Chapter 1

Erin's POV

My apartment was a freaking disaster zone but it was exactly how I liked it. My deadline was close, and the plot of chapter fifty-two was making me want to bash my damn head against my keyboard.

 I had a half-empty mug of cold coffee sitting next to a pile of snack wrappers, and my laptop was open on the coffee table with chapter fifty-two glaring at me. I’ve been stuck at this chapter for the past two hours and I didn’t have a damn clue  where to go from there.I stood up intending to grab another refill of coffee, I took two steps, and stepped on a stray water bottle that had somehow fallen onto the rug.

My feet pulled out from under me and I went down hard, and the cup of cold coffee flew out of my hand and splashed directly across the keyboard. "Shit!" I screamed, scrambling up from the floor and diving for the laptop.

I grabbed it, but slipped on a fuckign rogue soda can. Suddenly time seemed to move slow, I pitched forward through a dizzying wave of gray static and landed hard on my ass on a freezing concrete sidewalk.

Suddenly a shadow fell over me. A large, expensive-looking hand stretched out toward my face. I looked up and was greeted with impeccably tailored trousers, a dark suit jacket, sharp jaw, and blue eyes staring down at me with a familiar, overbearing intensity.

Oh fuck. Fuck no.

I was terrified and I had every reason to be. I scrambled backward across the pavement like a startled crab, I jumped to my feet, and bolted around the nearest corner as fast as my feet could carry me. I sprinted down two blocks, dodged a group of tourists, and didn't stop until I rounded another alleyway.

My chest heaving and I had to take large gulps of air. I bent over with my hands on my knees, sucking in air. When my breathing finally leveled out, I caught my reflection in the window of a boutique store.

Long curly red hair, brown eyes and a pencil skirt I definitely didn't own twenty minutes ago.

"This can't be happening," I whispered, staring at my new reflection in horror.

 "I did not just enter my own fucking book."

I started pacing the small alleyway, I  knew this plot inside and out and  I wrote every single unhinged word of it. That's when panic hit me hard. I remembered Erin Rayne's address, the little third-floor walkup in the city, that I had written for her. I took off running again, dodging pedestrians until I reached the building, Shit I didn’t have the keys. Mrs. Stella. The old woman next to Erin. I pressed the buzzer for number seven. I pressed it again.

“Yes” The Woman’’s voice came over the speaker.

“Mrs. Stella, it’s Erin, I forgot my keys and I'm running late. Can you please buzz me in?” 

“Oh, of course sweetie,” the older woman said. I heard the buzzer and pushed the door open and rushed to the stairs. I took the stairs two at a time, when I reached the third floor I was out of breath.

I scrambled over to the plant pot in the hallway. “ I began frantically searching for it. I remember writing it, Erin was out one night drunk and lost her keys so i made her put a backup. 

After searching for a few minutes I found the key. I fumbled with the lock, the door opened and I rushed in slamming the door shut. I  locked the deadbolt, and started pacing the living room, grabbing fistfuls of my red curls.

"This isn't happening, it can't be fucking happening, this shit doesn't happen in real life," I said more to the room than to myself, spinning around the couch like a caged animal.

"People don't just fall into their own fucking drafts. Was I having a stroke? Was this a vivid psychotic break from too much caffeine?"

I spotted a laptop sitting on the kitchen counter and I practically threw myself across the room, I flipped it open, and stared at the screen. The manuscript was already open.

My hands started shaking as I scrolled back to chapter one, highlighting a block of text to change the sidewalk meeting. I hit backspace, typed she walked past him and ignored him on her way to work, and hit save.

Suddenly, a bold red error box popped up in the center of the screen:

Unable to change. Please wait for the plot to continue.

I stared at the text box, my jaw dropping.

"Are you fuckign kidding me right now?!" I yelled, slamming my hand down on the counter. My frustration boiled over into hot rage as reality settled over me. I couldn't edit my way out of this. I was locked into the narrative engine, I was trapped in my own messy creation, and I was going to have to deal with the red-flag psycho I wrote with my own two hands.

I sank onto the floor, at a loss. What the hell was I going to do with Cyrus Crest, he was the biggest walking red flag I had ever written in my lifetime.  I took a deep breath and stood up. I made my way over to the wine rack and uncorked a bottle and poured myself a glass. 

Thirty year old Indie Author Erin Rayne. I’ve been writing for the past four years, I have created male leads that were sometimes loved, hated and basically the biggest red flag of all. I’ts fucking fiction and readers loved them, but Cyrus Crest was the biggest one of all and now I was stuck with him.

Suddenly there was a knock  on the door and it echoed through the tiny hallway, three slow, loud thuds.

I froze with the glass halfway to my mouth as wine sloshed over the rim. I set the glass down quietly on the counter and  tiptoed over to the front door without making a sound. I pressed my eye up against the peephole.

Broad shoulders. Dark suit. Those intense blue eyes staring right at the door like he knew I was standing right there and of course, he had the travel folders I dropped on the sidewalk right in his hands.

Fucking Cyrus.

My stomach dropped. He wasn't even supposed to be at her apartment until chapter three, was it because I bolted on the sidewalk, the story was already speeding shit up to force us together.

Yeah, Fuck no. hell no this was not happening.

I didn't even bother opening the door. I turned around and quietly walked into the bedroom. I walked into the closet and found a pair of jeans and sneakers. I swapped the pencil skirt for jeans and the flats for sneakers. I popped the window open and  stepped out onto the iron fire escape and hit the ladder, taking the stairs as fast as I could.

I practically sprinted down the alley and didn't stop until I slammed through the front doors of Aura Travel. I ducked behind a cubicle to catch my breath, my hair was a  mess and my feet were hurting from those damn heels, but I made it. Safe inside a noisy office with normal people and lighting.

If this book wanted me to be Erin Rayne so bad, fine. I’d sit at her desk, answer emails, and hide out at work where he couldn't get to me.