Chapter forty
Tessa
The elevator doors open onto the ERS lobby. I've got my bag on my shoulder, coffee in hand, and my sensible shoes clicking on the marble floor. The secretary at the front desk looks up and smiles, and I smile back, and nothing about that exchange is different from any other morning.
Except that I am aware, just slightly, just enough, of the space my body is taking up as I move through the room. Not in a bad way. More like I've finally settled into my own outline.
I set my bag down at my desk and the familiar weight of it hitting the floor feels like an exhale. I open the first file in my queue and the names inside are strangers, which is exactly how it should be. But something has shifted. Not in the files, not in the system, not in the office humming around me. In me.
I no longer feel like someone standing just outside the window of something, watching love happen to other people through the glass.
Marissa appears at the edge of my desk. "Emergency meeting. Royal level."
I grab my tablet before she finishes the sentence.
Conference Room A is already half full when we arrive. Evelyn stands at the head of the table with one hand resting on a closed folder, which means she's already decided something and the meeting is mostly a formality. Noah is seated across from her, a stack of documents squared neatly in front of him, pen uncapped.
George is there.
He looks up when I walk in, and then we both look away, and that's enough. That's everything. We're fine.
I take my seat as Marissa drops into hers like someone who has already run three scenarios in her head on the walk over and found them all workable.
Evelyn opens the folder. "We have a new client. International. High-profile." She pauses the way people do when they want the next word to land. "A prince."
It lands. Everyone in the room straightens almost imperceptibly, the way you do when you suddenly remember that your job is occasionally extraordinary.
"Public pressure to formalize a match," Evelyn continues, "which means discretion isn't optional. It's the entire architecture of how we work this case."
Noah taps the top document with two fingers. "There are social and legal constraints we'll need to map before we shortlist anyone." Marissa is already sketching on her notepad, her pen moving in quick decisive strokes.
"The optics on this have to be airtight," she says.
Something small moves through my chest at that. Quiet and warm, like a lamp clicking on in an empty room. Because I know exactly what this kind of client needs, and it isn't airtight optics.
"He doesn't need someone perfect on paper," I say, looking at the table. "He needs someone who won't disappear the moment the pressure hits."
The room goes briefly quiet.
"The data supports that," George says, and I don't look at him but I feel the steadiness of his voice settle somewhere in my sternum. "Stability under scrutiny is a stronger predictor than baseline compatibility."
Evelyn watches the two of us with an expression that gives nothing away.
"Before we move on," she says, "there's one internal matter we should address." She doesn't elaborate, which means she doesn't need to.
Marissa doesn't miss a beat. "You mean we are finally admitting that George and Tessa are dating?" she gestures between George and me with her pen. "This doesn't stay private. Two senior people at a matchmaking firm getting together? That's not a leak. That's a headline waiting to happen."
There's no teasing in her voice, just the clean, almost affectionate logic of someone who genuinely cannot help thinking two steps ahead.
I don't look at George.
"I say we don't hide it," Marissa continues, sitting forward. "We position it." She lets that hang for exactly one beat. "Proof of concept."
Noah uncaps his pen again. "We'll also want to ensure that 'careful' includes appropriate disclosures. Ethically speaking."
"Only with your consent," Evelyn says, and looks directly at George, and then directly at me.
I glance at George. He's waiting to see what I'll do.
