Page 5 of Based on You

I brushed past her into the corridor. "Nobody in this building likes you, my dear."

"And I have you to thank for that."

"You've proven to be quite the corporate catch," I called over my shoulder, striding down the hall.

A low giggle trailed behind me as I walked away.

The ideas team was already ranged around the sprawling mahogany table when I opened the heavy boardroom doors. Devika, the team lead, had her laptop open, four junior members flanking her on either side. The moment I crossed the threshold, their heads snapped up and the low murmur of side conversations died.

"Let's get right into it." I pulled out the leather chair at the far end.

Devika swiveled, tapped a key, and connected her screen to the large smart screen. "We've been digging into the serialized fiction market, specifically the rising dominance of online platforms." She pulled up a data-heavy opening slide. "The user engagement numbers are wild! There's a real opportunity here, and it lines up with a pet project Elena had been developing before⁠—"

She choked on the sentence and cleared her throat. "Before the accident last year…"

A tense stillness gripped the boardroom for a few hard seconds.

"Go on," I prompted.

Devika swallowed and nodded, finding her professional rhythm again as she walked us through the proposed business model. Independent writers were serializing their work chapter by chapter on dedicated indie platforms, where armies of readers paid monthly subscriptions to follow along in real time.

The differentiator—the golden hook no corporate platform offered yet—was what happened at the end. Once a serialized novel wrapped, every loyal reader who'd subscribed from chapter one could get a signed hardcover in the mail. The reader earned a trophy for their loyalty, and the writer finally earned a fair, heavily subsidized cut of what their work was worth.

"Think of our platform as the bridge," Devika said, gesturing to a flowchart. "We'll connect the huge online readerships these writers have already built with the traditional publishing muscle Beckett Media brings." She pressed on. "We'll run the printing press, handle global distribution, and set up the signing events, while they keep full creative control over their work. Everybody wins."

I raised a brow. "What's the financial risk?"

"The author's identity is the wildcard." Marcus jumped in, an ambitious junior strategist seated to Devika's right. "For the signature to hold any value, the fans need to know whose autograph they're getting. The problem is, a big chunk of these top-tier writers are anonymous. They've built cult followings under obscure pen names. So getting them to step out of the shadows and reveal their identities could be a serious hurdle."

I hummed, staring at the slides. "Then the fix is simple. We'll build the platform to protect their anonymity at every stage except final fulfillment. Let them keep whatever ridiculous pen name they want during serialization. We'll only require a verified legal name and a location for the contracts and the shipping."

"That could work—and beautifully," Devika agreed, typing a note into her laptop.

"So who holds the crown right now? If we're targeting serialized romance, who's the biggest fish in that pond?"

Devika tapped her spacebar, advancing the slide. A single name appeared in stark text, set beside a live follower count so high it made Marcus lean forward to count the zeroes.

"V.M. Ashby," Devika announced. "She has five million active subscribers. She drops a new chapter every Sunday at midnight on the dot. Our data shows she hasn't missed a single posting deadline in three straight years. Zero media interviews. Zero public appearances. Her legal identity is a ghost."

I stared at the projected slide, working the angles in my head.

"All right then. She'll be the anchor," I declared. "That's who we launch the platform with."

Devika held my gaze, her expression going grim. "There's a snag, sir. She hasn't answered a single piece of corporate outreach from any major platform we tracked. Rumor has it that a rival publisher is already deep in talks with her team."

"Move faster. Let's hit harder than they do." I pushed my chair back and stood to dismiss the room. "Use every resource we've got to find out who this woman is. And the second you find her—make her an offer she can't refuse."

THREE

VIOLET

I sat at my desk, my pen gliding across the open notebook.

The building was busy, every floor running on ringing phones, clattering keyboards, and heels striking tile, a corporate morning already at full speed. I'd wrapped the Tuesday close at eleven the night before and showed up with the notebook already open in my tote, the next chapter spinning in my head. I didn't write actual prose at the office. I wrote beats. Shorthand. The bare skeleton I'd flesh out later with the kettle whistling on the stove.

That morning, I'd flipped to a fresh page and spent ten minutes scribbling lists and fragments, a private language that looked like administrative notes to anyone glancing over.

The Assistant hadn't started as a decision. It started as a pressure building inside me until it had nowhere else to go. The disastrous dinner with the investors had lit the fuse. That was the night I finally understood I was in deep trouble.