Something moved across his face — surprise, maybe, or something quieter. “I know. That’s precisely why I wanted you here.”
The next hour passed in a blur of introductions and conversations that felt like chess matches wearing the costume of small talk. Developers who smiled too wide. Investors who smiled too little. Politicians who smiled at everyone while saying nothing of substance.
I stayed exactly who I was. I didn’t soften my questions or dim my directness. When a real estate mogul explained why environmental regulations were “economically impractical,” I asked how many asthma hospitalizations he considered an acceptable trade-off. When a councilwoman praised the Lakefront project’s “community engagement,” I mentioned the three neighborhood meetings cancelled without explanation.
The whispers started around the second hour.
I caught them in fragments — who does she think she is and sleeping her way to sources and, my personal favorite, clearly doesn’t understand how things work here. Each one landed like a small paper cut. I kept my spine straight and my expression neutral, but something underneath my professional armor twisted in a way I recognized from before. From the story that had been taken from me. From the whispers that had followed that, louder and more pointed and equally untrue.
I’d survived it then. I’d survive it now.
I was reaching for another champagne — stress drinking, Jenna would say, and Jenna would be right — when Sebastian appeared beside me. His jaw was tight in a way I hadn’t seen before.
“Walk with me.”
Not a question. I followed him through French doors onto a terrace overlooking the Chicago skyline, and the night air hit my bare shoulders like exactly the kind of cold clarity I needed.
“You heard them,” I said flatly.
“I heard them.” He turned to face me, and in the dim light from the ballroom, his expression was harder than I’d ever seen it. “I also dealt with the source.”
“What does that mean?”
“Marcus Thornton — the man currently circulating rumors about your methods — will find his invitation list significantly shorter by morning.” Sebastian’s voice was quiet and completely without heat, which somehow made it more dangerous than anger would have been. “His wife chairs three charity boards. She won’t appreciate learning that her husband has been spreading lies about a journalist investigating a project he happens to be invested in.”
I stared at him. “You threatened him.”
“I informed him of consequences.” He stepped closer. “There’s a difference.”
“Is there?” My voice came out sharper than I intended. “Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re fighting my battles without asking if I wanted them fought.”
“Those whispers could destroy your credibility before you publish a single word.”
“And you think I don’t know that?” I laughed, and it wasn’t a pleasant sound. “This isn’t my first time being targeted, Sebastian. I’ve survived worse than ballroom gossip.”
“You shouldn’t have to survive it at all.”
The words landed differently than I expected — raw and unperformed in a way that stopped my next argument before it formed.
His hand came up slowly, stopping just short of my face. Not touching. Just there, hovering near my cheek, giving me the same space he’d given me in his office — every opportunity to step back, no pressure to do anything except decide.
“I watched my mother survive things she shouldn’t have had to survive,” he said, so quietly I had to hold very still to catch it. “Late nights in a cramped kitchen, men twice her size trying to make her feel small, and she never stopped standing up straight. I was too young to do anything about it then.” His hand dropped. “I’m not anymore.”
The silence that followed was the specific kind that happens when someone has shown you something they don’t usually show people.
I didn’t know what to do with it. I wasn’t sure I was supposed to do anything with it. Sebastian Laurent, peeling back one careful layer in the dark, looking out at the Chicago skyline like the city owed him something — it was the most human I’d seen him, and it landed somewhere in my chest with a weight I wasn’t ready to examine.
“Sebastian—”
“Stay vigilant tonight.” He stepped back, and the moment sealed itself over like water closing above a stone. “Not everyone here is as benign as they appear.”
I turned to follow his gaze.
A figure stood at the edge of the terrace, half-shadowed — tall, mid-fifties, a suit that fit too perfectly, like clothing chosen to disappear into a certain kind of crowd. He was speaking with a woman from Victoria Ashford’s circle, their heads bent close, something passing between their palms.
My stomach dropped.
“Who is that?” I asked.
