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“It is now.” I hope he can’t see my knees shaking. “Your manuscript is four months late. I’m not going to get fired because you’re tired of success. So organize your ideas and send them to me. You said we’re a team now. Well, my team wins.”

Chapter Seven

I am in a funk not even Taylor Swift can penetrate. I yank out my earbuds and kill my playlist, breathing frost as I jog along the river.

After the disaster of meeting Noah Ross, I knew I had to keep moving. I think more clearly when I’m not standing still, and there was no way I was going to sit idly by the rest of the evening, checking my email and waiting to see what he’d send.

I went home just long enough to hang up BD’s Fendi suit, feed Alice, and grab my running shoes.

Now, I appeal to the pavement of Manhattan, to the fading blue sky with its high cirrus clouds, to the lights coming on across the river and the steam rising out of subway grates and the pickle-scented air by the bodega, to the noise and the hustle and the mingle of eight million dreams—please, help me figure this one out.

Howis the question looping through my mind for the firstcold couple of miles. How does a guy like Noah Ross write women, write love so well?

At the launch, he had said he wasn’t married, no girlfriend, so I can’t credit a woman in the background. Then again, who knows if he was lying to me about being single, too.

Not that I care. I’m just genuinely confused. How did he convince me, surely one of his most careful readers, that there was a deep, true, feminine intuition behind his stories? How didhistake on love come to be what shaped my own?

I cringe, thinking of my list. My Ninety-Nine Things. Tenderly crafted a decade ago on my dorm room bed.

When I picture cynical Noah Ross coming up with the premise ofNinety-Nine Things I’m Going to Love About You, I have to stop running because I think I might be sick. Seagulls scatter as I lean over the railing on East River Esplanade, gulping air to catch my breath. Wind lashes my face as the river rolls by beneath me, undisturbed.

And then, I wonder—

If I hadn’t taken that book so seriously, if I hadn’t committed my own list to paper, carried it around with me all these years... would I have fallen so hard and fast for Ryan when we met? Would I be as sure that he’s the one?

Stop it, I tell myself, and run west, away from the river. Just because Noa Calloway is a lie doesn’t mean my relationship is. It doesn’t mean love isn’t real and true.

This is not about Ryan. This is about my career.

And the man who might wreck it.

If I let him. Which I’m not going to do.

Usually, I’d be reaching out to my people about now. Ryan, first and foremost. And a half-second later, BD, then Rufus and Meg. But as my fingers itch to send a series of SOS texts to each of them, I see that non-disclosure agreement in my mind.

I’d signed it in Sue’s office like an idiot. I can’t tell anyone the truth about Noa Callaway.

Suddenly, I feel my torment focus into a single vector: Sue.

Peony’s president and publisher sat there as I signed the NDA, and told me to buckle up. I feel betrayed by her, her poise and calm and cardigans. To be fair, I don’t think she’s ever actually met Noah, so she may not know his particular shade of self-obsessed. But surely, she knows he’s a man. Why doesn’t it present a crisis of conscience for her?

Silly Lanie. Naïve Lanie.

Money.

That’s why.

But what about Alix? If I am a good boss and a mentor to Aude it’s because Alix taught me how to be good. Why didn’t Noah’s identity ever seem to bother her? I’ve tried calling Alix, but her mailbox was full, and my emails have gone unanswered. So I’m left to wonder:

Is it different because Alix discovered him? Signed his first novel with Peony? What if she crafted his pseudonym herself? Isthiswhy she really gave her notice—to finally make peace with The Lie?

I need to talk to Sue. There’s got to be another, more honest way to publish these books. Something betweenunmasking Noah for the asshole he is and perpetuating a fabrication to millions around the world.

But the thought of going into Sue’s office, making any such request with no manuscript to show for my provisionally promoted self... it would be tantamount to asking Sue to fire me.

I need ammunition. I need a watertight concept from Noah and a delivery date I can hold his ass to. Then, I can think about next steps.

I begin to sprint. My legs and arms pump with sudden optimism. My muscles burn as I enter Central Park.