Chapter 13
Thirteen
Katriana
The takeout containers spread across Drake's desk look almost comically out of place against the polished mahogany and leather accessories.
White cardboard boxes stamped with the logo of a restaurant I've only ever read about in magazines sit open between us, steam curling up from dishes. I haven’t seen so much food on a table in a long time.
Drake insisted on eating here rather than the conference room. Something about wanting privacy. The word sent a shiver down my spine that I'm still trying to ignore.
"You're not eating." He gestures toward the container of pasta in front of me with his chopsticks from the chair beside me. "The carbonara is excellent. I promise they didn't poison it."
I roll my eyes and twirl my fork through the creamy noodles, bringing a bite to my lips. The flavors burst across my tongue, rich and decadent and absolutely sinful. I close my eyes for a moment and let myself enjoy it.
When I open them, Drake is watching me with an intensity that makes heat pool low in my belly.
"Good?" His voice carries a roughness that has nothing to do with the food.
"Very." I take another bite to cover the flush I feel creeping up my neck. "Where did you learn about this place?" I’m not good at small talk and I’m afraid it’s glaringly obvious.
"Rafael." He settles back in his chair and picks up his own container, something with delicate fish and vegetables arranged like artwork. "He has expensive taste in everything. Food. Wine. Women, apparently."
I can’t hold back a smile. "You mean Persia?"
"I mean the woman who crashed into his life and turned everything upside down." A small smile tugs at the corner of his mouth, too. "Sound familiar?"
He looks at me with a raised eyebrow.
I don't know how to answer that, so I focus on my pasta instead.
A strand of hair slips free from behind my ear and falls across my cheek. Before I can reach for it, Drake leans forward and tucks it back into place, his fingers grazing the shell of my ear with a touch so light it might have been accidental.
My racing heart says it wasn't.
My breath catches in my throat, and I feel another wave of heat bloom across my cheeks. His gray eyes hold mine for a beat too long before he settles back in his chair like nothing happened.
The conversation flows easier than I expected as we eat.
"What's your favorite book?" Drake twirls noodles around his fork, his gray eyes watching me with genuine interest. "And don't say what you think I want to hear. I want the truth."
I consider the question while I chew, surprised that he's asking at all. Jonah never asked me about books. Jonah never asked me about anything that didn't directly involve him.
"Jane Eyre." I set down my fork and meet his gaze.
"I know it's predictable, but I've read it probably thirty times.
There's something about a woman who refuses to compromise herself, even when the easier path is right there in front of her.
She walks away from the man she loves because staying would cost her too much of who she is. "
"And she goes back."
"She goes back on her own terms." I adjust my glasses and feel heat creep into my cheeks. "That's the part most people miss. She doesn't return until she's financially independent. Until she can stand beside him as an equal instead of beneath him as a dependent."
Drake is quiet for a moment, something unreadable flickering across his features. "You've thought about this a lot."
"Books were my escape. When everything else was falling apart, stories were the one place I could breathe."
He nods slowly, then asks, "What do you think about the shift to digital? E-readers, audiobooks, all of it. Good for the industry or the death of something sacred?"
The question surprises me with its depth and it hasn’t slipped past me that he’s obviously read Jane Eyre. Most people don't care about publishing trends. Most people don't realize there's an industry behind the books they read.
"Both, honestly." I reach for my water glass and take a sip. "Digital opens doors. People who can't afford hardcovers can access libraries on their phones. Audiobooks let people read while commuting, while working, while doing a hundred things that used to eat into reading time. But..."
"But?"
"There's something irreplaceable about paper.
" I trace my finger along the edge of the takeout container.
"The smell of a new book. The weight of it in your hands.
The way the pages yellow over time and hold the memory of every place you've read them.
You can't press a flower in an e-reader.
You can't flip back to your favorite passage and see the coffee stain from the morning you first read it. "
Drake's mouth curves into something that's almost a smile. "You should have been a writer yourself."
"I thought about it. But I realized I'm better at finding magic in other people's words than creating my own." I shrug, suddenly self-conscious about how much I've revealed. "I'd rather be the person who helps a writer's dream come true than chase my own."
"The dream of owning a publishing house."
It's not a question, but I answer anyway. "One day. Maybe. If I ever dig myself out of..." I trail off, not wanting to bring Victor into this moment.
Drake reaches across the small space between our chairs and tucks a strand of hair behind my ear, his fingers grazing the shell of my ear in a touch so light it might have been accidental.
It wasn't. Again.
"What would you call it?" His voice has dropped lower, rougher. "Your publishing house. If you could have anything."
No one has ever asked me that. I've barely let myself think about it, the dream too painful to examine when reality kept crushing it beneath its heel.
"Ember House." The name slips out before I can stop it, a secret I've kept buried for years. "Because stories are sparks. And the right book can set your whole world on fire."
Drake's gray eyes hold mine across the candlelight, and I see something shift in their depths. Something that looks almost like a plan taking shape.
"Ember House," he repeats softly. "I like that."
I find it easy talking with Drake. Answering his questions honestly is a whole new feeling.
It makes me realize just how much of myself I’ve closed off since Victor's shadow fell across my life and taught me to guard every word.
And Drake listens. Really listens. Not waiting for his turn to speak, but absorbing everything I say like it matters to him.
Like I matter to him.
Drake passes me a napkin, and his fingers brush against mine during the exchange.
The contact lasts only a second, but awareness sparks up my arm and settles in my chest like an ember refusing to die.
I press the napkin to my lips and try to focus on anything other than the way my skin tingles where he touched me.
"What made you want to be a publisher?" Drake sets down his chopsticks and gives me his full attention. "Specifically. Not just working in the industry, but owning your own house."
The question catches me off guard with its precision. Most people don't bother to distinguish between the two.
"I want to grant wishes." The words come out before I can filter them, raw and honest in a way that makes me want to take them back.
"Not like your Red Letter Syndicate. But in my own way.
Writers pour their souls onto the page and then send their work out into the world, hoping someone will believe in them enough to say yes.
I want to be that person. The one who sees the potential in a story and helps it find its readers. "
Drake's expression shifts, and I see genuine interest kindle in his gray eyes. "You want to help people live their dreams."
"Yes." I adjust my glasses and feel heat creep into my cheeks. "It sounds naive when I say it out loud."
"It sounds like you have a purpose." He leans forward, resting his forearms on the desk. "That's rare. Most people stumble through life without any idea what they're working toward. You know exactly what you want."
"Knowing and having are different things."
"They don't have to be."
The statement hangs between us, heavy with implications I'm not ready to examine. I look away first, reaching for my water glass to buy myself time.
I take a sip and set the glass down, but I'm careless in my distraction. A drop of the carbonara cream clings to the corner of my mouth, and before I can reach for my napkin, Drake leans in.
His thumb sweeps across the corner of my lip, slow and deliberate. The touch is featherlight, but it burns through me like a brand. My lips part on a soft gasp, and his gray eyes darken as he watches the reaction ripple across my face.
He brings his thumb to his own mouth and licks the cream away, never breaking eye contact.
"Delicious," he murmurs, and I know he's not talking about the pasta.
I forget how to breathe. Forget my own name. Forget everything except the heat pooling between my thighs and the thundering of my pulse in my ears.
"Tell me about your father." Drake's voice softens with the question, giving me a moment to collect myself. "You mentioned him before. That he was the reason for the debt."
The familiar ache blooms in my chest, grief and love and anger all tangled together in ways I've never been able to separate.
"I loved him. God, I loved him so much. He was funny and warm and he used to read to me every night before bed, doing all the voices until I was laughing so hard I couldn't breathe. "
I pause, swallowing against the tightness in my throat.
"But he had a darkness in him. A part of himself he never shared with anyone, not even my mother. The gambling started small. Poker nights with friends. Weekend trips to the casino. By the time we realized how bad it had gotten, he was already drowning."
"And then he died."