Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Emilia “Em” Rivera
The ballroom at the Peninsula Hotel dripped with the kind of excess that made my journalist brain start cataloguing details like a crime scene investigator.
Crystal chandeliers casting fractured light across silk gowns.
Waiters in crisp black uniforms gliding between clusters of Chicago’s elite like well-trained ghosts.
The clink of champagne flutes punctuating conversations worth more than my annual salary.
I’d agreed to come because of the alliance. That was the professional reason, the one I’d recited to Jenna three times while she watched me get ready with the expression of someone who knew exactly how many times a person needed to repeat a thing before they started to believe it.
The actual reason was standing somewhere in this room, and I had approximately thirty seconds before I found him or he found me.
I adjusted the neckline of my dress — emerald silk Jenna had insisted on, borrowed from her considerably more glamorous wardrobe — and gave up tugging at it. If Sebastian Laurent’s crowd wanted to judge me, a few extra inches of neckline weren’t going to tip the scales in either direction.
“You look like you’re calculating escape routes.”
His voice came from directly behind me, low enough that only I could hear it over the room’s elegant noise. I didn’t jump — small victories — but my pulse did the thing it always did when he appeared without warning — the thing I’d been trying to train it out of since the office.
I turned to face him. He stood closer than strictly necessary, which I was beginning to understand was simply how Sebastian Laurent occupied space — like distance was a variable he adjusted based on information I wasn’t always privy to.
“Old habit.” I raised my champagne glass between us with the casualness of someone who absolutely was not using it as a shield. “Never attend an event without knowing how to leave it.”
His mouth curved — not quite a smile, something that lived in the neighborhood of one.
“And here I thought you were searching for your next source.”
“Multitasking.” I took a deliberate sip, watching him over the rim. “You wanted me here. I’m here. Care to explain why?”
Sebastian stepped closer, and the room around us did its usual thing — a few curious glances drifting our way, conversations dipping slightly, the particular social calculus of people trying to determine what they were seeing.
Being beside him in a room like this wasn’t neutral.
It was a statement. He smelled of cedar and leather and the thing underneath that my memory had filed without my permission, and I kept my expression professionally even.
“Because the people in this room need to see that you’re not intimidated by them,” he said.
“I’m not.”
“I know.” His gaze swept over me with an attention that had nothing to do with the dress and everything to do with the way he always looked at me — like I was something he was still figuring out and had decided to keep figuring out regardless of the inconvenience.
Before I could respond, a woman in a silver sheath dress materialized at Sebastian’s elbow with the precision of someone who had been waiting for her moment.
Blonde. Polished. The kind of bone structure that suggested either excellent genetics or an excellent surgeon.
Her smile landed on me like a precision strike.
“Sebastian, darling.” She air-kissed his cheek without making actual contact. “You didn’t mention you’d be bringing a guest.”
“Victoria.” Sebastian’s voice cooled by several degrees. “I didn’t realize I needed your permission.”
Victoria’s laugh tinkled — actually tinkled, like she’d been taught to produce that specific sound. “Of course not. I’m simply curious about your new… friend.”
Her pause before friend could have filled a courtroom with implications.
“Emilia Rivera.” I extended my hand, channeling every ounce of professional composure I possessed. “Chicago Tribune.”
Victoria’s manicured fingers barely grazed mine. “The journalist.” She said it the way someone might say the inconvenience. Her gaze flicked to Sebastian. “Interesting choice for a plus-one.”
“Ms. Rivera isn’t my plus-one.” Sebastian’s hand settled at the small of my back — warm, steady, and absolutely not helping my concentration. “She’s investigating a story that impacts several people in this room. I thought they should have the chance to meet her before reading about themselves.”
Victoria’s smile turned brittle at the edges. “How… democratic of you.”
She drifted away, but I caught the glance she threw over her shoulder — calculating, cold, directed squarely at me.
“Old friend?” I asked.
“Old acquaintance.” Sebastian’s hand remained at my back as he guided me deeper into the room. “Victoria Ashford runs the most influential society column in the city. Everything she sees tonight will be in print by morning.”
“Fantastic. So I’m being displayed.”
“You’re being introduced.” His fingers spread slightly against my spine, and I noticed, and I resented that I noticed. “There’s a difference.”
“The difference being?”
“The difference being that after tonight, no one in this room can claim they didn’t know who you were or what you’re investigating.” He leaned slightly closer, his voice low against my ear. “You wanted to shake the tree, Em. I’m helping you identify which branches are rotten.”
I wanted to argue. I wanted to step away from his hand and prove I didn’t need him choreographing my evening.
But the envelope from the silver-haired man was sitting in my apartment, and whoever had sent it had known my address, my schedule, and exactly which building I’d walked into three days ago.
Sebastian had access to people who might know why. That was the professional calculation. The only one I was acknowledging tonight.
“Fine.” I stepped slightly away from his hand, needing the clearance to think. “But I’m not performing for your social circle. I’m the same person here as I am everywhere else.”
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.