C11, PT. 1

Jasmine sat cross-legged on the window seat, head bent over a book, with a massive fleece blanket pooled around her.

“Oh my God, oh my God,” she chanted and smacked her knee as the story reached its glorious, devastating climax. She grabbed handfuls of the blanket and let out a stifled shriek as she blitzed through the final pages and stared at the last one, refusing to believe what was written there.

“No!” she wailed and slumped against the glass with the book splayed on her chest as she stared into the abyss, distraught and shaken to the core.

Johanna Ledger’s latest book was everything Sarai promised it would be and more. Ballad of Deception, the second chance, forced proximity, enemies-to-lovers’ triangle with slow burn and angst left her emotionally depleted and numb. Sarai had gushed about the book on the jet and said it was one of the best stories that Johanna had written in years. She took that with a grain of salt, but now that she read it, she one hundred percent agreed. She hadn’t been so thoroughly immersed in a book in years.

Johanna Ledger was a dark romance legend who had been publishing longer than she’d been alive. She stumbled across Johanna’s books when she was a teenager. It wasn’t an exaggeration to say Johanna changed her life. Not only had those stories introduced her to the darker aspects of the romance genre that molded her into the author she was today, Johanna’s books emboldened her to leap into the affair that permanently altered her course and planted the kinks that Roth later uncovered.

As Minnie Hess, she wrote pure fiction with nothing borrowed from her real life. Because her family knew about her pen name, she made sure not to write anything too sexual, too negative, too evil. But when she started writing as Thalia, she released all inhibitions. Johanna Ledger gave her the courage to embrace her faults and mistakes and put them down on the page. Her needs, dark desires, pain, fears… It poured out of her and connected with readers because it was authentic, vulnerable, and relatable.

It was inevitable that her work would be compared to Johanna’s. Not because their stories were similar, but because they possessed the same raw grittiness that attracted a particular type of reader. She didn’t deserve to be mentioned in the same sentence as Johanna Ledger, and was therefore always flattered when readers categorized their books on the same lists.

Johanna was prolific in her younger years, coming out with hit after hit. But when the political and social tide began to change, her work became heavily criticized and considered unacceptable. Johanna adapted by watering down her stories to make them more palatable for the masses. But, Ballad of Deception was a callback to her old work. Johanna didn’t pull her punches. No, she grabbed the reader by the throat and shoved them headlong into a disturbing nightmare that left Jasmine feeling unsettled, bereft, and desperate for more. In her humble opinion, this was the best thing Johanna had ever penned. Johanna’s unapologetic, uncompromising, and savage story had her in a fucking chokehold. What hell had Johanna been through to write such a brutal masterpiece?

She snatched up her phone to look up the reviews and wasn’t surprised by the controversy and pushback from the public. Thank God, there were readers fighting to keep Johanna’s book from being booted from retailers. She threw her hat in the ring. She was late to the fight, and didn’t have a fraction of Johanna’s audience, but even pebbles made ripples. Quickly, she made a post recommending Ballad of Deception to her readers, even though it would activate an avalanche of queries about her own book. Impulsively, she looked up Johanna Ledger’s account and clicked on the direct message button. Her fingers trembled. She’d never messaged her hero, but she was high off the book and her need to encourage her favorite author outweighed the voice in the back of her mind that told her Johanna didn’t need another message clogging up her inbox.

Just finished Ballad of Deception and I am speechless. I’ve been reading you since I was a teen and devoured everything you put out, but this… This is why I became an author. To rip someone’s heart out, have them thank me for the pain, and beg for more. The way you craft stories is truly art. You’ve probably heard this thousands of times, but you are incredible, and I’m so thankful you’re still writing. If there’s anything I can do to keep your books on retailers, please let me know.

Before she could second guess herself, she pressed send and immediately regretted it. Oh, God. She sounded like a psycho fan. Well, she was, but… Before she could freak out, Sarai’s name popped up on the screen, giving her anxiety and irritation an outlet.

“You!” she exploded as she leapt to her feet. “You lied to me!”

“I did?”

“You didn’t tell me that Ballad of Deception is the first in a series.”

Sarai cackled. “You would have read it anyway.”

“That’s not the point,” she grouched.

“I saw your post on social media, recommending the book. Do you want to dish? I’m out running errands. Roth’s stuck in meetings, so I have some downtime. Want to get a pumpkin chai latte?”

“Yes, oh my God,” she said fervently and put Sarai on speaker so she could text Mo and Johan as she hurried down the hallway to the bedroom. “Where do you want to meet?”

Before she hung up with Sarai, her sweats were already on the closet floor. Stuffing herself into jeans or something else fitted after days of comfy sweats was unbearable, so she reached for a cream-colored sweater dress with a flared skirt. It was cozy and soft and, paired with knee-high boots and her caramel-colored coat, fairly fashionable. She popped into the bathroom to brush her hair and see if she looked presentable.

She hadn’t left the penthouse in a week. There was no need to when there were multiple restaurants in the building and anything her heart desired (books) could be delivered within the hour. She had been on a reading binge, devouring one or two books a day, like she had when she was a child. She’d always had a voracious appetite for books. She needed stories like others needed food and water. If she didn’t get her literary fix once in a while, the color in her life started to fade. Her mind craved adventure, romance, and fantasy. Right now, she was high on it. The fact that there was someone she could talk to that shared her taste in books was a fucking gift.

She was standing in front of the elevator when she realized she didn’t have her purse, phone, or wallet. Muttering under her breath, she ran to the bedroom. When she raced back, she found Johan waiting for her.

“Hi!” she said so exuberantly that he jolted and gave her a wary once over.

“Hi,” he replied cautiously.

She linked her arm through his and turned him toward the elevator. “Oh, my God, I just finished the best book ever!”

She was so eager to talk about her book, she didn’t try to peek at the code he typed into the keypad. She was perfectly content to remain trapped in her prison in the sky.

Johan didn’t try to extricate his arm as he escorted her through the lobby, and she skipped at his side. When they stepped outside, she was forcefully reminded it was no longer autumn, and she should be dressed in layers, not wearing a mini dress, no matter how cute. The unforgiving winter air sliced through her coat and the loose cable knit material of her dress and sank its fangs into her bare legs. She hustled to the Bentley.

**This is a raw draft of Bitter Confessions. Please do not share or distribute.

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