Silence stretches for so long that I wonder if someone is going to explode, and I worry very much that it will be my boss. Hopefully, I’m not watching an oncoming train wreck as I bounce my gaze back and forth between the two of them.

Suddenly, he bursts into loud, deep laughter that shakes his whole body. “You sure know how to cut through the bullshit.”

Scarlett smiles wide, but the stiffness remains in her spine. “I won’t lie, sir. I’m nervous about why you called me in here, so I figured we should address the elephant in the room before we go any further.”

Anastasios dabs at the corners of his eyes, then leans back in his chair. There’s a mirth about him—just a little air, like he’s amused. “All right. I’ll bite. What happened five years ago, and why are you so sure it won’t happen again?”

“I can’t tell you everything.” Scarlett, however, is all seriousness. “Some of it was personal, and I owe a lot of people explanations that I haven’t had the chance to share yet. But the gist of it was that I burned out and broke down. The pressure of a grueling press tour, deadlines for edits and drafts stacked on top of one another, and more of each on the horizon had me asking some very serious questions about whether or not that was what I wanted my life to look like in the long run. The answer was no.”

“They offered you a seven-figure deal for three more books.” Anastasios cocks a bushy eyebrow. “You didn’t want a million dollars?”

“All due respect, that made it worse, sir.”

I recoil slightly at that, knowing the hand I had in making that deal for her. Scarlett very carefully does not look at me, though. It seems like she wants to, but she keeps her eyes trained on Anastasios.

“How so?” He pushes forward in his chair again, his lips flattened together.

“With more money comes more expectations,” she explains. “You and I both know they weren’t going to give me a million-dollar advance and then let me take time off to enjoy it.”

That was the piece I hadn’t seen at the time. I had thought she loved the work but felt she wasn’t being compensated appropriately for what was expected of her. But what she had wanted was fewer expectations and more reasonable deadlines.