“It doesn’t.” Her chin lifted. “Because my objectivity isn’t rooted in who I’m sleeping with. It’s rooted in twenty years of a career that includes a press freedom award, a Pulitzer nomination, and an editor who reviews every word before it publishes.”
“You expect us to believe?—”
“I expect you to read the documentation. But since you’ve already decided I’m guilty, let me offer you something else.” She smiled, and it wasn’t friendly. “I know who funded the leaked memo. I know which lobbying firm produced it. And I know they’re currently under investigation for improper campaign contributions.”
The room went very quiet.
“So while you’re debating whether I’m a liability,” Emilia continued, “you might want to consider whether the people attacking me are trying to distract from their own exposure. Marcus Thornton’s circle has a vested interest in discrediting my reporting. They always have.”
She let that settle. Then she gathered herself, professional mask firmly in place, and turned toward the door.
“My contact at the Tribune has a data forensics expert who can trace the document’s origin if you’d like verification. I’ll have Daniel coordinate.”
She left without looking back.
The vote happened an hour later.
Charles called for censure. Three board members seconded. But the swing votes — the ones who’d been waiting to seewhich way the wind blew — landed in my column. Emilia’s documentation had raised enough reasonable doubt to make explicit opposition politically costly.
The motion failed, eight to five.
Charles’s jaw worked as the tally was announced. “This isn’t over, Sebastian.”
“It rarely is.”
I found Emilia in my office afterward — perched on the edge of my desk with her phone in her hand and her legs crossed at the ankle. The professional armor had cracked slightly. I could see the exhaustion beneath it now, the specific cost of walking into a room that wanted her destroyed and walking out with the thing intact that mattered most.
“Your editor’s forensics contact,” I said, closing the door behind me. “How fast can they work?”
“Fast enough.” She set down her phone. “Though I suspect you already have people who can do the same thing.”
“I do. But using my resources to investigate an attack on you looks like exactly what they’re accusing me of.”
“Whereas my resources investigating an attack on me looks like journalism.” The corner of her mouth lifted. “You’re learning.”
“I had a good teacher.”
The humor faded from her face. She looked at me — really looked, the way she had that first night when neither of us had known what the other represented or what we were about to become to each other.
“You called me,” she said quietly. “When you saw the article. Before you called your lawyers, before you called Daniel, before you did anything else — you called me.”
“My first instinct was to burn down everyone responsible.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.” I crossed to the desk, standing close enough to touch her but not quite making contact. “I called you instead. Because you told me once that protection means standing with someone, not in front of them. And I’m trying to understand what that actually requires.”
“And?”
“And I think it requires trusting that you can handle a boardroom full of hostile shareholders without me staging a rescue operation.” I held her gaze. “Which you demonstrably can.”
Something shifted in her expression. Not the flash of professional satisfaction I might have expected. Something quieter and more specific.
“They’re going to keep coming,” she said. “Thornton’s people. Whoever else has a stake in the old system.”
“I know.”
“And they’re going to keep using me as ammunition against you. Every story I write, every time we’re seen together — they’ll find a way to weaponize it.”
