“What’s that song?”

I turn toward the doorway with a smile. Helen stands framed against the light from the courtyard windows behind her, her curls piled up on top of her head in a haphazard bun. “What song?”

“You’re humming.”

“Was I?” I flip the manuscript in front of me closed with a gentle thwack. “I must have gotten carried away in the reading.” This time, it’s not an excuse for being distracted—I really was paying attention to the words on the pages in front of me. One of the submissions to the contest is a sweet romance with a sci-fi bent, the kind of fairy tale retelling that normally makes me want to run in the opposite direction. I see why the interns sent it up. It’s fresh and funny and suitable for a huge audience, and that makes it very appealing to Drawstring Press.

Also to me, because my mood since last Friday has been fantastic. Not that the author wasn’t just as delightful last week. It’s just that Levi Blake, of all people, has put me in the mood for comedy for the first time since…well, since everything started happening with Henry and my parents.

It doesn’t make the slightest bit of sense, but it’s true.

I left his penthouse in the early hours of Saturday morning. He’d blinked up from his pillow, his flawless skin sleep-lined and flushed, and my heart had jumped into my throat. “I’m leaving.”

He groaned, running a hand over his face, the muscles of his arms working under his bare skin. “Don’t go.”

“I’m already gone.” I leaned down, pressing a gentle kiss against his cheek. “Go back to sleep.”

He’d turned over then, pulling the blanket back up over his shoulders, and by the time I made it to the door his breath was soft and even.

“Things are looking up, then?” Helen smiles. I gave her a few of the details after Henry’s accident, and she gave me a few extra days off to be with my parents in the hospital. My stomach still knots up when I think about those first awful days. Nobody was sure whether Henry would be all right. They weren’t even sure if he was going to wake up, and seeing my older brother covered in all those tubes, his broken body propped in that antiseptic white room, is burned onto my mind.

“They really are.”

“Those were gorgeous flowers, last Friday.” Her little grin tells me she’s fishing. “I don’t want to pry, but—”

“You so want to pry. But there’s not much to tell, really…”

“Oh, isn’t there?” Helen laughs, the sound musical and bright. “Are there lots of men around the city who send you outrageously expensive bouquets?”

“There would be more if I wasn’t constantly buried under these manuscripts.” I wipe at my forehead like it’s all too much.

Helen laughs again. If only she knew the whole story. I didn’t flaunt my family’s wealth around when times were good, but it’s also true that my social life has been…curtailed. Not much of a choice. If I’m going to survive this in one piece, I can’t spend my salary on going to galas and museum openings. The invitations haven’t dropped off yet, but they will. “He must really like you, whoever he is.”

I give her a coy shrug. “We’ll see.”

“You temptress.” She shakes her head, then goes down the hall. I hear her greet someone at the far end, and then the quiet settles back over my office. 

I open the manuscript. The hero reminds me of Levi—cocky, a little arrogant, rich, but not so snobby that he misses the appeal of the space-age maid he comes across in the street. It doesn’t take long for me to get lost in the story. The images play out in my mind as I read. The prince is always Levi.

Helen’s visit did derail some of my focus, because after a few chapters, I’m not thinking about the sweet prince anymore. I’m thinking of the way Levi’s eyes held mine in his dominating gaze while I came. I’m thinking of the pressure of his hand against my jaw, just firm enough to let me know that he was in control. I’m thinking of the way he felt inside me, filling me completely, stretching me to capacity, like we were made for each other.

The prince in the story falls in love.

Wait.

I flip back a few pages and skim over the text again. Daydreams. Affecting my job. I snort in the silence of my office, and the sound is so hideous and hilarious that I laugh.

I catch up to where the prince falls in love. There’s a light, giddy feeling in his chest when he looks at the maid disguised as a princess, a curious lifting of the weight of his life. My breath catches at the phrase. This book—wow. This book has to be in the top five contenders for the contest. I don’t even have to finish it. Or, more accurately, the celebrity judge is going to have to finish it. Plus, we’ll be running it by a full committee at Drawstring that will ultimately choose those final five. I’ll be pulling for it every step of the way.

Done. I close the cover and put it at the corner of my desk, the edges lined up, and sigh, the lightness in my chest mirroring the gentle sunlight streaming in through the windows. Today is a good day.

Three emails later, the happiness hasn’t subsided. If anything, it’s more intense—so intense that I have to stand up from my desk and stretch my arms over my head. Cleansing breaths, just so I’m not jumping around in my office like an idiot.

The manuscript catches my eye. A curious lifting of the weight of his life...

The next thought to enter my mind drops me back into my chair like a puppet whose strings have abruptly been cut. 

That’s how I feel about Levi Blake.

I gasp, my hand flying to my chest like I’m about to clutch my non-existent pearls.

Helen pops her head in the door. “You okay?”

What is she doing, just lurking outside the door in case I do something embarrassing?

I laugh it off, only this time I’m not sure it’s convincing. “Yes. Yep. Completely fine. Do you ever think you see a spider out of the corner of your eye?”

She shakes her head, backing off. “I’m not a spider person. Don’t ask me to kill it.”

“It wasn’t a spider. It was just a shadow.” I wave her away. “Carry on!”

But this feeling in my chest…it’s more than just a reaction to the manuscript. It’s how I really feel.

In love with Levi Blake.

Oh, shit.