Chapter 2
Chapter Two
Adrien
Friday morning, Senator Crawford passes through security in the nondescript midtown Manhattan office tower minutes after I do.
At the elevator bank, I watch him approach.
No one in the lobby gives him a second look.
For a man in the middle of a high-profile divorce, I’d have expected greater name recognition.
Apparently, he’s less familiar to the public than a C-list celebrity.
His gaze flickers with recognition. I scan the suits in the lobby again to confirm no one’s paying attention, then extend a hand. “Good to see you,” I say, deliberately omitting his title. No reason to draw ears.
There are dozens of businesses in this office tower. Visiting Morgan Publicity doesn’t, in itself, mean anything. Still, I know how quickly rumors spread in Manhattan, and I prefer not to be the spark.
“Adrien,” he says, shaking my hand with practiced warmth, holding my eye just long enough to project sincerity.
I wonder—do they all take the same course in charm at whatever academy breeds senators?
The elevator dings. We ride in silence with three others to the sixty-first floor.
David Crawford’s problems are legend: an ugly divorce and a chief of staff recently convicted of selling secrets to the highest bidder. Conveniently, the man declared the senator had no knowledge, and the authorities agreed. Still, guilt by association stains. Public perception is rarely merciful.
The photos make sense now—desire as liability. In his world, lust isn’t pleasure. It’s ammunition.
No wonder he doesn’t want illicit photographs surfacing. What I don’t yet know is whether the blackmailers want money—or something more strategic.
I’ve already checked: seven Sanctuary security employees were on duty when the videos were filmed. All seven were hired before my acquisition. Expansion took me abroad, and somewhere in my absence, someone let entrepreneurial instincts run feral. Whoever it is has now put everything at risk.
The elevator empties floor by floor until only the two of us remain.
“You don’t travel with security?” I ask.
“Secret Service doesn’t cover senators unless there’s an active threat.”
Meaning: to disclose the threat, he’d have to admit he’s being blackmailed. He’d rather not.
A white oak door opens beside the reception desk. A sharp-eyed woman with glasses glances up as Alicia Morgan crosses the lobby to meet us.
“You’re right on time,” Alicia says. “The others are already in the conference room.”
Today she’s taupe from head to toe, her dark hair in an elegant chignon, gold catching light at her throat and wrists. Polished, poised—a walking seminar in optics.
“David, before we go in,” she says, crisp and measured, “you are the client. If you don’t want to answer something, look to me. If you need a sidebar, take it. The KOAN team works for us.”
“As a reminder,” I say, “they also work for me. I’m paying the bills.” David frowns, questions flickering across his face. “This can do as much damage to my business as yours.”
“I’m not sure I agree with you there,” he replies, southern charm fraying around the edges.
“If you want these investigators inside my club, this is the arrangement. My covering the bills also spares you the headache of explaining line items in your finances.”
“No one tracks my personal finances,” he bites out.
“Even so,” I say evenly, “you’re my client. Your privacy has been breached. When we meet this team, I intend to take charge.”
Alicia’s scowl is quick and sharp.
“Of the investigation into the club,” I add. “PR, narrative, countermeasures—that’s your arena. But how the breach happened? That’s mine.”
David inclines his head, satisfied. I look to Alicia. “I’ve never heard of KOAN. If I don’t believe they’re capable, I’ll bring in someone who is.”
“They put my former chief of staff behind bars,” David says. “They’re capable.”
Interesting. The senator approves of the people who gutted his staff.
“You didn’t bring anyone from your team?” Alicia asks, leading us down a carpeted hall.
“No. I don’t know who I can trust.” Margot knows something occurred, because Alicia called her, but she doesn’t know specifics.
Tommy knows I’m dealing with a leak, because he’s Tommy.
Again, he doesn’t know specifics. Beyond that, silence.
A senator’s career is at stake, but so is the future of what I’ve built.
We stop at a pair of white-stained wooden doors. Alicia pauses, hand on the handle. “Are we good?”
Crawford and I nod. She pulls the door open.
David enters first, then Alicia. I follow—and the room rises for the senator. Greetings, handshakes, the shuffle of chairs.
A man in a dark suit with sharp eyes and a trimmed beard introduces himself as Hudson Stone, KOAN’s managing director. Beside him stands a tall man with a shaved head. But it’s the woman next to them who erases the air from the room.
Blonde hair, sleek and straight, parted and tucked behind one ear. Eyes the blue of the Mediterranean—
The scent hits me first. Jasmine. Not perfume—something lighter, more intimate.
Shampoo, maybe, or body oil. The same fragrance that clung to the yacht’s sheets; the same fragrance that I searched for in every hotel lobby and high-end boutique for months after.
In Monaco casinos. Paris perfumeries. London art galleries. Always chasing a ghost.
Sophie.
Every concern about The Sanctuary vanishes under the weight of memory: Monaco, moonlight, the weekend I thought I stumbled on something authentic in a life built on carefully constructed facades.
The intimacy Crawford hides in shame, I remember as something else entirely—desire that felt unmanufactured, uncorrupted. The difference between appetite and connection.
Three years searching. Six months of investigators scouring Europe for an art consultant who didn’t exist. The search turned up nothing. No passport. No employment history. No digital footprint. Vapor.
And yet here she is. In a conference room in Manhattan. Alive. Real.
Her eyes widen—yes, she recognizes me. And I’m unexpected.
She steps forward with professional composure, extending her hand. “Brie Anderson, KOAN Security.”
The voice—controlled, cultured, achingly familiar—strikes like a blow. I take her hand, electricity sparking through contact.
For an instant, we’re back on that yacht, her laugh carrying over the water, my certainty that I’d found something true in a life built on illusion. Her fingers tighten just slightly before she pulls away, mask intact. But I saw it—the widening of her eyes, the careful step back. She remembers.
“Mr. d’Avricourt,” she says, and the sound of my formal name in her voice nearly undoes me.
Heat crawls up my neck. Unprofessional. Unwelcome.
I force my breathing to steady, force my hands to remain still when what they want is to reach for her—to confirm she’s real, solid, here. The desire that surges through me feels intrusive, almost violent in its intensity.
I’ve spent three years learning to separate want from need, performance from authenticity. Built an international firm on understanding the mechanics of desire. And in three seconds, she’s reduced me to raw appetite.
I clear my throat. “Ms. Anderson.”
But she’s not Brie Anderson. She’s Sophie Dubois—the woman who disappeared without a trace, leaving me to wonder whether that perfect weekend had been real at all, or only another illusion—beautiful, fleeting, and gone.