Hold Me Close - Talia Hibbert Page 0,315

successful. I wanted to help. It was fun, and I was excited for him.”

Excited. Zach thought most people would be slightly jealous, too, but not Rae. She was the type to get swept away on a wave of happiness for someone she loved—and Kevin, he could already tell, was the type to take advantage of that.

“I had all these manuscripts lying around,” Rae said softly. “His deadline got closer, his moods got worse, and I just wanted to make everything better. So, I gave him a story, told him to use the idea as a framework. I never dreamed he’d rip the whole thing word for word. Of course, there were some changes: he made the heroine a hero. Made her white. Kept a few of my side characters, replaced the rest. The book sold almost instantly. His advance was £500,000.”

Zach closed his eyes for a moment, wrestling with his fury.

Rae didn’t sound furious, though. She sounded wryly amused, like she was telling the story of some teenage mistake, distant enough to laugh about. “I didn’t read Everlee until it was published. He kept getting all these accolades for his ‘diverse’ cast, and I got curious.” She shook her head, chuckling. “Christ, that first read was a shock. When I confronted him, he wasn’t even sorry. He said my version hadn’t been marketable, and anyway, I’d given him permission—which was true, I suppose. I gave him the story. But…”

“But you trusted him,” Zach finished. “You trusted him to use it the way you intended. Not to stick his name on it and sell your words behind your back.”

“Yes,” Rae nodded. “Exactly. I told him that I wanted a divorce, and he said, ‘Good, I’m fucking Billie anyway.’”

She said the words matter-of-factly, but holy shit, that had to hurt. Badly. Even now. Zach got up, his ideas about distance and control abandoned, to sit beside her. She leaned into him without hesitation, and he told his heart to calm the fuck down as he held her close.

There was a gentle silence before he said, “I really don’t know why you won’t let me murder him.”

Rae laughed, the sound dancing through his blood. “Because I don’t think you’d enjoy prison. And because I want you here with me more than I want him dead—or otherwise injured,” she added quickly, like she was covering all her bases.

Zach couldn’t help himself; he dropped a kiss on her forehead, quick and light. She looked up at him with something like hope in her eyes, and that sparked his hope, and suddenly the room was glowing so bright he could barely see.

“The divorce was messy,” she said, “and you know I hate messy. In the end I gave him an ultimatum: give me everything I wanted—and I wanted a lot—or I’d tell the world what he’d done. And it worked. But the thing is, I was bluffing. I didn’t want to tell anyone, then or now, because I know how these things work. Most people don’t care about plagiarism or ethics as much as they care about power. Calling him out would damage me way more than it damaged him, and the drama… the drama would have made me miserable.” She rolled her lips inwards, her mouth a grim line. “I suppose you think that makes me a coward.”

Zach frowned. “No. I think the whole story is fucking awful, but you chose the path that was best for you, and that’s its own kind of bravery.”

She exhaled hard, as if she were relieved by his answer. “Yes,” she said firmly. “That’s what I think, too. Kevin agreed to my deal, and I officially gave up all rights to the content.”

“That’s fucked. That’s just… so fucked.” The unfairness of it was eating him alive, so he couldn’t imagine what it did to her.

But she shook her head, smiling slightly. “You know what? I don’t mind. Everlee is his most popular book ever, and it came from me. Every award he accepts is mine. Every accolade. Every sale. All that magic came from my head, and I can recreate it any time I want. Watching my book succeed under his name is what gave me the confidence to start writing again.”

Then her smile gained a vicious edge that made Zach want to grin. “But even if my career never touches Kevin’s, the fact is, I’m the better writer. And he knows it.” She laughed, and the sound was sheer delight. “That’s the fucking thing, Zach—people are constantly telling