms, and I tried to think.

The next day went normally. Simon came downstairs in a charcoal suit. I was already at the kitchen island. We said good morning. We rode in silence to the office. He marched into his corner office and I settled at my desk, and the floor did what it always did, ran along quietly and without incident. By mid-morning, from any angle but the inside of my own panicked head, it looked like nothing had happened at all.