Page 17 of Between Love & Ruin

I have gathered a few things from my research. It’s not completely mine; it’s Myra’s too. Even if she still thinks this is a bad idea, she still put her best foot forward to bring me every detail that she could find.

I reminded her that this was purely business. After all, we don’t start a project without knowing what we are getting ourselves into, do we?

But truth be told, I find myself wanting to know more about this person who writes like she can see right through my soul. I have never felt this way with anyone’s writing as I do with hers, as if somebody dissected me open.

The line from her book still echoes in my thoughts: ‘Love in today’s world has the strange power to make you aabad and barbaad in the same breath.’

I could easily look up the translation, but I find myself wanting her to explain it to me in person.

Strangely enough, our background checks revealed she is the niece of Ezra and Ella Hayes—industry royalty—yet she keeps her distance from their spotlight. Even more puzzling? Her parents’ records are completely untraceable.

“Guess what?” Myra barges into my office, and I close the files with her info and keep them on the table. I have heard enough about her going on and on about better things I can focus on.

I don’t think I need a twenty-something woman to tell me what to do. She already has a lot of leverage.

“What?” I ask.

“Your precious Sienna Hayes and her team accepted our proposition.”

“That’s good to hear,” a strange sort of happiness comes and outbursts from my chest. That usually never happens because there have not been many times when we have lost a deal or an agreement.

I tell myself it is because this comes under my dream venture and this will be the first project and not because of any other reason.

Because truly, there’s no other reason for this.

“And can you not say it in that way? What do you mean by “Your precious Sienna Hayes”?”

The way she said it made it feel like I have a crush on her or something. And I don’t even do crushes.

The last time I probably had a “crush” was back when I was fourteen, and that too ended soon once I got over it.

She rolls her eyes and mumbles whatever before leaving, and I rest my head on the back of my chair.

God, I need a break sometimes.

* * *

I have never been afraid of anyone or anything in my life. Not of failure, not of my parents when they were alive and not of my grandfather, who raised me to be like that.

He used to say that once you start fearing something or someone, you have already lost, and I hate that word.

I hate that word more than I hate the word death.

But right now, as I stare at my PA, who looks like if she could kill me, she wouldn’t hesitate, I would like to say that I am slightly…intimidated.

And the reason is very small. It shouldn’t even matter, to be honest, but she has a habit of nitpicking every decision I make lately.

All I did was get tickets to the book tour by getting someone to get two for me and her internally.

I wanted to go and see how the public reacts to the book and if us investing in them is a good decision before I meet them officially.

And now, as we are on our way to the bookstore and quite literally we are late, she keeps passing me harsh glares, her body stiff beside me.

“What? This is related to our deal. You are going to say no to work?” I question

She thinks I am obsessed with the writer, and maybe I am, but not in the way she thinks I am.

I am not a teenager fan-girling over their favorite writer or artist. I am a thirty-year-old man who doesn’t believe in such things.