"She was trying really hard not to be in love with you," Bailey said quietly. "It wasn't working."
Grant looked at her. Bailey's expression was the same one she'd worn at the auction—kind, clear-eyed, absolutely certain of what she was seeing.
"For what it's worth," she added, "I think she still doesn't know. That you—" She gestured vaguely at his whole person. "You know."
"Yeah." His voice came out rough. "I know."
Bailey pulled her jacket tighter. "Go home, Grant. Or don't go home. Whatever you need to do." She stepped back, already turning. "Merry Christmas."
"Bailey."
She stopped.
"Thank you."
She smiled—the same clean, uncomplicated smile that had made him wish, briefly, that he could be the kind of man who wanted what was easy. "You're welcome. Now stop standing in a parking lot and go do something about it."
She walked away. Grant stood there, keys in hand, the cold settling into his bones.
He thought about the locker room. The three-letter lie.
He pulled out his phone and scrolled to his text thread with West.
Grant
I lied.
Pressed send. Turned off the phone.
Then he got in his car and pointed it toward Emmy's apartment.
The phone rang four times before Emmy answered, and she only answered because it was a number she didn't recognize and she was hoping it was a recruiter.
It was Cecelia.
"I assume you've seen the article," Cecelia said. No greeting. No preamble. The voice of a woman who had never in her life wasted a syllable on pleasantry when a weapon would do.
Emmy was sitting at the kitchen island in the cashmere lounge set she'd been living in for three weeks—the oatmeal-colored one that was technically elevated enough to answer the door in but was, functionally, pajamas. Her laptop was open to a job board she'd stopped scrolling twenty minutes ago. The string of Christmas lights she'd tacked up along the kitchen window last week had been enough to work by all afternoon, but the early dark was winning.
"I've seen it," Emmy said.
Petra's exposé on Elite Connections had gone live that morning. Emmy had spent two careful hours contributing to it—saying only what she was legally allowed to say about the culture, the pressure, the way the machine worked. No client names. No proprietary methods. Just the truth, in her own voice.
It was a good article. Petra had done right by it.
"Your quarterback," Cecelia said, and the wordyourwas a scalpel, "has quite the legal team."
Emmy's hand tightened on the phone.
"His publicist coordinated a statement. Did you know that?" Cecelia's tone was clipped. Precise. The warmth she manufactured for clients had been packed away, and what was left was the architecture. "His agent. His team's media relations office. A coordinated response from four different entities, all singing the same song. All saying the same thing."
"What thing?" Emmy's voice was barely above a whisper.
"That the arrangement was mutual. That he participated willingly. That the breach of privacy originated from firm culture, not from—" A pause. Calculated. "Not from the young woman who was pressured into an impossible position by her employer."
The room tilted. Or Emmy tilted. She pressed her free hand flat against the arm of the chair.
"He named me?" she asked.
