Page 51 of Based on You

I crossed the rest of the kitchen and pulled her in.

FIFTEEN

VIOLET

I lay flat in the guest room bed a long time before I made myself get up.

The hug had been sudden. His arms wrapping around me in the kitchen, my hands pressing between his shoulder blades, both of us holding on tight without having planned to. It had felt like being found, like finally stepping into a warm room after a long time out in the bitter cold.

And that was the terrifying problem.

I'd been estranged from my family long enough that I'd stopped expecting any real warmth from that direction. My mother's phone calls were harsh corrections dressed up as care. My father's heavy silence was a standing judgment that didn't need words. I'd moved out on my own and told myself I was fine. I'd been telling myself that lie for years while building a quiet, solitary life inside the empty gaps: the corporate job, the secret writing, my friendship with Sloane, and the safe apartment I couldn't afford to lose, but had lost anyway.

And then, by accident, I'd walked into Simon Beckett's lake house, and somehow, without ever planning it, all those empty gaps had filled. Olivia came to my bedroom door just to argue about a fictional couple. Simon poured my morning coffee before I had to ask. Marta left out my favorite bread. The three of us sat together at a dining table at night like it was something we'd done for years.

It was the closest thing I'd felt to a real family in over a decade, and the crushing part was that I was lying to all of them. Lying to the man who'd confessed his darkest truth to me in a kitchen. Lying to the grieving girl who'd told me her dead mother would have liked me. Lying every single day I sat at their table, answering V.M. Ashby's fan mail on my laptop, and smiling across the kitchen island like I didn't carry a secret that would rewrite everything they thought they knew about me.

I wanted to tell him the truth. I'd been agonizing over it for weeks, and the wanting had gotten louder since the near-kiss the other night, louder again since the hug. Because the ugly truth was, it was so much harder to lie to someone who'd held you.

I got up and made my way downstairs.

Simon was already at the stove. Olivia sat at the kitchen island in her pajamas, both elbows on the counter, watching him cook. They were laughing at something when I walked in, Simon with his back to the door, Olivia with her chin in her hand, and the leftover laugh was still lighting up both their faces when they turned to look at me.

My heart flooded with warmth, and I hated that it did, and loved it.

"Sit," Simon said, already reaching into the cabinet for another plate.

I sat beside Olivia. He served the hot breakfast without needing to ask what we wanted.

We ate in comfortable silence. The morning moved at an easy pace, the three of us in the kitchen without needing anything heavy from each other. Nobody mentioned the hug. Technically, there was nothing scandalous to mention. All we'd done was stand in a kitchen and hold onto each other. Which was not nothing, but it also wasn't the kind of thing you annotate over scrambled eggs.

"How did you sleep last night?" I asked Olivia, breaking the quiet.

She looked up, bright. "Really well. Good." She reached for her glass of orange juice. "What are we all doing today?"

"What do you want to do?" Simon asked.

She stared at her juice, then flicked her gaze to me, her face going still. "Swimming."

Simon looked at her, his brow furrowing. "No."

"Uncle—"

"The lake water is freezing, Olivia."

"I can swim fine." She turned to face him fully, her chin lifting, her voice sure. "I'm a good swimmer. I've swum in cold water before. I'll be safe." She paused for drama. "And Violet will come out with me."

I blinked. I hadn't volunteered for this freezing assignment.

Olivia turned her head to look at me and held my shocked gaze without blinking.

I looked helplessly over at Simon. He was watching me with one dark eyebrow raised, his mouth pulled to one side in amusement.

"I'll go out with her," I sighed, beaten.

Olivia returned to her breakfast without a word, settled and unsurprised by her win.

We finished eating. Olivia disappeared upstairs and bounded back down in a heavy winter coat, which she unzipped dramatically as we walked toward the lake to reveal she'd been wearing her swimsuit underneath it since breakfast.