Page 18 of Written By a Woman

Glasses, hair, beard, button-down shirt, physique. When I noticed two specific veins on the cartoon’s forearms, I resisted the urge to roll up my sleeve to see if it was truly the same as mine. The cartoon-woman that cartoon-me stood next to was seemingly random. Some small brunette woman who sparked no familiar faces in my memory.

“I hate that I didn’t see it before,” Raina spoke up, “I get the ick looking at the fan art now.”

“This is fan art?” Why did my voice sound so raspy?

“Yeah, that’s how big this story is in the online romance readers groups,” Salma explained, “She started posting chapters online, as like a free fanfic kind of thing. Then, readers blew it up. That’s how her agent found her and reached out to work with her. But now that she’s signed, she’s writing a full-on manuscript. It’s going to be a physical book you can buy at bookstores and stuff.”

I had no words.

Signe Lange, the woman who starred in an embarrassing number of my late-night fantasies, wrote a romance novel aboutme.

My brain felt like it was short-circuiting.

“…So…” I cleared my throat for what felt like the thousandth time, “How do we know for sure it’s me?”

The imagery was telling, but it could all be a coincidence.

It could be any other Arab-looking man.

“All the comments during her live feed tonight, for one,” Raina pointed out, tugging the phone from my hands, and handing it back to Salma. Her hazel eyes narrowed at me as one eyebrow of hers arched, “And the guilty look on her face as she read the comments.”

The last image I saw on my sister’s phone was of Signe’s face near the end of the stream, which had a beautiful blush on it.

“She ended the livestream as soon as people started asking ifyouwere Zayne,” Salma explained, as she tucked her phone into the back pocket of her leggings, “Which makes her look guilty. Since then, everyone has been sharing screenshots of your blurry face and Zayne fan art, andugh.” Salma made a face that looked like she was about to throw up, “I have very mixed feelings reading a romance novel with a character whose looks are inspired by my brother.”

I reached a hand up to rub my forehead.

Signe, the office manager, was currently writing a romance novel.

A romance novel that starred me, for some reason.

As far as I knew, Signe had never once shown a romantic interest in me. Not that there had been any opportunities for her to do so. I usually avoided her because of my inappropriate crush. That, and office relationships were generally frowned upon, and my status as CTO would make any hypothetical relationship dynamic problematic. Workplace attraction happened, so I had heard, and I figured the attraction between us had been one-sided. I had never considered, not even once, that Signe—

“This sucks,” Raina spoke up, making me tune back into my sisters’ discussion.

“I know, part of me hates that we won’t get to read the rest of Zayne and Sydney’s story.” Salma sighed.

I shook my head in confusion at her words, “Why is that?”

They both gave me pointed looks before Salma explained, “Because you’ll have to fire her. Then she will probably have to scrap the project because of how…unprofessional it is.”

I snapped my mouth closed, thinking about that for half a second before blurting out, “Why?”

They both raised their eyebrows at me, making me feel ganged up on.

“Because your employee is writing a romance about you without your consent? Filming content for it on company property?” Raina asked, as if the question was rhetorical, “Because she’s been posting about how she wants to quit her office job and be a writer full-time, and the one shot she had at achieving that dream, she decided to cross professional boundaries?”

All thoughts in my brain came to a halt.

“Wait,” I held a hand up as I rubbed both of my temples with my fingertips, “Signe wants to quit?”

“That’s the part that you—” Salma blinked, and even I could tell that something clicked in her brain at that moment before she asked, “Youaregoing to fire her, right?”

I hesitated, before irritation with my sister’s meddling took over, “Why do I need to do that?”

Signe wanted to quit. She didn’t want to work at Sun Steer anymore. It made sense, it wasn’t like her position offered a lot of room for growth. But she had been so happy and upbeat there. I had no idea that she wanted to quit. That she was looking for a reason to.

I ignored my sister’s staring and thought about it some more.

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