“No,” Lindsey says. “I'm the one that’s sorry. I found that stupid caterer and a few celebrities had used her so I thought that she was reliable, but just because you have been written up in Cosmo doesn't mean shit. Sorry about my language.”

Lindsey is the kind of girl who curses like a sailor but then apologizes like a church lady, as if there is anyone in the room who hasn’t heard that word before.

“Lindsey, don't worry about it,” I say as calmly as possible. “You’re six months pregnant. You really shouldn't be getting all worked up about this.”

“How can you be so calm?” she gasps in frustration. “Agh. I knew that I shouldn’t have called you. Mom and I will deal with it. Don’t worry.”

She hangs up before I get a chance to say another word. I stare at the phone as I wave hello to Larry, the security guard in Alex’s building, and then wait for the elevator.

After all these years, I'm pretty used to getting railroaded when it comes to parties and other family gatherings by my mom and by my sisters.

2

Emma

The inside of the elevator is all glass and looks out onto the skyscrapers of LA. The city is sprawling and big, but most of the buildings are about two or three stories. The tall, massive ones are concentrated in the downtown area.

I ride all the way to the 18th floor in this silent elevator while my thoughts return to the impossible interview. Corrin wants me to interview D. B. Carter, who is as reclusive a writer as there is one.

For one thing, no one even knows what he looks like. For another, I'm not even entirely sure if he is even a man.

Since I don't know the sex, I'll refer to him as him for now. So much for smashing the patriarchy, right?

D. B. Carter is an international best-selling author of a very popular fantasy series.

He is prolific, with over a hundred books and perhaps even more titles if you count all the novellas, short stories, and standalone novels he has written in his life.

The other thing that's particularly interesting about him is that he's independently published.

He doesn’t have a publisher so he has been self-publishing all of his work. He has a strong social media presence, but nothing personal is ever posted.

Of course, there are no pictures.

There is also no personal information of any kind. Many authors will state the city and state or country where they live. They might mention a spouse, children, or pets. None of these details exist about D. B. Carter.

I know this because I have looked.

Unfortunately, it was my idea to write about D. B. Carter in the first place. A friend of mine mentioned that he was her favorite author. When I looked him up, I saw how well he was selling on Amazon and other platforms.

I tried to find out more about him, but I couldn't. When I downloaded his book onto my Kindle, I realized what all the fuss was about.

I couldn't stop turning the pages.

I was addicted.

I stayed up half the night reading and the funny thing is that I don't even really like fantasy. There was something about the characters, the setting, and his use of language that lured me in and kept me there until I was done.

I'm a journalist and we like to think that we are objective. Of course, there is no such thing. We all come with our innate and implicit biases that guide the stories that we choose to tell and how we tell those stories.

When I was at that pitch meeting, sitting behind that Formica table with my colleagues listening to Corrin rant about taking the magazine to the next level, I didn’t have any other ideas. But I had just stayed up the whole night reading his book and couldn't wait to start the next one. What made him particularly interesting was that he was a bigger mystery than I had even envisioned.

The box of Thai food feels warm against my stomach and it calms my nerves somewhat. I can't wait to talk to Alex about this impossible assignment.

I have no idea where to start.

In this day and age, every search begins online, but outside of his books, he barely exists.

It reminds me of that old saying, if a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to hear it fall, did it actually happen?

If a person doesn't exist on the Internet, does he actually exist at all?

Alex's office is at the far end of the hallway from the elevators. He is an associate at his father's boutique investment bank.

It's not a particularly big enterprise in that it doesn't have that many employees, but it's very profitable. Mr. Wetterling is very careful about keeping costs down and staying below the number of employees that he needs to remain a small business even though the firm made almost five hundred million in profit last year.

There are only a couple of office assistants; one who works for his father and another who answers the calls that come in for all of the associates.

I wave to the younger one and ask about her daughter who has recently been diagnosed with a kidney infection. Afterward I walk down the brightly lit modern hallway and nod to every associate with their door open.

When I finally get to Alex's office, I knock and wait.

No one answers, so I knock a little louder.

When I try the handle, the door swings open and I see Alex with his pants down, his shirt untucked, and a woman bent over his desk.

“Emma!” Alex yells, looking back at me, and trips pulling up his pants.

I straighten my back as the blood coursing through my body turns to ice.

When he moves out of my field of vision, I see her.

She just sits up on the desk, crosses her legs, and buttons up her tailored, dry clean-only, silk blouse.

“What's happening here?” I ask. With my palms drenched in sweat, the Thai food slips out of my hands and drops to the floor.

3

Emma

When I look back up at them, everything moves in slow motion. Alex walks up to me and says something, but I don't hear him.

My ears buzz.

The woman my fiancé was just having sex with is his boss, Jennifer Lester.

I look past her and then stare at the giant floor-to-ceiling window behind her.

The view of the city is magnificent. Breathtaking.

Is it just this scene that is taking my breath away and tightening my chest?

I try to inhale but my throat closes up.

I turn to walk away, but Alex stops me. He puts his hand on the door and pushes it back, shutting it.

“You can't leave,” he says. “We need to talk about this.”

I flip my body around. The adrenaline starts pumping through my veins and I feel myself coming back to life.

“What do you want to talk about?” I ask.

“You weren't supposed to be here,” Alex says.

I shake my head.

“No,” he backtracks. It's only just occurred to him that that's the wrong thing to say. “That's not what I meant. I'm sorry.”

“How could you do this to me?” I ask. “Today's our engagement party.”

“I know,” he whispers, “I'm sorry.”

“Fuck you,” I say and spit on the floor.

I haven't spat like that since I played softball, but it feels visceral and good. I push past him and walk out of the office.