Page 16 of Written By a Woman

“Oh, don’t forget the bread,” Salma added, following the youngest sibling out of the doorway, and leaving me in her dust. I released a tired sigh and followed them to my car, shutting my parents and Ben in the house behind me.

“What’s going on?” I asked as my sisters carelessly tossed the leftovers into the passenger seat of my Model X. Thank goodness my mother bought quality Tupperware, otherwise, my car would be a mess now.

“Do you know a woman named Sig-nee?”

I halted in my step, freezing almost entirely as my sisters now stood tall with crossed arms and narrowed eyebrows. My gaze bounced between both of their suspicious ones and before I could think better of it, I felt my nerves start to get the best of me.

One mention of that woman, and my body immediately tried to betray me.

I found myself standing stock still, instead of relying on my go-to tells that involved clearing my throat and straightening the collar or cuffs of my shirt. Instead, I didn’t move a muscle as I hoped that neither of them could see my face and ears heating up under the dim light of the streetlamp. Both of them studied me, waiting for me to give them something.

“Um,” I cleared my throat once more, “She works at my company. Why?”

My sisters exchanged another look between themselves, one that made me almost groan with humiliation.

How did my sisters find out about Signe Lange?

More importantly, how in thefuckdid my sisters find out about my wildly inappropriate attraction to the office manager?

“So you know, then?” Salma asked, pulling her phone out of her pocket, and leaning against my car. She didn’t look comfortable, but I assumed it was difficult to find a comfortable position when you were seven months pregnant.

“Know what?” I asked. No way in hell was I giving anything away before they revealed their hand.

“About her book?”

I stared at them.

Raina blinked at me.

Salma started typing away on her phone.

“What book?” Maybe my sisters didn’t know about my…thoughts on Signe after all.

“Sig-nee’s book. Well, I guess it’s not a book yet.” Salma looked up at me then, holding her phone a little closer to her chest as she appraised me.

I shook my head once before tossing my sister a bone by demonstrating the correct pronunciation, “Signe has a book?”

Raina narrowed her eyes at me, mirroring Salma’s pose and leaning against my car, “So youdon’tknow.”

I shrugged my shoulders before shoving my fists in the pockets of my slacks, “Know what?”

Salma raised both of her eyebrows before tentatively stepping toward me and holding her phone out, “I want to discuss how to properly say her name in further detail, but that’s not important at the moment. Did you know that she wrote a book about you?”

I felt my heart stop before it suddenly took off again.

“What?” I couldn’t keep my mouth from falling open at her words.

“I’m actually kind of pissed at her,” Salma explained, turning her phone screen towards me as she spoke, “I was so into this story. I loved the characters, but then she had to ruin it by revealing thatmy baby brotheris the male lead.”

I had no idea what she was talking about, so I took her phone and looked at the feed she had pulled up. It was a social media feed, and in the search bar was Signe’s name as well as someone named Zayne.

There were dozens of images of Signe.

I tried not to focus on her picture too hard. It was the same reason I didn’t stare at her too long at work. She took my breath away. She was a beautiful woman, with dark red hair, pale skin, and clear green eyes. Her smile was bright and wide and showed all her teeth, and her energy was contagious. I rubbed a hand over my mouth to stop myself from smiling at her picture in front of my sisters and instead tried to infer what they were talking about based on the images I was looking at.

After a few silent seconds, I gave them both a confused look.

“Here,” Raina leaned over on my right, while Salma stood to my left, all three of us looking at Salma’s phone, “This one.” Raina tapped on an image, and a video started playing.