Page 54 of Sweet Venom

His eyes flicked to the notes, then back to me, his expression unreadable again. But something in the air had shifted. Something almost palpable, a crackling tension that made it hard to breathe. He wasn’t just listening now—he was watching me, as if he could see straight through me, straight through my carefully built walls.

I forced myself to keep going, but I couldn’t help the flicker of uncertainty in my voice. “In the first book there’s this tortured Korean American MC, right? Completely shattered by a tragedy from his past—his whole life is basically one big emotional wreck. Then, there’s his high school sweetheart—also messed up, in her own way. She's both his salvation and his ruin. They’re like magnets, but every time they get close, they just destroy each other.”

I paused, feeling my chest tightened as I continued. “They’re both so broken, but in such a fucked-up way. They hurt each other, make the wrong choices, and their mistakes tear them apart. It's deep, it’s twisted—it’s angst-fueled chaos, and at the heart of it all, they’ll find a dark, messy happily ever after. You know, one of those twisted love stories where the readers won’t see the twists coming. The kind of relationship that fucks them up and leaves them wanting more.”

My words hung in the air, my pulse quickening. I glanced up to see if Azariel’s icy exterior was cracking at all. But… nope. Nothing. His face was a mask of indifference. He didn’t say a word.

The silence gnawed at me, crawling under my skin.Was this it? Was this where he said yes?

“Azariel?” I prompted, almost nervously. “What do you think?”

Still nothing.

After what felt like an eternity, he finally leaned back in his chair, his gaze still fixed on me with that unnervingly calm stare of his that drove insane. “No,” he said flatly, his voice as cold as ever. “Try again.”

My stomach dropped. The annoyance rose in my chest like bile, sour and bitter. No? After all that? After I’d poured my heart and soul into this?

I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, fighting the urge to snap. “What’s wrong with it?” I asked, trying to keep my voice even but failing miserably. “It’s got everything. The tension, the emotional depth, the twists—hell, the whole thing is a ticking time bomb.”

Azariel’s lips curved into something like a cruel smile, and he stood up from his desk, pushing his chair back with deliberate slowness. My heartbeat quickened, a cold wave of nervous energy hitting me. I could feel the hair on the back of my neck standing on end as he walked toward me with that eerie, calculated grace of his.

Shit.

He was getting too close.

His towering presence loomed over me, making my skin feel hot, despite the chill in the room. I hated how my body reacted to him—how my heart was pounding in my chest, like a war drum echoing in my ears.

Azariel leaned down, his dark eyes locking with mine. I could feel the heat of his breath brushing against my skin. My body stiffened, but I couldn’t move—couldn’tbreathe.

Then, without a single word, he reached out, his fingers brushing a stray blue strand of hair that had fallen from my messy bun. His touch was light, almost careless, but it sent a bolt of electricity through me. He tucked it behind my ear, his fingers lingering just a second longer than necessary.

“Do you know what romance is, Poe?” he asked, his voice low, dark, and steady, as if he were savoring the moment. “Because this... isn’t it.”

His words hit me like a slap, and I swallowed hard. “What?” I managed to squeak out, feeling utterly exposed under his gaze.

“The romance,” he continued, his voice tightening just a little. “You pitched me a dark romance without actually selling me the romance part. All I heard was misery, angst, and broken people. Where’s the love? The connection? The reason readers should root for these people to be together?” He stepped back, his cold gaze never leaving me. “You didn’t give me the heart of the story. You gave me all the pain, all the tragedy... but nothing to make me care.”

I felt my stomach twist. He was right, in a way. But damn it, it felt like he’d just exposed me, left me standing there, vulnerable and raw. I wanted to argue, to tell him that the darkness was the romance, that the pain was the attraction, but the words got caught in my throat. How could I explain that to someone like him, who seemed to view everything through the lens of cold, detached calculation?

Azariel took a step back, his eyes still dark with that unsettling intensity. “Go back and try again. And this time, give me the romance. The real one. If you can.” I stood there for a moment, trying to steady my breath, but my heart was still hammering in my chest, and I hated it. I hated how his proximity made me feel.

“You’re unbelievable!” I spat out, my voice shaking but as defiant as a cornered raccoon. “You know it’s good. You’re just being difficult.”

His lips quirked upward into something that wasn’t quite a smile but might as well have been, like the smug little demon that he is who just won a gold medal in patronizing. “Are you done with the tantrum?”

Tantrum?Tantrum?

“How dare y?—”

“Convince me that your characters can’t breathe without the other— that kind of love, and then we’ll talk,” he interrupted, his voice cool as a cucumber in one of those weird ice baths that my cousin Artemis enjoys so much. “But until then… go.”

I wasstaringat the back of his head, my mouth open in disbelief. He did not just dismiss me like a toddler who had been told to go to her room. Oh,hedid. I could feel my blood pressure skyrocketing.

Before I could open my mouth to launch into a carefully curated list of every insult ever conceived by mankind, I caught myself.No. No, this is exactly what he wants. To get under my skin and make me squirm. And as much as I hated to admit it, I wasn’t going to let him see just how deep he’d dug the knife in.

Instead, I took a deep, veryfrustratedbreath, which was probably a mistake because it made me want to both scream and throw the container of cookies at him. But no. No. I wasn’t going to give him the satisfaction to see me lose it. Oh, no.

So, I turned on my heel, but just before I walked out, he had the audacity to say, “Happy Valentine’s Day, and thanks for the cookies. I’m sure my cat will love them.”

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