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I carry the manuscript to the couch, make myself comfortable, and begin reading.

So Be It

Verity Crawford

Author’s note:

The thing I abhor most about autobiographies are the counterfeit thoughts draped over every sentence. A writer should never have the audacity to write about themselves unless they’re willing to separate every layer of protection between the author’s soul and their book. The words should come directly from the center of the gut, tearing through flesh and bone as they break free. Ugly and honest and bloody and a little bit terrifying, but completely exposed. An autobiography encouraging the reader to like the author is not a true autobiography. No one is likable from the inside out. One should only walk away from an autobiography with, at best, an uncomfortable distaste for its author.

I will deliver.

What you read will taste so bad at times, you’ll want to spit it out, but you’ll swallow these words and they will become part of you, part of your gut, and you will hurt because of them.

Yet…even with my generous warning…you’re going to continue to ingest my words, because here you are.

Human.

Curious.

Carry on.

“Find what you love and let it kill you. ” - Charles Bukowski

I sometimes think back on the night I met Jeremy and wonder, had we not made eye contact, would my life still end the same? Was it my destiny from the beginning to suffer such a tragic end? Or is my tragic end a result of poor choices rather than fate?

Of course, I haven’t met a tragic end yet, or I wouldn’t be able to recount what led to it. Nevertheless, it’s coming. I can sense it, just as I sensed Chastin’s death. And just as I embraced her fate, I will embrace my own.

I wouldn’t say I was lost before the night I met Jeremy, but I had certainly never been found until the moment he laid eyes on me from across the room.

I’d had boyfriends before. One-night stands, even. But I’d never come close to imagining life with someone else until that moment. When I saw him, I pictured our first night together, our wedding, our honeymoon, our children.

Until that moment, the idea of love had always felt very manufactured to me. A Hallmark ploy. A marketing scheme for greeting card companies. I had no interest in love. My only goal that night was to get drunk on free booze and find a rich investor to fuck. I was already halfway there, having downed three Moscow Mules. And judging by the look of Jeremy Crawford, I was going to leave that party an overachiever. He looked rich, and it was a charity event, after all. Poor people don’t show up to charity events unless they’re serving the rich.

Present company not included.

He was talking with a few other men, but every time he’d glance in my direction, I felt like we were the only two people in the room. Every now and then, he would smile at me. Of course he did. I had on my red dress that night, the one I stole from Macy’s. Don’t judge me. I was a starving artist and it was ridiculously expensive. I intended to make up for the theft when I had the money. I’d donate to a charity or save a baby or something. The good thing about sins is they don’t have to be atoned for immediately, and that red dress was too perfect for me to pass up.

It was a fuckable dress. The kind of dress a man can easily bypass when he wants between your legs. The mistake women make when they choose their clothes for events like the one I was at, is that they don’t think about them from the man’s perspective. A woman wants her breasts to look good, her figure to be hugged. Even if that means sacrificing comfort and wearing something impossible to remove. But when men look at dresses, they aren’t admiring the way it hugs the hips or the cinch at the waist or the fancy tie up the back. They’re sizing up how easy it will be to remove. Will he be able to slip his hand up her thigh when they’re seated next to each other at a table? Will he be able to fuck her in a car without the awkward mess of zippers and Spanx? Will he be able to fuck her in the bathroom without having to remove her clothes completely?

The answers to my stolen red dress were yes, yes, and hell yes.

I realized, with that dress on, there was no way he would be able to leave the party without approaching me. I chose to stop paying attention to him. It made me seem desperate. I was not the mouse, I was the cheese. I was going to stand there until he came to me.

He did, eventually. I was standing at the bar, my back to him, when he put his hand on my shoulder and leaned forward, motioning for the bartender. Jeremy didn’t look at me in that moment. He simply kept his hand on my shoulder, as if he were laying claim to me. When the bartender approached, I watched in fascination. Jeremy nudged his head toward me and said, “Make sure you only serve her water for the rest of the evening. ”

I hadn’t been expecting that. I turned, leaning an arm on the bar, and faced him. He dropped his hand from my shoulder, but not before his fingers grazed all the way down to my elbow. A flicker of electricity flashed through me, mixed with a surge of anger.

“I’m perfectly capable of deciding when I’ve had enough to drink. ”

Jeremy smirked at me and even though I hated the arrogance behind that smirk, he was good-looking. “I’m sure you are. ”

“I’ve only had three drinks all evening. ”

“Good. ”

I stood up straight and called the bartender back over. “I’ll have another Moscow Mule, please. ”

The bartender glanced at me, then Jeremy. Then back at me. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I’ve been asked to serve you water. ”

I rolled my eyes. “I heard him ask you to serve me water, I’m standing right here. But I don’t know this man, and he doesn’t know me, and I’d like another Moscow Mule. ”

“She’ll take a water, ” Jeremy said.

I was definitely attracted to him, but his looks were quickly fading with that chauvinistic attitude. The bartender lifted his hands and said, “I don’t want to get involved in whatever this is. If you want a drink, go order it from the bar over there. ” He pointed to the bar across the room. I grabbed my purse, tipped my chin up in the air, and walked away. When I reached the other bar, I found a stool and waited for the bartender to finish with his customer. In that time, Jeremy appeared again, this time leaning his elbow across the bar.

“You didn’t even give me a chance to explain why I’d like you to have water. ”

I rolled my head in his direction. “I’m sorry, I didn’t realize I owed you my time. ”

He laughed, moving until his back was against the bar, and stared at me with a tilted head and a crooked smile. “I’ve been watching you since the moment I walked through the door. You’ve had three drinks in forty-five minutes, and if you keep going at that rate, I won’t feel comfortable asking you to leave with me. I’d much rather you make that choice while you’re sober. ”

His voice sounded like his throat was coated in honey. I held eye contact with him, wondering if it was an act. Could a man that good looking and presumably rich also be considerate? It felt more presumptuous than anything, but I was drawn in by his gall.

The bartender approached with impeccable timing. “What can I get for you? ”

I straightened up, breaking eye contact with Jeremy. I turned and faced the bartender. “I’ll have a water. ”

“Make it two, ” Jeremy said.

And that was that.

It’s been years since that night, and it’s difficult to recall every detail, but I do remember being drawn to him in those first few moments in a way I’d never been drawn to a man. I liked the sound of his voice. I liked his confidence. I liked his teeth, perfect and white. I liked the stubble on his jaw. It was the perfect length to scratch my thighs. Maybe even scar them if he stayed down there long enough.

I liked that he wasn’t afraid to touch me while we talked, and every time he did, the graze of his fingers made my skin tingle.

After we both finished our waters, Jeremy led me to the exit, his hand on my lower back, his fingers caressing my dress.

We walked to his limousine, and he held the back door open for me as I climbed inside. He took the seat across from me rather than next to me. The car smelled like a bouquet, but I knew it was perfume. I quite liked it, despite knowing another woman had been in this limousine tonight. My eyes fell to a bottle of champagne that was half empty next to two wine glasses, one lined with red lipstick.

Who is she? And why did he leave the party with me and not her?

I didn’t care to ask those questions out loud, because he was leaving with me. That’s really all that mattered.

We sat in silence for a minute or two, staring at each other with anticipation. He knew he had me in that moment, which is why he felt confident enough to reach forward and lift my leg, draping it across the seat next to him. He left his hand on my ankle, caressing it, watching as my chest began to rise and fall in response to his touch.

“How old are you? ” he asked. The question made me pause because he looked older than I was, maybe late twenties, early thirties. I didn’t want to scare him off with the truth, so I lied and said I was twenty-five.

“You look younger. ”

He knew I was lying. I kicked off my shoe and ran my toes across the outside of his thigh. “Twenty-two. ”

Jeremy laughed and said, “A liar, huh? ”

“I stretch truths where I see fit. I’m a writer. ”

His hand moved to my calf.

“How old are you? ”

“Twenty-four, ” he said with as much truth as I’d given him.

“So... twenty-eight? ”

He smiled. “Twenty-seven. ”

His hand was on my knee at this point. I wanted it even higher. I wanted it on my thigh, between my legs, exploring me from the inside. I wanted him, but not here. I wanted to go with him, see where he lived, judge the comfort of his bed, smell his sheets, taste his skin.

“Where’s your driver? ” I asked.

Jeremy glanced behind him, toward the front of the limousine. “I don’t know, ” he replied, looking back at me. “This isn’t my limousine. ” His expression was mischievous, and I couldn’t tell if he was lying.

I narrowed my eyes, wondering if this man had really led me to a limousine that didn’t even belong to him. “Whose limousine is this? ”

Jeremy’s eyes had left mine and were focused on his hand. The one tracing circles over my knee. “I don’t know. ” I expected my desire to wane at the realization that he may not be rich, but instead, his admission made me smile. “I’m an entry-level scrub, ” he said. “I drove my car here. Honda Civic. Parked it myself because I’m too cheap to pay the ten bucks for valet. ”

I was surprised by how much I loved that he had brought me to a limo that wasn’t even his. He wasn’t rich. He wasn’t rich, yet I still wanted to fuck him.

“I clean office buildings in the city, ” I admitted. “I stole an invitation to this party out of a trash can. I’m not even supposed to be here. ”

He smiled, and I’ve never wanted to taste a grin like I wanted to taste the one that spread across his face. “Aren’t you resourceful? ” he asked. His hand slipped behind my knee and he pulled me toward him. I slid across the seat and onto his lap because that’s what dresses like mine were for. I could feel him growing hard between my legs as he pressed a thumb against my bottom lip. I swiped my tongue across the pad of his thumb, and it made him sigh. Not groan. Not moan. He sighed, like it was the sexiest thing he’d ever felt.

“What’s your name? ” he asked.

“Verity. ”

“Verity. ” He said it twice. “Verity. That’s really pretty. ” His eyes were on my mouth, and he was about to lean in and kiss me, but I pulled back.

“What’s yours? ”

His eyes flickered back to mine. “Jeremy. ” He said it fast, like it was a waste of his time, an inconvenient interruption to our kiss. As soon as the word left his mouth, his lips touched mine, and as soon as they touched mine, the interior light kicked on above our heads and we both froze, our lips grazing, our bodies suddenly stiff as someone climbed into the driver’s seat of the limousine.

“Shit, ” Jeremy whispered against my mouth. “What an untimely return. ” He pushed me off of him and opened the door. He ushered me out of the car just as the driver realized someone else was in the car with him.

“Hey! ” he yelled into the backseat.

Jeremy grabbed my hand and began to pull me after him, but I needed out of my shoes. I tugged on his arm, and he stopped as I slipped my shoes off my feet. The driver started heading in our direction. “Hey! What the hell were you doing in my car? ”

Jeremy grabbed my shoes in one hand, and we ran down the street, laughing in the dark, out of breath when we finally reached his car. He hadn’t been lying about it. It was a Honda Civic, although it was a newer model, so that counted for something. He pushed me against the passenger door, dropped my shoes on the concrete, and then swept a hand into my hair.

I looked over my shoulder at the car we were leaning against. “Is this really your car? ”

He smiled as he reached into his suit pocket and pulled out his key fob. He unlocked the doors to prove it was his, which made me laugh.

He stared down at me, our mouths thisclose, and I could swear he was already imagining what life with me would be like. You can’t look at someone the way he looked at me—with the entirety of his past—without also imagining the future.

He closed his eyes and kissed me. The kiss was full of both desire and respect—two things a lot of men didn’t seem to know could go hand in hand.

His fingers felt good in my hair, and his tongue felt good in my mouth. I felt good to him, too. I could feel how good I felt to him in the way he kissed me. We knew very little about each other in that moment, but it was almost better that way. Sharing a kiss that intimate with a stranger was like saying, “I don’t know you, but I believe I would like you if I did. ”

I liked that he believed he could like me. It almost made me believe I was likeable.

When he pulled away from me, I wanted to go with him. I wanted my mouth to follow his, my fingers to stay wrapped around his. It was torture remaining in the passenger seat of his car as we drove. I was burning inside for him. He had lit a fire in me, and I was determined to make sure it didn’t go out.

He fed me before he fucked me.

Took me to a Steak ’n Shake, and we sat on the same side of the booth, eating French fries and sipping chocolate shakes between kisses. The restaurant was mostly empty, so we were in a quiet corner booth, far enough away that no one noticed when Jeremy’s hand slid up my thigh and disappeared between my legs. No one heard me when I moaned. No one cared when he pulled his hand away and whispered that he wasn’t going to give me an orgasm in a Steak ’n Shake.

I wouldn’t have minded.

“Take me to your bed, then, ” I said.

He did. His bed was in the middle of a studio apartment in Brooklyn. Jeremy wasn’t rich. He could barely afford the Steak ’n Shake he had bought me. But I didn’t care. I was on his bed, lying on my back, watching him undress, when I realized I was about to make love for the first time. I’d had sex before, but never with more than just my body.

There was so much more of me invested in that moment than my body. My heart felt full—of what, I don’t know. But my heart had felt empty with the men who came before Jeremy.

It was amazing how different sex felt when a person used more than their body. I involved my heart and my gut and my mind and my hope. I fell in that moment. Not in love. I just…fell.

It was as if I’d been standing on the edge of a cliff my whole life, and finally, after meeting Jeremy, I felt confident enough to jump. Because—for the first time in my life—I felt confident that I wouldn’t land. I would keep flying.

Looking back, I realize how crazy it is that I fell for him so fast. But it was only crazy because it never stopped. Had I woken up the next morning and slipped out of his apartment, it would have ended as a fun one-night stand, and I wouldn’t even be recalling any of this all these years later. But I didn’t leave the next morning, so it became more. With every day that passed, that first night with him was further validated. And that’s what love at first sight is. It isn’t really love at first sight until you’ve been with the person long enough for it to become love at first sight.

We didn’t leave his apartment for three days.

We ate Chinese takeout. We fucked. We ordered pizza. We fucked. We watched TV. We fucked.

We both called in sick to work that Monday, and by Tuesday, I was obsessed. I was obsessed with his laugh, with his cock, with his mouth, with his skill, with his stories, with his hands, with his confidence, with his gentleness, with a new and intense need to please him.

I needed to please him.

I needed to be what made him smile, breathe, wake up in the mornings.

And for a while, I was. He loved me more than he loved anything or anyone. I was his sole reason for living.

Until he discovered the one thing that meant more to him than I did.

It’s like I have surpassed opening Verity’s underwear drawer, and now I’m rummaging around among the silk and lace. I am well aware that I shouldn’t be reading this. This is not why I came here. But…

I slide the manuscript onto the couch next to me, and I stare at it. I have so many questions about Verity. Questions I can’t ask her and questions Jeremy probably doesn’t feel like answering. I need to get to know her better to see how her mind works, and you can’t get more answers from any other source like you can from an autobiography. One this brutally honest.

I can see myself getting sidetracked by this, and I really shouldn’t. I’m here to find what I need and get out of this family’s hair. They’ve been through enough and don’t need an intruder touching their underwear.

I walk over to the monster desk and pick up my phone. It’s already after eleven. I arrived around seven this evening, but I didn’t expect it to be this late already. I didn’t even hear anything outside of this office. Like it’s soundproof.

Hell, it probably is. If I could afford to work in a soundproof office, I would.

I’m hungry.

It’s an awkward feeling, being hungry in a house you aren’t familiar with. I know Jeremy said to help myself, so I head for the kitchen.

I don’t make it far. I pause right when I open the office door.

The office is definitely soundproof, or I would have heard this noise. It’s coming from upstairs, and I have to still myself completely to focus on it. To pray it’s not at all what it sounds like.

I move quietly and cautiously to the foot of the stairs, and sure enough, the sound seems to be coming from the direction of Verity’s room. It’s the creaking of a bed. Repetitive creaking, like the sound a bed would make if a man were on top of a woman.

Oh, my God. I cover my mouth with unsteady fingers. No, no, no!

I read an article about this once. A woman was injured in a car wreck and was in a coma. She lived in a nursing facility and her husband came to visit her every day. The staff became suspicious that he was having sex with her despite her being in a coma, so they set up hidden cameras. The man was arrested for rape because his wife was unable to give consent.

Much like Verity.

I should do something. But what?

“It’s noisy, I know. ”

I gasp and spin around, coming face to face with Jeremy.

“I can turn it off if it bothers you, ” he says.

“You scared me. ” My voice is full of breath. I blow out a sigh of relief, knowing that whatever I’m hearing is not at all what I thought it was. Jeremy looks over my shoulder, up at where the noise is coming from.

“It’s her hospital bed. It’s on a timer every two hours to lift different parts of her mattress. Takes weight off her pressure points. ”

I can feel the embarrassment creeping up my neck. I pray to God he doesn’t know what I thought that noise was. I cover my chest with my hand to hide the redness I know is there. I’m fair skinned, and anytime I get nervous or worked up or embarrassed, my skin tells on me, erupting in angry red splotches. I wish I could sink into the lush, rich-people carpet and disappear.

I clear my throat. “They make beds like that? ” I could have used one when my mother was on hospice. It was hell trying to move her on my own.

“Yeah, but they’re obscenely expensive. Several thousand for a brand new one, and insurance wouldn’t even cover it. ”

I choke on that price.

“I’m heating up leftovers, ” he says. “You hungry? ”

“I was just on my way to the kitchen, actually. ”

Jeremy walks backward. “It’s pizza. ”

“Perfect. ” I hate pizza.

The microwave timer goes off right when Jeremy reaches it. He pulls out a plate of pizza and hands it to me, then makes himself another plate. “How’s it going in there? ”

“Good, ” I say. I grab a bottle of water out of the fridge and take a seat at the table. “You were right, though. There’s a lot. It’s gonna take me a couple of days. ”

He leans against the counter as he waits for his pizza to finish. “Do you work better at night? ”

“Yeah. I stay up pretty late and then sleep in most mornings. I hope that’s not an issue. ”

“Not at all. I’m actually a night owl, too. Verity’s nurse leaves in the evenings and comes back at seven in the morning, so I stay up until midnight and give Verity her nighttime medications. Nurse takes over when she gets here. ” He grabs his plate from the microwave and sits across from me at the table.

I can’t even make eye contact with him. All I can think of when I look at him is the part of Verity’s manuscript I read where she mentioned his hand was between her legs at the Steak ’n Shake. God, I shouldn’t have read that. Now I’ll be blushing every time I look in his direction. He has really nice hands, too, which doesn’t help the situation.

I need to change the direction of my thoughts.

Like now.

“Did she ever talk with you about the series she was writing? Like what she had planned for the characters? The ending? ”

“If she did, I can’t remember, ” he says, looking down at his plate. He absentmindedly moves around a slice of pizza. “Before her car wreck, it had been a while since she’d written anything. Or even talked about writing. ”

“How long ago was her wreck? ” I already know the answer, but I don’t want him to know I Googled his family’s history.

“Not long after Harper died. She was in a medically induced coma for a while, then went into an intense rehabilitation center for several weeks. She’s only been home for a few weeks now. ” He takes another bite. I feel bad for talking about it, but he doesn’t seem put off by the conversation.

“Before my mother died, I was her only caregiver. I don’t have any siblings, so I know it isn’t easy. ”

“It isn’t easy, ” he says in agreement. “I’m sorry about your mother, by the way. I’m not sure I said that when you told me about it in the coffee shop bathroom. ”

I smile at him, but say nothing else about it. I don’t want him to ask about her. I want the focus to remain on him and Verity.

My mind keeps going back to the manuscript, because even though I know very little about the man sitting across from me, I almost feel as though I know him. At the very least, I know him the way Verity described him.

I’m curious to know what kind of marriage they had, and why she ended the first chapter with the sentence she chose. “Until he discovered the one thing that meant more to him than I did. ”

The sentence is ominous. It’s almost as if she were setting up the next chapter to reveal some terrible, dark secret about this man. Or maybe it was a writing strategy, and she’s going to say he’s a saint and that their children mean more to him than she did.

Whatever it means, I’m dying to read the next chapter now that I’m staring at him. And I hate that I have so many other things that should be my focus right now, but all I want to do is curl up and read about Jeremy and Verity’s marriage. It makes me feel a little pathetic.

It’s probably not even about them. I know a writer who admitted she uses her husband’s name in every manuscript until she can come up with a name for her character. Maybe that’s what Verity does. Maybe it was just another work of fiction, and Jeremy’s name was only there as a placeholder.

I guess there’s only one way to find out if what I read was true.

“How did you and Verity meet? ”

Jeremy pops a pepperoni in his mouth and grins. “At a party, ” he says, leaning back in his chair. Finally, he doesn’t look sad for once. “She was wearing the most amazing dress I’d ever seen. It was red, and so long that it dragged on the floor a little bit. God, she was beautiful, ” he says with a hint of wistfulness. “We left the party together. When I walked outside, I saw a limousine parked out front, so I opened the door and we climbed inside and talked a little. Until the driver showed up and I had to admit the limousine wasn’t mine. ”

I’m not supposed to know any of this, so I force a laugh. “It wasn’t yours? ”

“No. I just wanted to impress her. We had to make an escape after that because the driver was pretty pissed. ” He’s still smiling, like he’s right back in that night with Verity and her fuckable red dress. “We were inseparable after that. ”

It’s hard for me to smile for him. For them. Seeing how happy they seemed back then, and then looking at what their life turned into. I wonder if her autobiography explains in detail how they got from point A to point B. At the beginning of it, she mentions Chastin’s death. Which means she wrote it, or at least added to it, after that first huge tragedy. I wonder how long she’s been working on it?

“Was Verity already an author when you met her? ”

“No, she was still in grad school. It was later, when I had to take a temporary position in Los Angeles for a few months, that she wrote her first book. I think it was her way of passing the time until I came back home. She was passed up by a couple of publishers at first, but once she sold that first manuscript, everything just... It all happened so fast. Our lives changed practically overnight. ”

“How did she handle the fame? ”

“I think it was harder for me than it was for her. ”

“Because you like being invisible? ”

“Is it that obvious? ”

I shrug. “Fellow introvert, here. ”

He laughs. “Verity isn’t your typical author. She loves the spotlight. The fancy events. It all makes me uncomfortable. I like being here with the kids. ” There’s a very subtle shift in his expression when he realizes he spoke of his girls in the present tense. “With Crew, ” he says, correcting himself. He shakes his head and then clasps his hands behind his neck, leaning back like he’s stretching. Or uncomfortable. “It’s hard sometimes—remembering they aren’t here anymore. ” His voice is quiet, and he’s staring past me, at nothing. “I still find their hairs on the sofa. Their socks in the dryer. Sometimes I yell out their names when I want to show them something, forgetting they aren’t going to come running down the stairs. ”

I watch him closely, because not all of me is convinced yet. I write suspense novels. I know when there are suspicious situations, suspicious people almost always accompany those situations. I’m torn between wanting to find out more about what happened to his girls, and getting out of here as fast as I can.

But right now, I’m not looking at a man who is putting on a show to garner sympathy. I’m looking at a man who’s sharing his thoughts out loud for the first time.

It makes me want to do the same.

“My mother hasn’t been gone that long, but I know what you mean. Every morning that first week, I’d get up and make her breakfast, only to remember she wasn’t there to eat it. ”

Jeremy drops his arms to the table. “I wonder how long it lasts. Or if it’ll always be this way. ”

“I think time will definitely help, but it probably wouldn’t hurt to entertain the idea of moving. If you’re in a house they’ve never been in, the reminders of them might fade. Not having them around would become your new normal. ”

He runs a hand across the stubble on his jaw. “I’m not sure I want a normal where there aren’t traces of Harper and Chastin. ”

“Yeah, ” I say in agreement. “I wouldn’t either. ”

His eyes remain on me, but it’s quiet. Sometimes a look between two people can last so long, it shakes you. Forces you to look away.

So I do.

I look at my plate and run my finger along the scalloped edge of it. His stare felt like it was going far past my eyes, into my thoughts. And even though he doesn’t mean for it to, it feels intimate. When Jeremy’s eyes are on mine, it feels like an exploration of the deepest parts of me.

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