It was, I realized, exactly what I would have done.
I pushed open the door.
The smell hit me first: coffee and something baked and sweet, layered over aged wood and old radiator heat. A bell chimed overhead. A few customers glanced up from laptops, assessed me, lost interest.
She was in the back corner.
Emilia Rivera sat with her back to the wall, a notebook open in front of her, pen moving steadily across the page. The position covered both the entrance and the rear exit — she’d heard the bell, cataloged my entrance, and chosen not to give me the satisfaction of being watched.
I’d walked into board meetings with hostile shareholders that felt less charged than crossing that café.
I slid into the seat across from her without waiting for an invitation.
“Ms. Rivera.”
She finished her sentence before setting down the pen. “Mr. Laurent.” Her eyes came up to meet mine, and for one unguarded moment I saw it — the thing underneath the professional composure, the flash of something that wasn’t anger and wasn’t indifference and wasn’t anything I could name before she locked it away. “You’re three minutes early. I wasn’t expecting punctuality.”
“From a man like me?”
“From anyone wealthy enough to believe their time matters more than other people’s.”
There it was. The voice I’d been hearing in my head for two days — sharp and dry and entirely unbothered by who I was. I’d forgotten, somehow, how much I’d liked it.
“That’s quite an assumption,” I said.
“Is it wrong?”
I glanced around the café — the chipped mugs, the barista with three nose rings, the poster advertising a poetry slam I was fairly certain predated the current millennium. “I grew up ten blocks from here.”
That landed. I watched the slight narrowing of her eyes — the first crack in her armor — and felt something release that had been coiled tight since the moment I’d walked away from a balcony railing two nights ago.
“The profiles say you grew up in Lake Forest,” she said.
“The profiles say what my publicist told them.” I unbuttoned my jacket, settling into the rickety chair. “I moved to Lake Forest when I was twelve. My mother’s second husband had money. My first neighborhood looked a lot like this.”
She studied me. I let her. Her scrutiny felt different from the assessments I was accustomed to — less interested in what I was worth and more interested in whether what I was saying was true.
“You’re trying to humanize yourself,” she said. “Before I can make you a villain.”
“Is that what you’re planning?”
“I’m planning to report the truth.” She picked up her pen, tapping it against the notebook. “Whether that makes you a villain depends entirely on what the truth turns out to be.”
A waitress appeared — young, tired eyes, name tag reading Lucia — and I ordered coffee, black. Emilia added a refill on whatever she’d been drinking. When Lucia retreated, the silence stretched between us, and I found myself in the unfamiliar position of not knowing exactly how to begin.
“You know why I wanted this meeting,” I said.
“To find out what I have and convince me not to publish it.”
“Partly.” I leaned forward, elbows on the table, and watched her composure sharpen into attention. “I also wanted to know if you’d found anything worth publishing.”
“Because you think I’m chasing nothing?”
“Because I genuinely don’t know what happened with those inspections.” The admission cost something. I pushed through it. “I employ over three thousand people across twelve active projects. I can’t personally verify every signature on every permit. If someone in my organization bribed a city official, I want to know.”
Her pen stopped tapping. “You’re saying you had no knowledge of the alleged violations.”
“I’m saying I need more information before I can confirm or deny anything.” I held her gaze, letting her see what I rarely showed anyone — the uncertainty beneath the control. “Which is where you come in.”
