Chapter 19 #2
In that time, I didn’t just fall for him—I built my world around him.
I gave him my work, my body, my trust, my first everything.
In return, he conditioned me to believe that my worth was tied to his approval, that I was lucky he picked me.
That I’d be nothing without him. It wasn’t long before I became chained to the version of myself he created.
It wasn’t just a bad relationship. It was an education in how easily love can become a leash and ambition a cage.
Then… My whole life collapsed.
The girl in Miami messaged me first. The one in LA. was next. More girls. Different cities. Different names. Same script. Same lies. Same heartbreak.
Come to find out, he wasn’t even a licensed agent. Never submitted my manuscript anywhere. Had three phones and a sob story for each.
When it all came out, I not only lost a fake agent—I lost the voice inside me that once believed I deserved more. Or anything at all.
My budding career, my fragile confidence, and my bleeding heart all flatlined at the same time. Everything was a fiction better than anything I could’ve written myself—one where he was the hero and I was another gullible girl who got in too deep.
It’s been nearly two years, and since then, I’ve played it safe and guarded my heart. No more letting someone get too far in, or allowing anyone to see the soft places in me.
There have been others, a rebound, a few flings, nothing more, all of them huge mistakes.
A lawyer who quoted romantic poetry until I realized it was all generated by A.I.
He was a man who knew the lines of Shakespeare but not the meaning of follow-through, and loved the performance of affection, not the intimacy of it.
By the time I realized all this, he had already used those pretty words to fuck me, then dropped me. Completely ghosted.
A barista named Jules. This is the one I took home. He thought “emotionally available” meant crying after sex, but never once asked how my day was. He wore vulnerability as a party trick—loud, temporary. And yes, Wonderwalled the turkey.
Last Valentine’s Day, there was a fellow author. He had some promise. He was talented, charming. Except, he didn’t want me. Or a partnership. He wanted a co-writer with coattails he could ride. Even tried to steal my current WIP by sharing the Google doc from my computer.
None of them lasted. I should’ve never let them get as far as they did. Each one confirmed what I already suspected—real connection is rare, and I’m better off keeping most of myself tucked away.
I write about love. I just don’t believe in it. Not like what my parents have–the messy, stay-through-the-hard-stuff version of love. Definitely not the I choose you over and over again kind.
I do miss being touched, though. And desired. Quite honestly, I’m not sure I’ve ever been properly fucked. Not how I write it anyway. Or imagine it.
These days, my sex life is strictly academic—just me, my laptop or phone, one hand scrolling through “research,” and the other collecting empirical data…down there.
My bookmarks folder could make a priest faint. And yeah, I take notes. Angles. Pacing. Language. Emotion. I build sex scenes the way engineers build bridges: one tension wire at a time.
But living that kind of ruin-me-down-to-my-soul fucking? Still theoretical. And when my brain goes there—which it has, at a rate that would make my vibrator blush—I picture Soren.
His hands.
His voice.
His mouth.
The treehouse.
Oh God, the treehouse.
I straddled him without thinking, ground down on his hard cock like some horny YA heroine who mistook nostalgia for permission.
He tensed beneath me, one breath away from snapping.
And fuck, did I want him to snap. I wanted to feel all that restraint break open and take me right there on the weathered wood.
And when that same hard length was pressed against my backside the next morning, I couldn’t help but wiggle against him, testing the weight of it, the possibility. He wasn’t wrong when he accused me of doing it.
My body hasn’t stopped remembering since.
I constantly think about him over me, under me, in me—hips angled, my hands fisting the sheets, that thick, soft steel of him pressing so deep inside me I see stars behind my eyes.
I picture the drive of his body against mine, the flex of his muscles, the heat of his skin.
How I would gasp into the pillow when he bottomed out, and groaned against my neck and whispered, fuuuck, into my ear.
I shouldn’t be picturing any of that. Except I am. And it’s getting harder to pretend I’m not. Soren said he wanted to show me we could be real. That he wasn’t going anywhere, and whatever this thing is between us—it matters. At least, to him it does.
Except, here’s the thing no one seems to get.
I’m broken in places people can’t see. I’ve patched over too many cracks with caution tape and sarcasm.
I can’t be what he deserves because I will always be waiting for the catch.
For the change in tone. For the warmth to turn cold.
For the hand that cups my face one moment to turn into the one that pushes me away the next.
It’s a pattern I know too well—the whiplash of being pedestal-high one second and unworthy the next. It’s what always came after.
So I brace. I push. I test. I pretend I don’t care to see if he’ll walk away.
I don’t know how to let someone love me without checking for the fine print.
Without wondering what it’ll cost me later.
And the scariest part is that sometimes, when he looks at me, like I’m worth it, I very much want to believe him, which makes me panic even more.
Why? Because we’re not soulmates. We’re a brand.
A viral phenomenon. Bell and the Blade. And if I don’t screw it up, this could mean everything for my career.
Renata and Fisher can’t keep up with the fan content.
Camille’s videos are now in the millions.
There’s even a rumor that ShelfSpace wants to do a holiday spotlight segment with us.
Which brings me to…
The Snowflake Gala.
Our next event. Hosted by my publisher: Kiss & Tell Books.
It’s formal. Black tie is not optional. Readers, the Press, and the entire internet are watching. Soren and I will be paraded around as the power couple of the literary world. Hand holding. Smiling. Dancing.
Touching.
Kissing.
My stomach flips. I’m nervous. More than nervous.
I’m terrified. Someone is going to get hurt because this thing doesn’t feel fake anymore.
I don’t know how much longer I can pretend.
Especially when he says things that crack open places I’ve cemented shut, and truly believes I’m worth figuring out.
And Soren’s nice.
Before we left Salem, Emily and I took him and Fisher to our favorite little bistro, and Soren ordered me an extra dessert because I mentioned once—once—how much I loved marzipan.
Also, he was supposed to leave that day for an event in Houston, but he rerouted his entire schedule to see the joy on my face when I ate it.
He’s attentive. Kind. Infuriatingly swoony. And somewhere between our snark battles and staged photos, I stopped hating him.
That’s a major problem.
My phone buzzes. Brood Lightyear .
Been thinking about you.
I stare at the screen. My thumbs hover over the keyboard.
Do I answer?
I want to.
But should I?
I’m starting to worry you’re developing a real obsession.
Already had one. It’s named Ava Bell and she’s taking up all the space in my brain.
Gag.
What are you wearing to the Gala so I can match you, like prom?
You mean you’ll actually be in a tux and not cosplaying as a morally gray elf lord?
Don’t tempt me. But yes—bow tie, cufflinks, the whole tortured gentleman fantasy. Unless you’d prefer me in nothing at all?
That’s a blush, Bells. You forget I’ve seen your tell.
It’s the lighting. I’m near a fireplace.
Sure. Let’s talk logistics. Touching okay?
In public?
Were you thinking elsewhere? Like in our suite, later.
Or before.
I’m down for either.
Or both.
Light touching.
Deflecting. Okay. Kissing?
Strategic kissing. For the fans.
Tongue or no tongue?
Please say tongue.
You’re impossible.
Only for you.
We’ll make a plan. We’ll be PREPARED. Not like that stunt you pulled at Feast and Fiction.
Or we could improvise. Like I did at Feast and Fiction.
Dangerous game, improvising.
I love dangerous games.
My heart does a traitorous flip.
You’re full of lines tonight, Pembry. Are you workshopping new material?
Only one muse these days. She’s snarky, suspicious, secretly sweet. Killer mouth on her.
That mouth is used for espresso and eviscerating fan theories. Not fluffing your ego.
Fluffing, huh? Is that on the table?
Kidding. Kind of. Unless…
There will be no fluffing.
I get hard when you turn bossy. It’s hot.
I’m ignoring that. Quick question though…
Uh-oh. That tone.
How experienced is the tortured fantasy villain, exactly?
What do you mean by “experienced.”
I don’t know. How many… chapters have you written with other women?
Chapters?
Pages? Scenes? Acts? I’m being delicate here.
You mean my body count?
Yeah.
That WAS subtle. As you’re aware, I’m not a saint, Ava. But I’m also not who the internet says I am.
You’ve got, what, a thousand women calling you their book boyfriend?
Mmmm, more like millions, but they don’t know me. Or my heart.
And I do?
You’re the only one I want to hand it to, bruises and all.
…You’re flirting again.
Yeah, I am. But ONLY with you.
This whole thing is getting confusing.
Let me help un-confuse you. Dinner. A REAL date. Not like that staged, cringy monstrosity in D.C.
Tomorrow night. I’ll fly back to you. Your turf. Just us. Real talk. No fans. No cameras. No pretending. Only you and me.
Why?
Because if we’re going to pretend to love each other in public… we should know what it might feel like in private.
Dangerous game, remember?
Still my favorite kind. That will never change.
I set the phone down with trembling fingers.
His words bounce around in my head. Dinner. Just us. No fans. No cameras.
No pretending.
Only you and me.
There’s nothing fake about the way my stomach dropped when I saw he texted me. Nothing staged about the heat spreading under my skin at the thought of him, here, with me. There’s probably flames flickering in those storm cloud eyes of his, smiling. He knows what I’ll say.
My fingers move to type out my response, then halt, hovering.
God, what am I doing?
Soren Pembry is everything I’ve trained myself to avoid. Beautiful, risky in the way a cobra dances—hypnotic to watch, deadly to touch. He’s made for seduction. Built for it. A man who collects hearts just to hear them shatter.
And yet…
There’s a transformation I can’t explain. He’s hiding a quieter Soren underneath the smirks and swagger. I felt it in Salem—between the banter and that moment in the Witch House where he looked at me like I wasn’t Ava Bell the Author?, but just Ava. I haven’t been just Ava in a very long time.
It’s easier being the brand. The ShelfSpace Queen of Steam. The girl with the romance empire and the tragic backstory. He saw through that. Or around it. Or maybe he didn’t care about the facade I’ve worked so hard to create.
He called me a muse. His current book has a female character inspired by me.
No one’s ever called me that before. Or done that before. Not without wanting pieces of me in return.
What if he’s doing all of this to get close for research? For his facade? Or his character?
What if I’m a sucker and it’s all lies?
Like Jon’s were.
That asshole called me talented, beautiful, special. Right before he destroyed every part of me I’d felt brave enough to share. And right before he turned my body into a stepping stone and my dreams into a joke. The others were no different.
So yeah—I’ve got baggage.
But I also have eyes. Ears. And a very vivid memory of Soren’s hand curling possessively around my hip, his breath catching when I tilted my head and gave him a little more skin, his voice dropping half an octave when he said my name.
Ava.
I relished the heat, the ache, the idea of someone touching me without pretense. Someone sees me—not the viral moment, not the author persona, but the flawed, guarded woman underneath.
And that’s where it gets complicated, because what if I say yes?
Deep down, I know Soren’s not playing. He means it.
What if I do too?
I know I’m suppressing emotions. But I can’t take a wrecking ball to my walls. Gamble everything on a man who lives three thousand miles away and has been trained to flirt for a living.
No.
...But maybe it could be.
Just once.
One night of leaning in instead of pulling away. One night where I don’t play the cynic or the puppet master or the girl who’s always watching her own back. One night, to let go.
My thumb taps against the screen, indecisive. Your loneliness is talking, Ava.
It’s the sunrise and the coffee and the way the light spills across the floor. Hope I didn’t ask for.
Or maybe… It’s the idea of his voice in my ear again, murmuring my name like it’s the only word he ever wants to say.
Whatever it is, I’m tumbling down a black hole.
Fine. Dinner. But let’s be very clear, Pembry. One night. ONE. A moment. No contracts, no promises, no keywords.
I don’t type: No holds barred.
But I very much think it.
I stare at the message for a full thirty seconds before hitting send. My heart is beating fast. I just agreed to sign a treaty with the devil. Only this devil wears reader glasses and smells like a magical forest.
The dots appear instantly.
Noted. But if we only get ONE night, Bells… I’m going to make damn sure you remember it.
The blush hits so fast, I nearly drop the phone.
Wear a dress.