His Wicked Obsession (Archer and Virginia) novel Chapter 157

On the video call, Chloe continued her quiet, concerned nagging while he offered noncommittal responses. Finally, they exchanged goodnights, and Archer was the first to hang up.

His phone screen went black, and the room plunged back into heavy silence.

Virginia tossed the blanket aside, ready to get out of bed. "I'm just going to go find another room."

If she tried hard enough, she was sure she could find a vacancy somewhere.

"It's 2:00 AM," Archer's voice was dark and low. "It's below zero outside, and every hotel in a five-mile radius is booked solid."

He stated the facts coldly, his brow slightly creased.

She opened her mouth to argue, but ultimately lowered her gaze and said nothing.

He lay back down, pulling his own blanket up over his chest.

Watching a six-foot-two man crammed onto a five-foot sofa was painful to look at.

Virginia sat on the edge of the bed staring at him, but she didn't mention leaving again. Eventually, she lay back down.

The room slipped into a temporary calm—so quiet that she could hear the steady thud of her own heartbeat.

A long time passed before her voice finally broke the silence.

"Archer."

"...Yeah."

His eyes were closed, but he wasn't asleep.

"Have you... been doing well all these years?"

She had never intended to ask him that.

But maybe being stuck in a foreign country, or perhaps witnessing that intimate family phone call, had temporarily chipped away at her armor.

No response came from the sofa.

One second, two seconds... a full minute passed.

His deafening silence made her instantly regret opening her mouth.

"Not as well as you'd think," Archer finally spoke, shifting on the tiny cushions.

They were meeting at a local café.

When Virginia arrived, Magda was already there, a thick stack of printed manuscripts and a digital voice recorder spread across the table.

"Ginny!" Magda stood up and pulled her into an enthusiastic hug. "It's been so long!"

She spoke in perfectly fluent English.

After some brief small talk, Magda got straight to the point.

"I've been working on a paper about C-PTSD. I'm hoping to submit it to the European Journal of Psychotraumatology. As you know, the impact factor is incredibly high..."

Magda adjusted her glasses and pushed the manuscript across the table.

They often discussed research papers together, so Virginia didn't think much of it and started flipping through the pages. However, her brow quickly furrowed.

The framework was chaotic, the literature review was blatantly plagiarized, the core arguments lacked any hard data support, and several paragraphs contained glaring logical fallacies.

"Your papers over the last two years have incredibly high citation rates, especially that cross-cultural comparative study on C-PTSD you published last year," Magda said, folding her hands on the table and leaning in.

"I want to ask you a favor. I need you to ghostwrite a paper for me."