Page 65 of Based on You

"I thought you'd think I was a creep," she sobbed, shaking her head. "I started writing the fantasy about you before I knew you. Back before you were anything more than my employer. And then it became something else, and I knew I had to tell you, and I couldn't find how."

"Violet." My own eyes were burning. "I found your journal. I read it. I sat across from you and told you I didn't mind being the inspiration for your character. I told you that. I told you it didn't bother me. And you still said nothing. Why? Why keep lying when I'd already shown you I didn't mind?"

"I know," she wept.

"I told you about Elena. I told you about the photograph. I told you private things I've never said out loud to anyone, and you were sitting right there knowing you were V.M. Ashby, and you said nothing."

"I know." She was crying hard now. "Simon, please. I know. I'm so sorry."

"You sat at your desk and ran a corporate search for yourself." My voice stayed level. "You came to me and lied straight to my face. You lied about the fan back channel. You invented an entire person—a woman too afraid to fly, too fragile to ever be in a room with me—so I'd stop looking."

My thumb moved once over the face of the watch Elena gave me. I made it stop.

"You built that. You sat across from me and built a whole fake human being just to keep me at arm's length."

She took a step toward me, her hand lifting. I didn't move. She stopped where she was, the bag still on her shoulder and her coat still buttoned, as if some part of her already knew she wasn't staying.

"And Olivia." The name came out quieter than the rest. "She finally opened up to you. After everything she went through, she chose to trust you, and you were lying to her the whole time."

"It wasn't like that," her voice broke on a sob. "I love Olivia. What I feel for her is real. What I feel for you is real. I swear I was never lying about what mattered."

"Then what were you lying about, Violet?" I looked at her, disgusted. "Because from where I'm standing, everything you told me about who you were was a lie. Every morning you walked into my office. Every evening at that kitchen table. The whole time."

"I was terrified," she pleaded.

"Of what?" My voice finally cracked on the word before I could stop it. "Of me? I told you I didn't mind the writing. I told you that to your face. I handed you the perfect opening, and you closed it and kept lying. So what were you so terrified of that you couldn't just give me the truth?"

She didn't have an answer.

I looked at her crying, and the thing I'd believed I was done with closed down in my chest. The same heavy door. The same lock.

"I stripped myself open for you," I said, hollow. "I showed you things I've never shown anyone. I told you about Elena. I told you about the worst night of my life. I told you that after my sister died I felt homeless, and that being with you was the first time I'd felt a home since. I gave you all of it." My jaw tightened. "And the whole time, I was sitting with a stranger."

"That's not what happened," she begged. "Please, Simon. Please believe me, that's not what happened."

"Then tell me what happened." My voice went flat. "Because I need to understand how a person does this. How you sit across from someone every single day, look them dead in the eye, and say nothing. How you let someone bleed and tell you about the worst year of their life, and say nothing. How you let me—" I stopped and pressed my mouth shut. "Did you ever have feelings for me? Or was I just something for the plot?"

She dropped her hands in shock. "Don't you dare say that."

"I need to know."

"I have feelings for you. I've always had feelings for you. Everything that happened between us was real."

"Then why couldn't you trust me with the truth?" I looked at her. "Why, Violet? I gave you everything. And you couldn't give me the truth in return. Why didn't I deserve that from you?"

She was crying too hard to speak.

I looked at her and didn't blink. The burning in my eyes stayed where it was.

"You're fired," I said, cold. "Your employment at Beckett Media ends today. I want you out of this house by tonight." My voice never rose. "And Ashby doesn't sign. Not with Beckett, not with anyone I can reach. You'd be surprised how far that is."

She looked up in horror, her dark eyes red and pleading. "Simon. Please."

"You lied to me like I was easy to lie to. Like I was something that could be managed." I looked at her steadily. "You want to know what I am? I'm someone who will not be made a fool of twice."

"These past few weeks meant everything to me," she sobbed. "Everything that happened between us meant something real. Please, Simon, don't do this."

I just looked at her. The crying woman in front of me was the one I'd been prepared to build my whole life around. The one I'd thought about marrying. The one who'd made my grieving niece laugh for the first time since the funeral. She stood three feet from me, and I didn't know her at all.