Page 64 of Based on You

I picked it up and read it.

The fictional male lead had gray eyes. He had a teenage niece who lived in his house. He'd lost a sister. He owned a media company. He'd carried the exhausted heroine down a dark hallway and put her in his guest room. He'd almost kissed her in his kitchen that night, and had only stepped back when his niece's door opened upstairs. He'd finally kissed her at a secluded lake house, with the bedroom window open and the bedside lamp left on.

I picked up the phone and read the whole thing again.

I set it down carefully on the wood.

"Olivia." I looked at her. "How is V.M. Ashby writing detailed things about us?"

She looked down at her hands. "There's something I have to tell you. I know I should've told you earlier, and I didn't, because I didn't know how." She looked back up, her eyes wide. "Uncle Simon. It's Violet. V.M. Ashby is Violet."

I just stared at her.

"She's been V.M. Ashby this whole time." Olivia's voice had gone small. "I heard her on a phone call with Sloane. I heard her say, 'I can't tell him I'm V.M. Ashby.'" She pressed her lips together. "I'm so sorry. I didn't know how to tell you."

I sat there a long moment, paralyzed.

Then I snatched up the phone again.

I went back to Book Three, Chapter One. I read from the very beginning. The brooding man with the gray eyes. The engraved watch Elena had given him at his college graduation. The disastrous investor dinner. The blushing heroine in the red dress with her chest pressed against his hand. The leather notebook left out on the desk. Did you write this. The corporate search the man had asked his assistant to run.

He had asked his assistant to find herself.

I read it all. Every chapter. The published dedication. For O. On your birthday. From a quiet hour to another. The weekend at the lake house. The kitchen that night. The accidental brush in the pantry. The town car. The heavy word I'd said like a joke.

I'd given her everything. The story of the unreturned phone call. The empty chair nobody ever sat in. The framed photograph I couldn't pick up. The night in the kitchen when I told her that being with her was the first time I'd felt a real home since Elena died. Private things I hadn't told anyone else. And she'd been sitting right there, taking notes, with five million readers waiting for the next chapter.

I remembered what I'd thought when I first read her journal. The character is based on me. I'd confronted her about it directly, and she'd deflected, and I'd let it go because I'd thought it was a harmless crush, something small and private she was embarrassed about. I'd thought it was sweet. I hadn't understood that I was staring at the obvious answer to a corporate question I'd been trying to solve for months, while she sat three feet from my office door.

The heavy front door opened.

Violet came in with her winter coat still on, her leather bag slung over her shoulder, a small, tired smile on her face. She looked at me, frozen on the couch. She looked at Olivia's pale face. The smile vanished.

"What's happening?" she asked, panic in her voice. "Is everything okay?"

I stood up slowly. "We need to talk."

She looked at me, her chin raising defensively, her dark eyes narrowing a fraction in fear. "Talk about what?"

I crossed the room, opened the door to her bedroom, and held it wide.

She walked inside slowly. I followed behind her and shut the door.

She turned around. "Simon. What happened. You're scaring me."

I looked at her. She stood in the middle of the room with her coat still on and her bag still strapped over her shoulder, her brow furrowed, her hands resting loose at her sides. I looked at her and didn't recognize this woman at all.

"When were you going to tell me you were V.M. Ashby?" I demanded.

All the color left her face.

"Simon," she gasped.

"When?" The single word came out terrifyingly quiet. "When were you going to tell me?"

Her eyes filled with tears. She pressed her shaking hand over her mouth, then dropped it. "I wanted to. I've been wanting to for weeks. I tried to find the right moment, and there was never a right moment, and I was so scared, and the secret just got bigger and bigger and I—" Her voice broke. "I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I swear I never meant for it to go this far."

"Why didn't you just tell me?" I rasped.