“Listen,” he says when he comes back to the conversation. “I promise this isn’t sinister. I know editors can get protective over their authors, especially the more delicate ones.” The editor in me wants to ask if it’s the authors or the editors who are delicate in this situation, but I bite my tongue. “We’ve all been there. I just want to meet her. This isn’t anything against you or your work. Call it idle curiosity, if you will.”

I bristle at the suggestion that Scarlett is something to be gawked at, like a caged animal. Or worse, that she’s a commodity. But I don’t see any way out of this. Anastasios Martis is my boss, and it’s in everyone’s best interests to keep him happy.

“I can see if she has any availability.” I grimace to myself at how easily I give in, though I’m not sure what the point of resisting him would be other than to write my own professional epitaph. I’m just a company man, I guess.

“Excellent.” His chair squeaks in the background as if he’s standing to mark the end of a meeting. “Call my secretary when you have a date so she can get it on my calendar. I look forward to it.” He hangs up before I can say anything else.

Groaning, I toss my phone on top of Scarlett’s bed. It’s when the phone lands with a dull thud and not a soft flop that I notice the comforter piled next to the bed, on the floor. I guess that explains the noise I heard just before she exited her room this morning.

I pick up the comforter and lay it out on top of the bed for her, smoothing it as I go. The memory of me nodding off on top of it last night—like a perfect gentleman—comes back as I run my hands over the damask pattern. I should have left. I know I should have left. But being with her again—watching as her body relaxed into sleep, her hand reaching out to me like a moth to a flame—I couldn’t leave.

I like to consider myself a strong man. And where Scarlett is concerned, I’ve thought I was at least over her enough to move on with my life. I used to think that if she ever appeared in my life again, we’d exchange pleasantries, maybe catch up a little, and go our separate ways. But this whole situation has blown that out of the water.

Dragging my hand down my face, I groan again. I am well and truly fucked.