Page 58 of Not a Strong Enough Word

“That’s a little dramatic,” I grumble.

“It’s not,” he insists. “You’ve been pining for her for so long that you got her words tattooed on your arm.” He rolls his lips together as if it could stop him from saying the next thing, but he takes a breath and barrels on. “If I had known that manuscript was hers, I never would have asked you to look at it. I would have told Trina she was out of her mind to come around here with Scarlett’s work again.”

I arch an eyebrow and laugh. “Are you feeling guilty or something?”

“Not yet, but I will if this goes south.”

“What makes you think it will?”

“Aside from the fact that it’s a conflict of interest to have a romantic relationship with one of your authors?” Casey twitches an eyebrow up in challenge.

“You think Martis gives a shit about that? We weren’t together when she signed, and if it’s that big of a deal, I’ll step aside for the next book.” It would have gutted me to let her work go if we weren’t seeing each other, but now I suppose I can have the best of both worlds if it came to that.

Casey narrows his eyes at me. “She has kind of a fraught history with her mental health. And with you.”

“She’s different now,” I say without thinking.

“Different enough that you had to bring her food to get her out of a tough spot? It feels like you’re conveniently ignoring a lot of what she was like before she bailed on JMP.”

“You’ve been talking to Trina,” I accuse him.

He shoots me a look. “I will neither confirm nor deny that. Don’t try to weasel out of this, Ryan. I’m concerned.”

“Don’t be,” I say harshly, but I soften a bit as I chew on a corner of my mouth. “The more I hear her side of it, the more I realize that we were the ones who wronged her, not the other way around. She deserved better.”

“Better than a seven-figure publishing contract?”

“It wasn’t about money.”

Casey shakes his head. “It’s always about money.”

I furrow my brow so hard that I’m squinting in disbelief. “That is fundamentally incorrect. Anastasios Press was acquired on the idea of better work-life balance after JMP took a hard look at their practices.”

“It’s still capitalism,” he says with an air so casual, it seems forced. “We still have to sell books. If this book sells well—and I’m sure it will, especially when people find out who wrote it—they’ll want more and more. The cycle continues. What are you going to do then, Ry? What if she disappears again?”

I don’t want to admit it, but Casey is voicing something I’ve been thinking about off and on since she ghosted Charles at the restaurant a week ago. But every time I consider the possibility of her leaving again, I remind myself that things really are different now. She’s more open about her feelings, and I’m there every night to make sure she shuts the computer down and recharges. Last time, I let her work herself to the bone. I was distracted by dollars and didn’t see the harm in it. I won’t make that mistake again. I know the signs now, and I also know what I need to do to help her.

Shaking my head, I reply, “She won’t. I know what I’m doing this time.”

Casey draws his eyebrows together and tilts his head. “You can’t fix her.”

“But I can help her. I want to help her. I want it more than anything.” I pause, taking a deep breath and smiling to myself. “I’m so fucking happy. Maybe it doesn’t make sense to you, but she… I think she’s my soulmate. If you believe in that sort of thing, I guess. I don’t know if I do, but if soulmates exist, she’s mine. Nothing felt right in my life until she was back in it. Even before I kissed her again…just knowing she was here and she was okay…it settled something in me. Like a missing piece.” The cliché makes me cringe, and I silently curse the English language for not having words to adequately express how it feels to hold her again.

She could walk away from me a million times. As long as she comes back to me a million and one, I’ll die a happy man.

Casey regards me as he rubs his chin with his thumb and forefinger. “You love her again.”

It’s a statement, not a question, but I answer anyway. “I never stopped.” I’ve never known something to be true in my bones like I know this: I love Scarlett. I will always love her. Even if she left me high and dry again, I’d still love her. Probably forever.

Casey sighs, resigned. “I know.” He smiles sadly. “I hope things turn out better this time.”

“They will,” I insist. They have to. For both of us.

Pulling containers out of the bag, I announce each as it lands on the counter in front of me. “I got buttered noodles, mac and cheese, and pad thai.”

“You sure know the way to a girl’s heart,” Scarlett calls from her seat in my bedroom. When she had come here the first time after we spent the night at her apartment, she squealed with delight that I had set up the desk for her again in there and ran to it, setting up to work.

I didn’t tell her I never had the heart to take it down in the first place. That it has remained, unused and untouched, since the last time she sat there. I couldn’t bring myself to move it. Not the place she sat when she wrote her second book or when she told me she loved me for the first time.