Everyone is very engaged.

Julia reads excerpts. Asks questions. Pushes her students to move past clichéd answers. She’s incredibly smart and capable and charismatic.

Competence porn is a real thing.

This is some of the best I’ve seen. Ever.

The class talks about sex positivity in romance. About power dynamics between heroes and heroines. Problematic tropes and the even more problematic lack of diversity in the genre.

One excerpt in particular grabs my attention. In more ways than one. It’s from a book called My Romp With the Rogue, written by our very own Olivia.

Charlotte listened quietly as Callum told the story.

His brother William was a troubled man. Abused as a child, he in turn abused others as he grew into adulthood. He drank heavily. Callum did his best to help William. When those efforts were rebuffed, he settled for staying away from him. But when William turned his hand on their housekeeper—the woman who all but raised them—Callum could stand by no longer.

There was a fight. Mrs. Yardley lay bleeding at the foot of her bed. William drew a pistol, and Callum returned the favor.

He survived. His brother did not.

And that was the story of the murder.

Tears streamed down her face by the time Callum was done talking.

She realized then she didn’t have to defeat the monster, or protect herself from him. She’d merely had to unmask him. See him for the deeply pained, deeply lonely man beneath.

Charlotte reached for him, but he was already climbing out of bed, ducking into his nightshirt.

“Don’t go,” she said.

He looked at her steadily. Eyes no longer hard but soft.

Soft with pain.

“I must. For now you know the truth about your husband. And the truth is an ugly thing.”

No, Charlotte wanted to say. Truth is both ugly and beautiful. Terrible and courageous.

The truth was everything, and it meant more to her than she could say that he’d shared it with her.

But Callum had already stalked out of her chamber.

She had a sinking feeling he would not return.

I walk out of Julia’s class with a whole new appreciation for romance. And for Julia.

Woman is a rockstar.

Scares me a little to think how close I came to keeping her at arm’s length. If I hadn’t gotten her pregnant, would I have risked getting to know her beyond our backseat hookups? Or would I have crushed on her from afar like the scorned scumbag I used to be?

I thought I was doing the world a favor by staying out of the way. Playing it safe.

But now I know better.

Thank God I chose better.

The weeks fly by in a whirl of good bad sex and good good sex, too. In meetings and Excel models and many, many episodes of Game of Thrones and The Sopranos. Breakfasts made while listening to Bowie and Queen. Sunday suppers at my parents’ house.

Julia practically lives at my place. I love having her around. How could I not? I go to sleep with the taste of her on my mouth. Wake up with her warm and soft beside me. Juggling my two obsessions—my job and Julia—has left me exhausted to the point of borderline narcolepsy. I’m feeling a new kind of pressure at work now. It’s not just my family on the line anymore—Bryce and Ford.