Page 55 of The Maverick

She swallowed hard. “You’ve been watching me.”

“For months… years,” he whispered. “Every login. Every email. Every message you sent to your agent, your editor. Every scene you wrote that you never published. I saw them all. And you know what I realized?”

He moved fast—one step, two—and before she could retreat, he was in front of her, crouching, looking her straight in the eye.

“I realized you were writing our story.”

Her stomach flipped.

“I gave you that scene,” he said, voice breaking with fervor. “The first one. The alley, the rain, the way he pinned her wrists. You changed the names. You gave it to him. But that was me.”

Vanessa’s mouth went dry. No one had ever published that scene. She’d written it in a private document, buried deep in a file directory she hadn’t opened in over a year. A dark, unwanted memory of almost being cornered after a club night had inspiredthe scene. An unknown man who hadn’t respected a no. A flash of fear that had never left her.

That scene wasn’t fiction, and now she knew who it had been.

“You don’t remember, do you?” Miles asked, almost tender. “I tried to scene with you a second time. I asked. You turned me down. Treated me like I wasn’t worthy.”

She opened her mouth, but he kept going.

“And then you wrote about me, anyway. Stole my story. Twisted it into something ugly. Something that made me the villain.”

“You are the villain,” she whispered.

His eyes flared.

Vanessa didn’t flinch. Her voice was hoarse, but steady now. “That scene was mine. My fear. My experience. You tried to force a scene after I said no. I don’t care if you think it was some kind of connection. It was an assault.”

Miles stood and paced. “No. No, no, no. You needed to be pushed. Just like she did. You wrote it that way. The Dom who takes what he wants. Who doesn’t wait for permission because he knows what she needs.”

Vanessa’s mouth tasted like copper.

He stopped pacing. “The ending was wrong. I’ve fixed it. I fixed all of it. You’ll see. When you surrender—really surrender—it’ll all make sense.”

She shook her head slowly. “You think taking me is going to earn my submission?”

“No,” Miles said, his voice soft again. “I already earned it. You just forgot. But I’ll remind you. We’ll rewrite it together. You’ll understand by the time I finish reading you the final chapter.”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a flash drive. The casing was pink—stupidly cheerful. Familiar.

Her breath caught.

“That’s mine.”

He nodded. “Copied and revised. Your latest draft. I made some edits. You’ll love it.”

Vanessa stared at the drive. At the man holding it like a talisman. A symbol of control. He thought he had rewritten her story.

But what he didn’t know—what he would learn—was that she didn’t write happy endings for men like him.

And Hawke was coming. He had to be. She just had to survive long enough for him to get there.

Vanessa let her gaze drop, feigning submission as she felt for the strap behind her ankle. The restraint was old leather, secured with a metal buckle. Not locked. Not reinforced. Miles hadn’t noticed that detail when he replicated her scene.

He was too obsessed with the fantasy to see the flaws.

“I don’t know what to say,” she murmured, lifting her eyes just enough to meet his gaze without provoking him. “You did all this… for me?”

Miles stepped closer, proud, almost glowing. “It was always going to be you, Vanessa. From the moment you walked into the club, I knew.”

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