My pulse kicked up, but I kept my breathing even. "What do you want with Dominion Hall?" I asked, voice cool.
She tried to play it off—shifting her weight, adjusting the towel knotted at her chest—but I knew her. I knew that look in her eyes. The one that said she'd caught the scent of a story and wasn't letting go.
"It's still early," she said carefully. "My contacts are pointing me in certain directions."
Contacts. Plural.
Of course, she had contacts. Amelia Emerson didn't show up anywhere without doing her homework first.
I felt it then—conflicted on so many levels it made my head hurt.
One: If what Amelia said was true, Dominion Hall had lied to me. Or at the very least, hadn't told me the whole truth. They'd sent a plane, rolled out the red carpet, handed me a black credit card with my name on it—and never once mentioned we shared a last name.
Two: I felt stupid. Stupid for getting on that plane. Stupid for thinking this was just a job opportunity. Stupid for not asking more questions when Charlie had been so damn vague.
Three: I wanted to help her.
That one hit hardest.
I wanted to help Amelia, even if it meant burning whatever bridge Dominion Hall thought they were building with me.
I leaned forward, elbows on my knees. "What is this really about?"
She crossed her arms, the towel slipping slightly before she adjusted it. "You tell me. You're the one interviewing with them."
"Yeah," I said. "I am. But I don't know anything about their last names. I didn't even know there were multiple people with the same last name until you just told me."
Her eyes narrowed. "You expect me to believe that?"
I stood up. Naked. Didn't care.
I crossed the small space between us and looked into her eyes. Really looked.
"You know me," I said quietly. "You'd know if I was lying."
I took her hand—small, cool, still damp from the shower—and pressed it flat against my chest, right over my heart.
It was pounding.
For a few seconds, I thought she might cave. Thought she'd forget about Dominion Hall and the Danes and the story she was chasing, and we'd go back to bed and fuck the world and its bullshit.
But she didn't.
She pulled her hand back, slow, deliberate.
"Put some clothes on," she said. "We need to talk."
I pulled on my jeans and sat on the edge of the bed, bare-chested, watching her pace.
She was compiling questions. I could see it—the way her eyes tracked the floor, the way her fingers tapped against her thigh. Her journalist mind was spinning, organizing, preparing to interrogate me like I was a source she didn't quite trust.
Fair enough.
I'd earned that.
But I'd also decided something in the last sixty seconds: fuck it. I'd answer her questions. All of them.
I didn't owe Dominion Hall a damn thing. Not loyalty. Not silence. Not protection.
