Page 31 of In Case You Didn't Know

I nod mutely, clutching my notebook like a lifeline. Alice is a powerhouse editor. Brilliant, blunt, and allergic to bullshit. She’s the reason I signed the contract the day after I got back from Liberty Island. It still smelled like printer ink when the anxiety set in.

It’s been three months since I left the lighthouse behind. Three months since I let Asher Fitzgerald touch me like he already owned me. Since he looked at me like I was breakable, beautiful, and his. All in the same breath. And then nothing since.

Now I’m three weeks behind on the manuscript that is supposed to be my big break. I haven’t slept, my right eye won’t stop twitching, and I can’t stop thinking about the way he heldme as I came. How gentle his hands were, how wrecked his voice sounded when he said my name.

Of course he hasn’t called. Who wants a hot mess who basically dry-humped her friend’s brother in the dark then ghosted him the day after like she was allergic to consequences? Because she was too embarrassed to face him, knowing she’d practically begged for him to touch her.

“I can do better,” I say, although my voice cracks on the word better. And like she knows I’m on the edge, Alice changes tack, shutting her laptop with a decisive snap.

“Francine, let me explain something.” She stands, heels clicking on the polished floor as she walks around the desk. “There are a thousand writers who would kill to have this shot. But I don’t care about them.”

I blink. “You don’t?”

“No,” she says. “I care aboutyou. Because you’re the one with the voice. You’re the one who made me laugh, cry, and squirm in the first five chapters of your sample.

She stops in front of me. “But this—” she gestures vaguely toward the pages I recently submitted, “It reads like someone who’s writing with one hand tied behind their back.”

“I’m trying,” I whisper.

“I know you are,” she says, and it’s not unkind. “But something’s holding you back. And I think I know what it is.”

My heart stutters. “You do?”

“It’s the Commander,” she says flatly. “You created this magnetic, emotionally repressed man who practically sizzles on the page. But now it seems like you’re afraid of what happens when he finally lets go. Like you don’t trust what comes next.”

I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. Because how can I tell her that I’ve based the commander on the same man I ran away from three months ago without a word?

The one who made me see the kind of stars that no woman could ever recover from.

Alice crosses her arms. “Honey, that man wants to wreck her. He wants to protect her. He wants to ruin his life for her and pretend he didn’t mean to. But you’re keeping him on a leash. Why?”

I swallow hard. Because of who he is based on. And it’s making it impossible to write him in the way I want to.

“I don’t know,” I lie.

She doesn’t call me on it. She just gives me that look. The one that made me initially sign the contract and believe I could actually do this.

“Trying isn’t enough anymore. Not for this. This is your coming-out party. And the publishing world is full of people who will take one look at you and try to eat you alive.”

She gives me a smile that’s all teeth and belief. “So show them exactly who you are and how good you can be.”

My chest tightens. “And if I can’t do it?”

“Then I’ll give your slot to one of the other hundreds of authors who asked for it. The ones I turned down because you walked into my office.” She tilts her head. “Don’t make me regret betting on you, Francine. Make me look like a genius.”

I nod, swallowing the lump in my throat. “You’re not going to regret it.”

Alice watches me for a beat, then nods like she’s satisfied. For now. “Good. Because marketing’s already moving. And our rights team is on standby.”

I blink. “Wait. What?”

She strides back behind her desk and flips open a thick binder with color-coded tabs. “We’ve got early mockups for the cover. The team’s brainstorming titles that’ll melt the Amazon algorithm. There’s already interest from two streaming producers – big ones – who want first look at the pitch.”

My stomach flips. “Before the first draft is even finished?”

Alice doesn’t even glance up. “Absolutely. You’re hot in the industry right now, Francie. The right kind of hot. The sample you sent blew open doors you don’t even know about.”

I open my mouth, then close it again. Breathe. Inhale. Exhale. I might be on the cusp of the biggest opportunity of my life.