[Sophie’s POV]

I’m halfway through marking edits when my boss leans against my desk like she’s about to drop gossip instead of a deadline. Her heels click once on the floor, sharp and deliberate, and I already know whatever she’s about to say is going to ruin my emotional stability for the rest of the week. I glance up from my screen, pen paused mid-sentence, and force a neutral expression onto my face.

“Sophie,” she says, dragging my name out like it’s an invitation and a warning at the same time. “I’m assigning you a new manuscript.”

I straighten in my chair, because this is what I do. I am professional. I am competent. I am absolutely not living a real-life version of the kind of book this company sells under frosted covers and anonymous pen names.

“Okay,” I say, keeping my voice even. “What’s the genre?”

She smiles in a way that makes my stomach sink. It’s the smile she uses when she thinks something is clever. “Contemporary relationship fiction,” she says. “Unconventional dynamics. Polyamory. Power negotiation. Consent structures. Emotional boundaries.”

My pen slips out of my fingers and clatters onto the desk.

She notices. Of course she does. Her eyebrow lifts just a fraction, and I scramble to recover, bending down to retrieve the pen like I didn’t just have a full-body reaction to my own life being summarized in publishing buzzwords.

“That sounds… timely,” I say, once I’m upright again, heart pounding way too fast for a Tuesday morning.

“You’re perfect for it,” she continues, blissfully unaware or painfully aware, I honestly can’t tell. “You’re sharp with emotional nuance, and you don’t sensationalize intimacy. The author wants an editor who understands complexity without turning it into spectacle.”

I nod, because saying no would be suspicious and saying yes feels like tempting fate. “When do you need notes?”

“End of the week,” she says. “It’s high-profile. Marketing is already salivating.”

She pushes the printed manuscript onto my desk, the title bold and ironic and way too close to home. I don’t look at it right away. I wait until she walks off, heels fading down the hallway, before I let myself exhale.

I stare at the cover and feel like it’s staring back.

This is my job. This is my life. These two things are not supposed to overlap.

I’m just opening the first page when the front desk buzzes my phone.

“Sophie,” the receptionist says, sounding hesitant. “There’s a man here asking for you.”

My stomach tightens instantly, because my body recognizes the problem before my brain catches up. “Did he say why?”

She pauses. “He said he’s… a friend.”

I close my eyes for a second. “What does he look like?”

Another pause. “Tall. Dark hair. Very intense eye contact. He’s wearing a suit that probably costs more than my rent.”

Of course he is.

“I’ll be right there,” I say, already standing, already annoyed, already secretly thrilled in a way that makes me mad at myself.

When I step out of the elevator, I see him immediately. Adrian doesn’t blend in anywhere, but in an open-plan publishing office full of cardigans and quiet chaos, he looks like a controlled burn. He’s standing near the reception desk, posture relaxed but alert, like he owns the space simply by existing in it.

He turns the second he senses me, because he always senses me, and his gaze locks onto mine with that familiar intensity that makes my spine straighten and my breath shorten. He smiles, slow and unapologetic, like he knows exactly what he’s doing to me.

“Sophie,” he says, voice calm and warm and way too intimate for my workplace.

I stop a few feet away from him, crossing my arms like that’s going to protect me. “What are you doing here?”

He tilts his head, eyes flicking briefly over my outfit, my hair, the badge clipped to my waist. “I was in the area,” he says. “I wanted to see where you work.”

My jaw tightens. “You could have texted.”

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