Chapter 37
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Sawyer
Ibring the book to work. I didn’t think about it. Just grabbed it off the table on my way out like it was any other file I needed to review.
I pretend it belongs in my office, though it doesn’t. That becomes obvious the second I step inside.
With glass walls, assistants moving through the outer office, and Dean already at his desk across the hall, everything about this place is controlled.
It’s professional and orderly while I’m standing here, holding something that feels like none of those things. I drop it onto my desk anyway.
Face down, as if that somehow makes it less obvious.
I don’t open it right away though. I try to work by answering emails and reviewing numbers. I sit through a meeting where someone is talking about projections for next quarter, but I hear none of it.
My attention keeps drifting back to the corner of my desk, where the book sits, waiting.
By the time the meeting ends, I don’t even pretend anymore. I close the door to my office and turn the blinds halfway. Not enough to raise suspicion, but just enough.
I sit down, flip the book over, and stare at the cover for a second. My name isn’t on it. My life isn’t written anywhere inside. It shouldn’t feel like it has anything to do with me.
And yet, I open it.
The first few chapters are what I expect.
Setting up the characters with their world building. I skim at first, doing my best to stay detached.
But then I slow down because something shifts. The hero isn’t just confident. He’s controlled and measured. Always thinking three steps ahead.
A muscle pulses in my jaw, but I keep reading.
Jordan knocks once before stepping in. “I need you to sign—”
I close the book immediately and slide a folder over it without thinking.
“Leave it,” I say.
He nods and sets the papers down, then walks back out.
The second the door closes, I pull the book back out.
Open it again.
This time, I don’t skim. I read.
Page after page, the hero moves through the story the same way I move through my world.
Calculated and careful. Never giving more than necessary or letting anyone close enough to see anything real—except the heroine.
My grip tightens slightly on the edge of the page because that part, that feels different.
I turn another page, and time starts slipping. Meetings get pushed, and calls get ignored.
Jordan knocks again at one point. “You have a call with—”
“Reschedule it.”
He pauses. “Okay.”
The door closes again, and I keep reading. Now I can’t stop.
At some point, I don’t even notice the office around me. The steady rhythm of everything I usually control without thinking fades until it’s just me, the book, and the words I can’t seem to look away from.
I’m halfway through when something shifts. Not in the story, but in me.
The hero is sitting across from the heroine. Pushing her away. Telling her he doesn’t need anything from anyone.
I’ve said those exact words. Maybe not exactly like that, but close enough.
I keep reading, waiting for it to twist, for the part where she sees through it and walks away.
That would make sense. That’s what people do. Instead, she stays.
Not in a dramatic way. She doesn’t force anything. She’s just there.
The scene slows while the heroine studies him. She watches him the same way Kayla used to look at me when she thought I wasn’t paying attention, like she was trying to understand something.
Not fix it or change it, just understand it.
I know what comes next. I expect it now. The part where she calls him out and tells him he’s broken. That he needs help.
Instead, I hit the line, and everything in me stills.
He wasn’t broken.
My eyes stop moving.
I read it again. Slower this time.
He wasn’t broken. He was disciplined in a way most people would never understand. The kind of strength that didn’t ask for attention, didn’t need validation. He just quietly carried the weight and kept going.
My chest squeezes painfully.
I keep reading. Now I need to know where she’s going with it.
It doesn’t twist or expose, like I assumed it would.
It just builds with line after line, where the heroine doesn’t see weakness. She sees control, resilience, and strength. The kind of strength that comes from surviving something no one else sees.
My body goes stiff.
I flip to another chapter. Faster now. Searching for the part where she sees his weakness, but it’s consistent. Every time the hero shuts down or he pulls away, she doesn’t see someone damaged. She sees someone who fought to become that way. Someone who had to.
I shift slightly in my chair, trying to shake it off. Trying to find the part where this turns into something I recognize. Where it becomes what I thought it was … but it never does.
There’s a scene near the end, where the hero thinks he’s finally pushed her too far.
I brace for it because that’s how it ends. That’s how it always ends in real life.
Instead, she steps closer until she’s right in front of him.
And she says, “You don’t scare me. Not the control. Not the distance. Not even the parts you think make you hard to love.”
I don’t move or breathe. I can’t.
“Because none of that makes you broken,” she continues. “It makes you someone who survived.”
The words blur slightly on the page. I blink once, then keep reading.
“And I’ve never met anyone stronger than you.”
I lean back slowly in my chair with the book still open in my hands, staring at the words. They don’t feel like exposure, nor do they feel like someone taking something from me.
They feel like—I don’t even have a word for it—understanding?
Maybe something deeper than that. Something I’ve never actually had directed at me before.
I drag a hand down my face and exhale slowly.
Somehow, now, the question isn’t, Did she use me?
It’s, Is this what she actually saw?
And that thought is harder to deal with than anything else.
The knock at my office door barely registers.
“Yeah?” I say absently, eyes still on the page.
The door opens anyway.
“Hope I’m not interrupting anything important.”
I look up to find Melissa standing in the doorway, Colton just behind her, arms crossed, like he already knows this isn’t a casual visit.
My eyes flick to the book in my hands, then back to her.
“What are you doing here?”
Melissa steps inside without answering. Her gaze drops to the book, and recognition flashes immediately.
“Okay,” she says softly. “So, you’ve read it.”
I don’t respond.
Colton closes the door behind them. The click feels louder than it should.
Melissa studies me for a second, long enough to read something in my expression, and then she nods slightly.
“Yeah,” she murmurs. “That makes sense.”
“What does?” I ask.
She tilts her head. “Why you reacted the way you did.”
“You’re here to defend her?”
“No,” she says calmly. “I’m here to tell you something you should probably know.”
Something in her tone makes my stomach tense.
“What?”
She doesn’t answer right away. Just walks over to the chair across from my desk and sits.
Colton stays standing.
Melissa folds her hands loosely in her lap. “She pulled the book.”
The words land quietly.
“What?” I ask.
“She called her publisher,” Melissa continues. “Told them she’s not moving forward with it.”
I stare at her as I try to process that. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“It does if you know her,” Melissa says. “She didn’t want to hurt you.”
“That’s not the point.”
“I know,” she says. “But it was her decision to walk away.”
My grip tightens slightly on the book. “What do you mean?”
She gestures toward the book in my hands. “That. She walked away from it.”
The words sit heavier now.
Colton finally speaks. “Do you know what it takes for someone to do that?”
I don’t answer because I don’t.
“She didn’t argue with you,” Melissa adds. “She didn’t fight to explain herself. She just … left.”
I think back to that moment. The way she stood there quietly. She wasn’t defensive or angry.
“She said she’d stay with me for a while,” Melissa continues. “Didn’t even hesitate.”
“Her publisher’s probably dropping her,” Colton says bluntly. “She knows that.”
My head lifts slightly. “What?”
Melissa nods. “They told her they can’t promise to hold her place if she walks away from this.”
Silence fills the room. I glance down at the book in my hands.
“She said she would never trade your trust for a book.”
“She said that?” I ask quietly.
Melissa watches me. “Pretty much.”
I exhale slowly. Now everything feels off, as if I’ve been looking at this from the wrong angle entirely.
Colton shifts slightly. “Let me ask you something,” he says.
I don’t look up.
“Do you think she needed to stay with you to finish that book?”
The question lands hard. I think back to the late nights and the way she wrote like someone who was obsessed and focused.
“No,” I admit.
“Then why do you think she stayed?” he presses.
I don’t respond because I think I already know the answer. I just didn’t want to say it before.
“She cared about you,” Colton says plainly. “And she still does.”
Melissa leans forward slightly. “She didn’t write that book to expose you, Sawyer. She wrote it because she finally understood you and you had inspired her. But she knows what she did was wrong too. She knows she should have talked to you about it.”
I can’t argue with that anymore. Not after what I just read and what they’re telling me now.
“And when she realized it hurt you?” Melissa continues softly. “She walked away from everything without a second thought. She pulled the book the moment she left your place. It didn’t even take her a full five minutes to make that decision.”
The words settle deep. Heavier than anything else. That’s not something you do casually.
I exhale slowly, then set the book down on the desk. Carefully this time, like it matters … because it does. A lot more than I thought it did.
“I told her she used me,” I say quietly.
Melissa doesn’t respond right away. She just lets that sit.
“And now?” she asks.
I stare at the book, then shake my head once.