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Hannah lived in an apartment building on the fifth floor. The building had a cute vintage vibe, but as we got out of the elevator and I saw Hannah's apartment number on the wall, it clicked into place that I was actually at the place where Penelope, the lead in Breach of Contract took place. Apartment 534, with the shiny brass numbers hung slightly crooked on the ivory door, the red rug in the hallway with the gold checkerboard pattern that ran the length of it.

No, I was just imagining it. Nicole Marcel's books were fiction, and there were probably a hundred buildings within a five-mile radius that looked exactly like this. Plus nobody ever hung those damn numbers on straight.

But when Hannah pulled out her keyring, I gasped a little. It had the exact little silver bunny charm hanging from it, the silver house key capped with an anime character, the sleek black key fob that unlocked the sleek black sedan that Penelope got as a gift from Reiko about halfway through the book.

"You ok?" Hannah said as she unlocked the door and looked back at me .

I wasn't, at all. An intense feeling of vertigo, or maybe a sense that The Matrix was glitching, made my head twirl. The hallway was a coincidence, but the keyring was a confirmation.

"Hannah, what…what is going on? Who are you?" I said. My mind had gone from girlish swooning to fight or flight within seconds of putting the pieces together. Was she some kind of Nicole Marcel superfan? A stalker? A black widow that drew unsuspecting romance fans into her lair to…I didn't even want to imagine the possibilities.

Hannah paused and looked at me, noticing my change in demeanor. She chewed the insides of her cheek and her expression tightened. "I guess I should probably come clean about things now that you've…probably made some connections, right?"

"If this is some kind of psycho stalker thing, or I'm going to end up in fifty trash bags after I step into your apartment…" I looked around, seeing that the elevator had already closed, remembering that it was slow to get up to this floor. Now that Hannah knew I knew something was up, if she wanted to take drastic measures, I wouldn't have time to escape. "Well, it's probably too late for me since you've lead me right to your door without a way to get out, isn't it?"

Hannah grinned. "Yeah…probably. I guess the easiest way to put it is, you're in a book right now."

I narrowed my eyes and gave her an are you kidding me? face. "Hannah…"

"No, really…you are." Hannah said, stepping back and pulling her keys from the lock and pocketing them. She took a deep breath, then turned back and put her hands on her hips. "I couldn't really come up with a creative place for Penelope to live, or a unique quirk about her, so, I just…wrote about what was in front of me."

I had a feeling in my stomach like I was at the top of the first hill on a roller coaster, except the hill was miles in the air and the drop in front of me was straight down .

"You mean…" I said, my voice shaking.

Hannah nodded. "Yep."

"You're Nicole Marcel."

Hannah grinned and gave a little nod. "And you're the cute girl on the train who reads my books all the time that I hadn't quite figured out a way to approach you, so I did the most obvious thing possible and sat there reading my own damn book for a week hoping you'd notice."

The air rushed out of my lungs as I thought of how incredibly dumb I had been not to pick up on things before now. The description of Hannah, the fake-out love interest that Nicole Marcel wrote about at the start of Breach of Contract , the woman at the first law firm Penelope worked at with the blonde pixie cut that wore a gauzy white chiffon shirt, black piercings…it was an exact match.

"Wait, you're…in the start of Breach of Contract , that's…"

"A little self-insert. Maybe I was feeling a bit uninspired when I started the book up, or perhaps I just wanted to get to the hot BDSM stuff that I really wanted to write." Hannah grinned madly. I realized that in all the years I'd read Nicole Marcel's work, the only author photo that existed of her was from years ago, the Nicole there had longer, darker hair, and she was turned away from the camera so that you couldn't get a full look at her face.

It was no wonder that I'd never connected the dots.

"You're Nicole Marcel…oh my god." I said. The dizziness returned, but the rollercoaster in my stomach was a loop of pure glee and joy.

"Actually, my real name is Hannah Merrill, Nicole Marcel is just a pen name." Hannah…actually, really Hannah, looked back toward the door. "Did I creep you out too much with my little charade, or are you still interested in that coffee?"

"Please, I'm…" I paused. This could all still be a ruse. In the same way I put the coincidences together, she could have put them in place. "I need you to prove it to me. I mostly believe you, it's just…I've lived in the city my whole life, I know there are amazing coincidences, and it's a small world, but there's also…predators out there, even beautiful ones. I want to believe you, Hannah, just…you understand how all of this looks, right?" I balled my fists, still tense. Survival instincts had saved me more than once in my life, and I didn't want to drop them all just because a cute…ok gorgeous…ok stunning…woman might want to sleep with me, or do something more sinister.

Hannah closed her eyes, looking self-loathing for a second. "You are…completely right. We're not characters in one of my books, we don't just fall for each other and abandon all reason. That's fun as hell in fiction, but…gah, Zoe, I'm sorry for trying to concoct this whole thing instead of just coming up to you and saying 'hi, I see you're reading my book' or something."

"It's OK…I mean I guess it's OK if you're actually who you say you are." I smiled.

"Give me two minutes, I know exactly what I have that can prove this." Hannah opened her door and started moving into the apartment.

"I'll stay right here." I nodded.

Hannah went into her apartment and left the door cracked open, which I felt was a good sign. I couldn’t help but snoop in the small area I could see through the gap. There were a couple bookshelves, and some of the shelves had a few repeated copies of Nicole Marcel books. Would it be acceptable to ask for a signed copy of one of her books after we…did whatever?

Suddenly, I became acutely aware that I wasn’t sure what exactly Hannah was looking for by bringing me up here. Was it sex? Was I presumptuous for thinking that a woman who brought me back to her apartment within ten minutes of meeting me and telling me of her BDSM hobby wanted to have sex with me?

Did I want to have sex with her? Well, I guess I knew the answer to that one, but still …

Hannah opened the door and pulled me out of my panic, or maybe literally opened the door to more. She had a bunch of scattered paperwork in her hands. “Thank god publishers are still so stubbornly old-school that they insist on paper checks, right?”

She held out a handful of checks written out to Hannah Merrill, dba Nicole Marcel. Holy shit. I wanted to take the checks from her hands and run my finger over the ink, feel the indent of the words that proved this woman was Nicole Marcel. But, c’mon, Zoe, if she was going to prepare a scam this stupidly elaborate to bed a, let’s be generous, slightly more than averagely attractive woman, I would almost sleep with her just because she had such hustle.

And maybe a little bit for her piercing green eyes.

And how soft her hair looked.

And how incredible her breasts looked.

Ok, so I would definitely sleep with her, if she wanted to.

“I think that’s the confirmation I needed. Hi, Hannah.” I said, hoping for a reset from the paranoid last few minutes.

“Wanna come in?” Hannah said.