She didn’t respond. But she didn’t argue either.
Outside, climbing into the waiting car as my driver pulled into traffic, I replayed the flash I’d caught in her eyes when I’d first sat down — that unguarded fraction of a second before she remembered where she was.
She was furious with me. She had every right to be.
But underneath the fury was something she hadn’t managed to hide completely, something that matched the feeling I’d been carrying since I walked away from a balcony railing and immediately, privately, wished I hadn’t.
Tomorrow we’d have lunch. She’d ask questions designed to find my edges, and I’d answer with truths I hadn’t offered anyone in years, and we’d both pretend it was still about the story.
I’d left the balcony to think. I’d thought. I’d called the meeting to regain the upper hand.
Somewhere between the service corridor and the café, I’d lost it entirely.
The worst part was I couldn’t bring myself to mind.
Chapter Four
Emilia “Em” Rivera
The lobby of Laurent Enterprises smelled like money — sterile and vaguely intimidating, which was almost certainly the point.
I sat in one of those modern leather chairs that looked more like sculpture than furniture, my notebook clutched against my chest, and gave myself the same talk I gave myself before every difficult interview. You’ve done this before. You’ve sat across from aldermen and CEOs and a state senator who’d cried actual tears trying to get you to kill a story. You know how to do this.
What I had not done before was sit across from a man whose hands I knew. Whose voice I’d heard come apart in the November air. Who had pressed his lips to my temple afterward like it meant something, and then walked away before I could ask his name.
Four days. It had been four days since the gala, and I still hadn’t figured out how to file that night into any category that made sense. The balcony existed in its own separate folder inmy brain, unlabeled, which was a problem because every time I opened any other folder it was somehow in there too.
Get your head in the game, Rivera.
My phone buzzed. Jenna.
You alive? You’ve been weird since that café thing.
I typed back:Heading into the lion’s den. Wish me luck.
Get the story. Don’t get seduced. You’ve got this.
Easy for her to say. She hadn’t sat across a café table from him and watched him look at her like he was trying to solve something he’d already decided he wanted to understand. She hadn’t felt the specific, charged current that ran beneath every exchange, the thing that had been there since a service corridor and hadn’t dissipated with knowing his name — had gotten worse, actually, with knowing his name.
I shoved my phone into my bag.
“Ms. Rivera?”
Daniel Mercer stood before me, tablet in hand, expression professionally neutral in the way of a man who had seen everything and filed it somewhere you’d never find.
“Mr. Laurent is ready for you.”
I stood, smoothing my blazer. The good one — court appearances and serious-source meetings. The one that meant I am a legitimate professional and not a woman who made a spectacularly inadvisable decision on a balcony four days ago.
“Lead the way.”
The elevator rose in silence. Floor after floor, the city falling away beneath us. When the doors opened, I stepped out into a space that felt less like an office floor and more like an argument for a certain kind of power — floor-to-ceiling windows, Lake Michigan sprawling silver and vast beyond the glass, afternoon light flooding everything.
Daniel led me down a hallway lined with abstract art and stopped before a set of heavy wooden doors.
“He’s expecting you.” He opened one door, gestured me through, and disappeared.
The office was unexpected. I’d prepared myself for cold minimalism — chrome and glass and sharp edges designed to establish dominance before a word was spoken. Instead I found warmth. Rich wood paneling. Bookshelves lined with books that looked read rather than decorative. A massive antique desk covered in papers that suggested he actually worked here rather than simply posing for magazine covers.
