Ayla

“What the hell is this?”

I emerge from the hotel shower to see Rhett sitting on my bed, holding up my proof copy of Cold Hearted ... and judging by the frown on his mouth and the lines across his forehead, he’s not exactly pleased.

“That’s my next book.” I yank the towel off my head and finger comb my damp hair into place.

“Reed and Ariana?” he says, flipping through the pages. “Ayla, this is us.”

I offer a hesitant smile. “Yeah. Kind of.”

“This isn’t cool. You can’t do that. You can’t just write about people without their permission.”

“I changed all the details,” I say. “We met after a wedding. You’re a baseball player. I’m a singer/songwriter.”

He doesn’t seem amused.

“No one will ever know,” I say.

“Bullshit they won’t. Anyone with half a brain who sees us together and reads your book will put it together.”

“Who’s going to see us together and read my book?” I roll my eyes.

“If you’re with me, you’re going to get photographed. The tabloids will figure out who you are and—”

“—and what?” I go to the bed, bend down, and kiss his forehead. He’s overreacting.

“Ayla, meeting you so soon after Damiana died ... that’s not something people are going to understand,” he says, voice despondent. “You won’t be judged for that, but I will be.”

“I didn’t write about her in this book.”

“Yeah, but if anyone puts it together? Trust me, it’s going to be made into a big deal. These places will write about anything if it makes a buck.” He closes my book, rubbing his eyes with his thumb and middle finger as he exhales. “And I don’t want to commercialize our relationship. The second you exploit it ... it’s not the same. You can’t go back.”

“Do you speak from experience?”

“Yeah. I do.” He rises, pacing the room before gathering his things. I’ve never seen him like this. Is he afraid he’s going to lose me? Or is he afraid of his “shameful secret” getting out into the media? I’d tell him not to worry about what anyone else thinks, but he doesn’t appear to be in a listening frame of mind.

“I didn’t want to write about us,” I say. “I tried. I tried so many times to write about anyone else but us. I made up all these fictional characters but in the end, their emotions were too real, too familiar, and I kept coming back to our story. But since our story was unfinished ... I gave it the ending it deserved. I guess it was my way of dealing with everything and finding closure.”

“When does this publish?” he asks, tugging his bottom lip between his fingers.

“In May.”

“Jesus, that soon? You can’t cancel it or whatever?”

I laugh. “No, I cannot cancel it.”

He’s pacing again.

“It’s a really beautiful story if you’d just give it a chance,” I say. “And the second half of the book is pure fiction. You should see the way you propose to me.”

He says nothing.

“And the cover,” I say, pointing to the book he’s still clutching. “We made the title pink because pink is a warm color, and in the end, I unfreeze your ice-cold heart with my love.”

Rhett doesn’t seem to care about metaphors or all the planning and forethought that went into this fictional story of us.

“This isn’t okay, Ayla.” His voice booms across the room, startling me into silence.

Before I have a chance to stop him, he’s dressed and on his way out the door, my book still clutched in his hand.

He stops, his hand on the knob, and turns to me, but he doesn’t meet my careful gaze. “I have a flight in two hours. I need to ... wrap my head around this.”

And then he’s gone.

I changed him in my story, but maybe I was a fool to think I could change him in real life.