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CHAPTER 11: THE LAST NAME
publish date:
2026-04-07 15:58:43
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Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 14: THE WEIGHT OF IT
Daniel looked at the text for a long time.Then he put Elena's phone face-down on the table. Slow and deliberate, the way you set something down when you need your hands free for what comes next."I'm going to tell you everything," he said. "All of it. And I need you to let me finish before you decide what to do with it."She wrapped both hands around her coffee cup. "Talk."So he did.William Ashford was the oldest son and the wrong one for the job and everyone in the family knew it except Richard Ashford, who had spent thirty years confusing his eldest's ruthlessness for strength. Daniel had understood the difference by the time he was twelve. William didn't build things. William acquired them. There was a gap between those two instincts wide enough to collapse a company if you weren't watching.Three years ago, Daniel had been watching.Discrepancies in the accounts. Small ones first, the kind that looked like rounding errors to anyone not paying close attention. Then larger ones.
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 13: STILL HERE
She walked.No destination. No plan. Just movement because standing still meant thinking and thinking meant feeling and feeling right now was a project she didn't have the bandwidth for.The city did its thing around her. Indifferent. Loud in patches. A delivery truck blocking half the street while the driver argued with someone on the phone. Two kids on a stoop sharing earbuds, nodding to something she couldn't hear. A woman walking a dog so small it looked like a mistake.Normal. Ordinary. The world not knowing or caring that Elena Cross had just found out the man she was falling for was worth four point three billion dollars and had an ex-girlfriend with a magazine face.She walked for six blocks before her phone buzzed.Jasmine: He's still here. Just so you know.Then: He sat down on the floor.Then: THE FLOOR, Elena. He sat on my floor.She stared at that last message. Put the phone away. Kept walking.The thing about the rice was the thing she couldn't get past. She kept circlin
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 12: THE PHOTOS
Ashford.She knew the name. Of course she knew the name. You couldn't work in music, even at the level she worked, scraping the bottom of it with your fingernails, without knowing Ashford. Ashford Global owned three major labels. Two entertainment networks. A streaming platform she used every day because it was the cheapest one.The building where she'd auditioned for her first open mic three years ago had an Ashford subsidiary plaque in the lobby.She'd walked past it seventeen times without connecting it to the man standing in Jasmine's apartment.Jasmine was already on her phone. Elena could hear the quality of the silence changing as results loaded. The specific silence of someone finding more than they expected."Daniel Ashford." Jasmine said it slowly. Testing the weight of each syllable. "Heir to Ashford Global Industries." She looked up. Back down. "Last public appearance approximately three years ago at a charity gala." She scrolled. "Before that, regular appearances at indus
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 11: THE LAST NAME
She waited.She was good at waiting. Sixteen years of waiting for her father to come back had trained something into her muscles. A stillness. A patience that didn't feel like patience from the inside. From the inside it felt like bracing.Danny sat down on the edge of Jasmine's coffee table. Not the couch. Not a chair. The table, like he needed to be at her level instead of across from her.He put his hands on his knees."My name isn't Danny Miller."The apartment was so quiet she could hear the refrigerator running. Traffic from four floors down. Jasmine inhaling slow and deliberate, the way she breathed when she was keeping herself from saying something that needed to wait its turn."Okay," Elena said. Just that."My first name is Daniel. The rest of it..." He stopped. Tried again. "The last name I've been using isn't mine.""Why?""Because mine is recognizable." He looked at his hands. "In certain circles, my last name opens doors or closes them. I didn't want either of those thin
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 10: ZERO FOOTPRINT
The check sat on the counter between them like a third person in the room.Jasmine counted the zeros. Looked at Elena. Counted them again."Eight hundred and forty-seven dollars.""Yeah.""Not eight-fifty. Not nine hundred.""I know.""Exactly eight hundred and forty-seven.""Jasmine.""I'm just saying it out loud because it needs to be said out loud."Elena understood that. Sometimes horror needed naming before you could decide what to do with it. Her mother used to say that too. Name the thing, baby. You can't fight what you won't look at.She looked at it.Someone had been counting her money.Jasmine squared her shoulders, lifted her chin, planted her hands on her hips. She did this when something scared her but she refused to let the fear sit down and get comfortable."We're not cashing that.""We have four hours.""Elena.""I know it's wrong. I know someone is watching me. I know this is not a good situation. But I can't lose the apartment." She pressed her palms flat on the coun
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 9: EXACTLY
"Soon. Just that one word?" Jasmine held Elena's phone with two fingers, like it might bite her. "That's it. That's the whole message.""That's the whole message."Jasmine set it down on the kitchen counter. Stepped back from it. Looked at it the way you looked at something you didn't want to touch again.They were in her apartment, which was really one room pretending to be two. The kitchen was a corner. The bedroom was wherever the air mattress happened to be inflated. Jasmine's actual bed lived behind a curtain rod with a bedsheet hung over it, which was the most dignified thing either of them had agreed to pretend was a wall."So someone knows where you perform, has your number, and is counting down to something.""That's what I'm trying to figure out.""The tuition money. The reporter. Now this.""All connected. Probably."Jasmine pulled her hair into a knot on top of her head. She did that when she was thinking hard or panicking. Usually both at the same time."Who spends money
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 8: ONE WORD
She showed him the text.She didn't plan to. She walked off stage fully intending to handle this herself, the same way she handled everything. Alone and quietly and without asking for help. But Danny was standing by the hallway door when she came off stage and something about his expression made he
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 7: THE CAMERA
The camera light was blinding.Elena stepped through the back door into the alley behind The Hollow, Jasmine right beside her, and immediately threw her hand up to block the glare. A woman stood next to a cameraman, microphone in hand, professional smile locked in place."Elena Cross?""Who's askin
Love Me When I'm Nothing CHAPTER 6: THE WRONG QUESTION
She found him in the sound booth before her set.Danny was adjusting something on the board, headphones around his neck, focused in a way that made him look younger. Softer. Like someone who hadn't learned yet that the world would take everything you loved and break it just because it could.Elena
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