Page 11 of Between Love & Ruin

“Are you serious? You would bring his negative energy there?”

“Laura, don’t,” I school her. We may be having some problems at the moment but it doesn’t mean that I hate him.

“But didn’t he despise flying and all that?”

“Yes, well, he doesn’t want to go long without me, so he will be joining later.”

“Is that what helps you sleep better at night?”

I roll my eyes. Sure, she won’t warm up to him now.

When Mark and I first got together, she was the happiest because to her it looked like I wouldn’t be a virgin anymore and I wouldn’t drown myself in loneliness. But when she started seeing how we work together, she subtly started telling me how I deserve more.

Until she started blatantly telling me that he sucks.

And while I agree that Mark isn’t the perfect boyfriend that I thought he was and that there are issues between us, I can’t just leave him. We have three years of love and work between us, memories that are too hard to let go.

“Forget about him,” I say, trying to distract her. “Send me the itinerary of what we will be doing in NYC.”

“My itinerary doesn’t leave room for Fancy Pants,” she grumbles, and I can practically picture her pouting through the phone.

She is such a brat.

“Okay then, we won’t include fancy pants, Laura.”

“Promise?” she asks with childlike excitement, making me laugh.

“I promise.”

Dominic Wolfe

Idid a little something.

Well, not technically, because it happened ‘accidentally’ and I was merely the vehicle for it. But my PA—and devil incarnate—is glaring at me as if I set off a localized catastrophe on purpose.

She is seriously about to get a piece of my mind.

“You could have kept the book in your bag, Dominic,” she says, the thing she said when a video of me exiting the airport with the book I bought in London went viral.

As per my company terms, no one is allowed to endorse a product without legal implications, and if it isn’t business, we don’t promote it. Anything we endorse undergoes rigorous legal checks to ensure it aligns with our brand integrity.

“Well, I was planning to read it on my way back home. It is a good book,” I counter. And that’s no lie. It genuinely is a refreshing book. While I like romance books, because they are a delight, for the past few months I was on a hunt for a book that didn’t have the same plot rewritten over and over.

And finally, I found it.

‘A Tide of Love’ by Sienna Hayes turned out to be a painful read. A fresh breath of air, yes, but painful all the same. When she wrote it is for the yearners, she didn’t lie or over promise. She delivered, and I am so freaking thrilled to read more by her.

I don’t know who this woman is since she had no picture at the end of the book. But I am intrigued by her writing. The way she writes feels like she can see into your soul and speak to it. And to have that kind of craft at the age of twenty-five is…inspiring.

While reading, I lost time and totally forgot this policy. I am usually careful about this, but Ms. Hayes had me losing rational thinking with her writing, too occupied with the need to find a secluded corner to go back to reading.

“God, you are such a nerd,” she throws her hands up in the air in annoyance.

“Is that supposed to be an insult? Because trust me, the only insult you or anyone else thinking reading literature is boring. And mind your tone; I am your boss.”

“A boss I am allowed to call out.”

I roll my eyes. “Remember our new project that we are building exclusively for stories?”