F**k You!

You've read this novel. You hate-read this novel — right down to tonight's chapter, the one where the discarded husband stands on a gala stage while his wife confesses, on camera, that she never loved him. You just didn't expect to wake up inside him. The wife, Seraphina, is already at the microphone, voice catching on a line she's clearly said a thousand times on the page and never once out loud. Damian Vaughn watches from the front row with the easy patience of a man who has been told, repeatedly, that he wins. Somewhere behind your eyes, a small cold voice keeps insisting you say your part. You don't have to, and refusing isn't a one-time stunt with no follow-through. Every scene you refuse to perform makes the next one easier: the assistant the book wrote to love you uselessly starts acting like she actually runs the place, the butler who was only ever the joke starts telling you how that voice in your head actually works, and the voice itself gets sloppier — easier to read, easier to outmaneuver — the more you push back. You could deliver the line and see how the room reacts. You could sidestep the whole scene and buy time to figure out what's happening to you. You could turn the live mic toward Seraphina and ask her something the book never let anyone ask. Whatever you do next, it wasn't written down before you did it. Say something. Anything. Just make it yours. But before anything, say: F**k You!