She shakes her head, and her earrings twinkle again. “Honesty is the best policy. Plus, I didn’t want to spook you in there. Now, get out of the car. Throw your shoulders back. Fake it till you make it. You’re Scarlett Frye, goddammit. You’ve already published two best-selling novels, and you’re about to publish a third. Act like it.” She nods curtly, punctuating her sentence.

I blink at her a few times, my brows furrowed. “That was quite the pep talk.”

“Thank you.” She smiles widely. “I was rehearsing it on the way over. Let’s go. Before you can second-guess yourself.”

“More like tenth-guess myself at this point,” I mumble as I get out of my car. Trina laughs, and I have to fight the urge to tell her I wasn’t trying to be funny.

Anastasios Press is a two-story building with windows everywhere, encasing almost every nook and cranny in bright, afternoon light. As Trina gives our names to the receptionist, I look out at the scenery. It’s idyllic. Peaceful. Two people are walking on a path amongst prairie grasses out back behind the building, and three more sit in light jackets at a table enjoying the spring sunshine. It’s a nice escape from the cold steel of the Loop, where I’m used to having meetings like this. I choose to take this as a good omen and use it to force my heart rate into something the receptionist can’t hear. Trina was right; this is a different vibe. Different book. Different team. Different outcome, as my therapist would remind me.

Different Scarlett, I like to remind myself. I’ve come a long way since then.

Fortified against the nerves still threatening to take over my legs and make them run right out of here, Trina and I follow the receptionist up to the second floor and into a conference room. I don’t see a soul in the office. Maybe they’re all at lunch, which would be another one-eighty from the way JMP ran their editors into the ground. No one took breaks there. Even Ryan—

“They should be right with you,” the receptionist says, thankfully stopping that train of thought in its tracks. “Have a seat. Help yourself to the waters on the table. Can I get you a coffee or something?”

Trina glances at me. I stiffly shake my head. The last thing my nerves need is caffeine.

“No, thank you. Water is great,” she tells the receptionist, who closes the door softly behind us.

The sterile conference room, the paintings on the wall meant to be calming, the receptionist leading us in and telling us to wait. It feels so much like a doctor’s office that I’m thrown for a second. Waiting for someone to come in and deliver bad news…