Page 7 of Based on You

Simon swept his gaze around the vast, empty floor. Just the two of us.

"I mean." His voice dropped a notch. "We're the only two people out here. I'm pretty sure the staff already has an idea about us."

I swallowed hard.

Rumors about the two of us had run through the veins of Beckett Media for months. While Elena was alive and kept an office on this floor, there'd been no whispers. Her bright presence warmed the place, and any idle chatter got squashed by the obvious, strict professionalism we kept in front of her. But Elena had been gone for months. The floor narrowed back down to just us, and people were connecting dots that weren't there.

It was funny in the worst way.

Because nothing had happened, and nothing ever would. Simon Beckett used to have a girlfriend, a stunning woman who could've modeled if her schedule allowed, the type who made the whole room shift when she walked in. While they were together, Simon's casual banter stopped cold. He was respectful like that. He knew exactly where the line sat, and he stayed behind it.

That girlfriend had hated me. She'd march onto the floor and look at me like she was solving a math problem, adding up columns and hating the final number. I'd told myself she was just paranoid, and I believed my own lie the whole time they were together. But when they finally split, the easy banter came back, and the only real change was the three new chapters that showed up in my notebook starring a gray-eyed publishing CEO.

His gaze never lingered too long. He never touched me unless work called for it. Nothing about him gave me solid ground to take the flirting seriously. I knew the difference between a man being warm and a man wanting something. I wasn't his type. Wide-hipped, full-bodied, a size large. I knew my place.

"I'm so sorry, sir." I took a step backward.

He frowned and shook his head. "Why are you apologizing for what other people are whispering about?"

I opened my mouth to answer, but he cut me off.

"And if it's just a secret relationship," he went on, the corner of his mouth tugging up, "there's nothing so scandalous about it. We're both single adults. We're not disrespecting anyone." He paused, his face softening. "What I mean is⁠—"

I let out a bright laugh, breaking the tension. "You don't have to worry. I know what you mean. We both know this is just friendly banter. Nothing more."

Simon gave a tight nod. "Right. So stop listening to the gossip."

My lips pressed into a smaller, fragile smile. "Right."

He studied my face a moment longer before his posture straightened, sliding back into executive mode.

"I need you to schedule an emergency board meeting for today," he said. "Yesterday, the strategy team brought me a platform proposal I think is worth the board's time. Loop in Devika's team and have whoever's presenting prep their materials."

"Of course." I was already reaching for my keyboard. "I'll get the invites out within the hour."

He gave one last nod and walked past my desk without a word. The heavy oak door to his office clicked shut behind him.

I stared at my glowing monitor.

I held the polite smile a few seconds longer, then let it drop.

I sent the calendar invite to the board, then a heads-up email to the strategy team. The meeting locked in for that afternoon. I worked through the prep one piece at a time, drafting the executive briefing, booking the boardroom, confirming attendance. For high-stakes meetings like this, my job was to sit quiet against the wall with my notebook. Simon rarely needed me in standard team huddles, but formal board meetings were the exception.

I was halfway through a sentence in the briefing when my cell phone rattled against the wood.

I picked it up and checked the notification.

A calendar reminder blinked on the screen.

Mom—birthday—tomorrow.

I sighed and set the phone face-down on the desk.

It had been months since I last called home. My mother and I were not best friends. We never had been, at least not in any way that counted. She was a woman armed with fierce opinions about my life, and she delivered them in the steady, helpful-sounding tone of someone sure she was doing me a favor.

The friction had caught fire the day I graduated. My GPA hadn't been a disaster by any reasonable measure, but it hadn't matched my brother Xavier's flawless record, and in my family, falling short of Xavier was the same as outright failure. Her passive-aggressive comments started small and snowballed. She compared me to my brother. She compared me to her own wins at my age.

When I took the assistant role at Beckett Media, she wrote it off as a "stepping stone." When a full year passed without a promotion, she dropped the polite word for it. She'd ask if I needed money in a tone that already assumed I was broke. My father was more efficient. His heavy, judging silence said everything his wife spent hours putting into words.