Chapter 36
M y career, as I knew it, ended with a buzz.
I stirred under the sheets, skin warm from Ronan’s body still tangled around mine, and reached blindly for my phone on the nightstand. My hand brushed his wrist instead. His fingers were curled gently against my stomach like he wasn’t quite ready to let me go—not yet.
The screen lit up with a flash of messages. Then another. Then a call from Nadine at College of Charleston. I declined it automatically, still not awake enough to process what the hell was happening.
But when I tapped into my notifications, the pieces started to fall like glass.
A photo. One I hadn’t taken, hadn’t posed for. One that made my blood run cold.
Me and Ronan.
On the swanky rooftop terrace with the infinity pool. Of course. His hands on my hips. My eyes glazed with desire. The glass wall behind us, the city glowing, the whole moment immortalized like something out of a dream—except it wasn’t a dream anymore. It was viral.
The post wasn’t from a gossip site. It was from Trevor.
Or rather, from his professional account, though I doubted now it was anything close to professional.
A short caption. No context. Just a link to an exposé that looked polished enough to pass as serious journalism if you didn’t know who he was or what he wanted.
The headline was enough to stop my breath.
Who Is Alpha Mail Protecting—and at What Cost?
Below it: the photo. My face crystal clear. Ronan’s, partially obscured by the angle but still recognizable to anyone who’d seen him before—or would look hard enough.
“Oh, my God,” I whispered.
I sat up, the blanket falling to my waist. My phone slipped from my hand and hit the floor with a soft thud.
Ronan stirred behind me, the arm that had held me loosening. “What is it?”
I didn’t answer. Couldn’t. My thoughts were already racing ahead. The column. The university. My reputation. Everything I’d worked so hard to build, balanced precariously on a tightrope—and now it had snapped.
I’d been so afraid of this. Now it was real.
Another buzz. Another call. This time, I picked up.
“Nadine?”
Her voice was tight, clipped, the professional tone that only came out when she was panicked but trying to pretend she wasn’t. “Zara. We saw the photo.”
My stomach dropped. “It’s not what it looks like?—”
“We were waiting for you to confirm your fall course schedule. I’m calling to say we no longer need you to teach this semester.”
The air left my lungs. “You’re rescinding my classes?”
“There was concern raised by the board,” she said carefully. “Concerns about optics. Allegiances. We need time to review the situation.”
“You mean my sex life?”
A pause.
“Goodbye, Zara.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone, pulse thudding behind my eyes. I wanted to scream. Cry. Call her back and demand she explain how a single photo could strip away years of work. But another call was already coming in.
Chris Reinhardt.
I answered with a shaking hand. “Chris, please?—”
“I’m sorry, Z,” he said gently, and somehow that was worse. He sounded disappointed. “ The Journal ’s legal team is doing a review. Until it’s finished, ‘State of Her Union’ is on indefinite hold.”
My mouth opened, then closed again. “Are you serious?”
“You’re being painted as compromised,” he said, regret thick in his voice. “Conflict of interest. Biased reporting. The usual vultures are circling.”
I clenched the phone tighter. “Because of a kiss?”
“Because of who you kissed.”
“I didn’t even … the article about Alpha Mail?—”
“It doesn’t matter, Zara. Perception is the only thing that matters right now. I’ll do what I can to hold the door open, but?—”
I ended the call. Threw the phone onto the other side of the bed. Covered my face with both hands and let out a ragged breath that was dangerously close to a sob .
I felt the bed shift behind me. Ronan’s hand slid gently to my back.
“What happened?” he asked, voice low and calm like always.
“I’m exposed.” I didn’t move. “A photo. From the rooftop. The night we joked about. Someone must’ve actually—Jesus, someone did see us.”
His silence said everything.
“They attached it to an article. Trevor wrote it. About Alpha Mail. About you. About me.”
I turned to him then, suddenly desperate to explain. “I didn’t know he was going to do this. I haven’t spoken to him in days. Even then, all we talked about was my dad’s recovery. I was trying to be decent. I didn’t think he’d go this far?—”
“I know,” he said simply.
I blinked.
“I know, Zara. This wasn’t your fault.”
That cracked something in me. A soft fissure down the middle of all my defenses. I dropped my head to his shoulder, pressing my face against his neck.
“I lost my classes,” I said, voice muffled. “College of Charleston doesn’t want me teaching this fall. Chris at The Journal is saying my column is on hold. I’ve been out of touch since Dad’s heart attack. Hell, even before. Everything’s unraveling.”
His arms came around me, solid and grounding. “I’ll make it go away.”
“No.” I pulled back to look him in the eye. “No, you won’t.”
He arched a brow, deadly calm. “Zara?—”
“No,” I said again, louder now, fiercer. “I know what you mean when you say that. I know you have people. Tools. Methods. But this? This is mine. I’m not some damsel in distress, and I don’t need you to burn down the world to protect me.”
A beat of silence. Then two.
He nodded once. “Understood.”
The gravity of that single word was staggering. I knew what it cost him—to stand down. To let me fight. But he did it, anyway. For me.
“Thank you,” I whispered.
He leaned in, pressing a kiss to my temple, the heat of it lingering like a promise. “Just say the word if you change your mind.”
I nodded. But I wouldn’t.
Not this time.
I stood, dragging the sheet with me as I retrieved my phone. I scrolled back to Trevor’s post, fingers trembling, then hit “save” on the photo. I would need it. Not for proof—but for fuel.
He thought he could silence me with scandal.
He didn’t realize he’d just handed me my opening line.
I sat on the edge of the bed, the photo still glowing on my screen.
It should’ve humiliated me. Shamed me. But it didn’t.
It made me ache.
Not from embarrassment—but because I’d never looked more alive. Not in a single headshot, not in any staged lecture hall photo or polished byline. Not even when I’d been standing in front of hundreds at speaking engagements, perfectly rehearsed and perfectly contained.
There in that rooftop shot, caught in a moment I never meant to be public, I was something else entirely.
Real .
Unapologetic.
Mine.
I felt Ronan behind me—close, steady. I didn’t have to look to know his eyes were on me. Watching. Waiting.
I turned slowly. “I’ve spent years telling women to own their choices. To step into their power. And yet … now that I’m actually doing it, the whole world wants to tear me down.”
Ronan didn’t speak. He didn’t need to.
“But maybe …” I hesitated. “Maybe that version of me needed to go.”
He tilted his head, just slightly.
“I wasn’t lying in my writing,” I said carefully. “But I was curating. I made myself palatable. Respectable. A feminist academic with sensible shoes and carefully controlled rage. And now? I don’t even know who I am.”
His eyes searched mine. “Then who do you want to be?”
I looked down at the blanket bunched in my lap. “That’s the problem. I don’t know yet. I thought I’d be devastated to lose my column. My lectures. My place at the table. But maybe I’m not. Not really. It’s like …”
I trailed off.
He waited.
“It’s like the more they strip away, the more space I’ll have to actually be someone new.”
Ronan’s voice was low, thoughtful. “That scares you.”
“Terrifies me,” I admitted. “I worked so hard to be taken seriously. To be respected. But what if the version of me I respect now is someone they never would’ve approved of?”
He reached out and ran a knuckle down the side of my face. “Then fuck their approval. ”
My throat tightened.
He didn’t say it like a throwaway line. He said it like truth.
I thought of everything I stood to lose.
But then I thought of what I’d gained.
I thought of my father’s hands in mine, still warm, still alive.
Of the nursery, lush and thriving again.
Of Ronan’s sculpture tucked between the gardenias.
Of the way he looked at me like I was a miracle he couldn’t quite believe was real.
I thought of the flash drive—the woman on the floor, the footage that had once gutted me.
And I remembered what he’d said when I asked if I was just another assignment.
You’re the first one I couldn’t walk away from.
The only one I gave a choice.
And the only one who ever looked at all of me—and still said yes.
I drew in a breath. “I still want to write. I just … want to write something different now.”
Ronan nodded. “Good.”
I glanced at him. “You think that’s wise?”
“I think,” he said carefully, “that it’s the first honest thing you’ve said about your career since I met you.”
I let out a soft laugh, then sobered. “I don’t even know what it would look like. What I’d say. Who I’d be saying it to.”
His hand found mine beneath the blanket. “Then let it start there. Don’t make it perfect. Just make it true.”
I squeezed his hand. “You sound like a man who’s read a lot of columnists.”
He arched a brow. “I’m a man who studies his targets. ”
I gave him a look, but the grin broke through anyway.
Then, softer: “You studied me.”
He brushed his lips against my knuckles. “I loved you.”
The air caught in my lungs.
“I still do,” he added quietly.
I sat there for a beat, his words settling into the parts of me still raw. But before I could fall too far into the comfort of it, the image of the rooftop photo pushed its way back into my mind—the one that lit the match.
“Do you think …” I hesitated. “Do you think Trevor meant to hurt me?”
Ronan didn’t answer right away. His jaw shifted slightly, his body still wrapped around mine like a shield. “I think Trevor wanted to remind you that you were his to define,” he said finally. “And when he realized he couldn’t do that anymore, he decided to burn what you’d built.”
I looked up at him. “So, you think it was on purpose.”
“I think men like him don’t always know the difference between self-righteousness and sabotage.”
I swallowed. “He used to be my friend.”
His voice stayed gentle. “And sometimes clowns wear friend costumes.”
That startled a small laugh out of me, bitter and surprised. “You’re not a fan, huh?”
Ronan shook his head. “Not even a little. He talks too much. Wears shoes that cost more than he’s worth. And he sees everything in the world as either his responsibility or his right. But worse than that—he genuinely thought he was helping you. ”
“He said he wanted me to be careful,” I said, quietly now. “He thought you were dangerous.”
Ronan didn’t respond right away. He just looked at me, his eyes clear, unreadable.
I pressed my lips together. “Were you mad?”
“I was disappointed,” he said simply. “Not surprised. But disappointed.”
“Disappointed in me?”
“No.” He tucked a loose strand of hair behind my ear. “In the idea that anyone would look at what we have and think it needed saving.”
Something splintered softly in my chest.
“He had no right,” Ronan added, “but he took it anyway. That’s what men like him do. They wrap control in concern and call it love. And if I’d been the man I was ten years ago, Trevor wouldn’t be breathing right now.”
I gave him a look.
“I’m not that man anymore,” he said calmly. “But don’t think I didn’t want to be.”
The quiet stretched between us, thick with all the things that had nearly unraveled.
“Are you mad at me?” I asked.
His gaze softened. “For what?”
“For giving him space. Letting him in when I should’ve cut him off.”
“No,” he said again, more firmly this time. “Because it means your heart still works. That you believe people can change. That even after everything, you didn’t let this world make you cold.”
I blinked, my throat thick.
“That’s why I chose you,” he added. “Not because you were easy. Not because you were flawless. But because even when the ground gave way beneath you, you kept reaching for the light. ”
I couldn’t speak.
So I did the only thing I could do—I leaned into him then, wrapping my arms around his waist, burying my face against his chest.
We stayed like that for a long time, tangled in silence and the hum of the new world we were about to step into.
I didn’t know exactly what I would write next. What form it would take. What voice I would use.
But I knew this: it would be mine.
Unfiltered. Unsoftened. Unrepentant.
I was tired of asking for permission.
I needed a day to think, but tomorrow—I’d prove it.