บททั้งหมดของ I Hired My Neighbor to Be My Girlfriend, Then Fell in Love: บทที่ 21 - บทที่ 30

Everly stared at the notification, her stomach twisting at the sight of the name, and for a moment she considered simply not opening it at all, letting it sit unread the way she'd once let the eviction notice sit behind a takeout menu."Open it," Nathaniel said quietly, watching her hesitate. "Whatever it is, we should know now rather than wonder about it all night."She opened the email, her eyes scanning the message twice before the meaning fully landed.*Ms. Hart — I saw the article. I think there's been a misunderstanding about the situation, and I'd like to discuss dropping the complaint. Perhaps we could come to an arrangement that benefits us both. I'm sure your boyfriend's family would prefer this resolved quietly and quickly, given everything currently in the press.*Everly read it aloud, her voice flattening with disgust by the end. "He's not even being subtle about it. He wants money to make the complaint disappear.""That's extortion," Nathaniel said, his jaw tightening, a

Everly sat with the silence for longer than she meant to, watching Nathaniel's face carefully in the dim light of the living room, watching him brace for whatever answer she was about to give."I'm not leaving," she said finally, and felt something in his shoulders drop the moment the words left her mouth, relief so visible it was almost painful to witness. "I need you to hear the rest of that sentence too, though, before you relax completely. I'm not leaving, but I'm also not going to keep absorbing all of this alone and calling it strength. If we're doing this, really doing this, I need it to actually be a partnership. Not just in the good moments, the dinners and the gala and the proposal-shaped conversations. In this too. The ugly, exhausting, scary parts.""That's fair," Nathaniel said quietly. "More than fair. I think I've been treating the hard parts like obstacles to get past quickly so we can get back to the good parts, instead of treating them like they're just as much a par

Everly stared at the email for a long moment before showing it to Nathaniel, who read it twice with an expression that shifted from curiosity to something more skeptical."Recent circumstances," he repeated. "That's an interesting choice of words for a company that let you go without so much as a severance package a year ago.""That's exactly what I thought." Everly scrolled down, but the message offered nothing further, just a request to schedule a call at her earliest convenience with someone named Patricia Alvarez, a name she didn't recognize from her time there. "I don't understand why now, out of nowhere, after months of silence and rejected applications.""I think you do understand, actually," Nathaniel said carefully. "I think you're just hoping there's a version of this that isn't about my name attached to yours."Everly's stomach sank at the possibility, though she couldn't argue with the logic of it. The timing was too precise, too coincidental to ignore, arriving just days

Everly stared at the contract Diane had slid across the table, the words swimming slightly as she tried to process the sheer scale of what was being proposed. "You're serious. An actual production company wants to make a movie out of this.""Completely serious. Their creative director reached out to me directly after reading the correction piece, said it read like something out of a screenplay already." Diane tapped the papers with unmistakable pride. "They're offering a substantial option fee just for the rights, with more if it actually goes into production. I told them I'd need to discuss it with you both before agreeing to anything."Nathaniel picked up the contract, flipping through it with the scrutiny of someone who'd learned, over the last few weeks, not to trust anything at face value without reading every clause twice. "This is a lot of legal language for something that started with me knocking on Everly's door in a panic.""Welcome to how these things work, apparently," Dia

Chapter 30: The CounterofferThe production company's response arrived a week later. To everyone's mild surprise, they'd agreed to nearly all of Everly's conditions, script consultation rights, approval over any major deviations from the actual events, and a formal consulting credit for both her and Nathaniel if the project moved forward."They must want this badly," Nathaniel said, reading through the revised contract at his kitchen table, Everly leaning over his shoulder to follow along. "This is considerably more accommodating than the first draft.""Diane's threat about pulling the option and shopping it elsewhere probably helped," Everly said, unable to fully suppress a smile at the memory of Diane relaying the negotiation with obvious relish. "Your mother's turned out to be a surprisingly effective agent.""She's been dying for a project since she retired from most of her charity board work. I think this might be exactly the kind of drama she's been missing." Nathaniel flipped