Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Emilia “Em” Rivera
Iwoke up at six-thirty with Sebastian’s scent still on my skin and absolutely zero regrets.
Okay, maybe one. That I’d actually gotten out of his car last night instead of dragging him upstairs like a woman possessed.
But I’d needed space to think, and thinking was impossible when Sebastian Laurent was looking at me like I was the only thing standing between him and complete self-destruction.
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. Jenna.
Was that the car or did you actually make it upstairs this time?
I stared at the ceiling. Technically, the back seat of a town car didn’t count as upstairs. It was more like… athletic decision-making at a lower altitude.
Define “upstairs.”
Three dots appeared. Disappeared. Reappeared.
EMILIA MARIE RIVERA.
I groaned and rolled over, burying my face in my pillow.
The sheets smelled like coffee and printer ink — my natural habitat.
Somewhere across the city, Sebastian’s penthouse probably smelled like fresh linen and expensive decisions, the kind of morning routine that came with skyline views and silence I could never afford.
The thought of him waking up in those crisp white sheets, alone, while I sprawled across my mismatched bedding shouldn’t have made my chest ache.
It did anyway.
I plead the fifth, I texted back. Also, I need to borrow your red blouse. The one that makes me look like I have my life together.
The silk one?
Is there another red blouse that screams “professional journalist who definitely didn’t have sex with a billionaire in the back of his town car last night”?
Fair point. It’s in my closet. Please don’t get any scandal on it.
I dragged myself out of bed and into the shower, letting the hot water pound the tension from my shoulders. I had exactly two and a half hours before I was supposed to be in Sebastian’s office, going through my investigation files together. Together. Like partners.
The word felt dangerous even in my head — partners implied trust, implied standing on the same side, and I was still investigating the man.
Still building a case that could bring his empire down around his perfectly tailored shoulders.
Whatever the hell we were becoming existed in direct tension with everything I was professionally obligated to do, and I still hadn’t figured out how to hold both things at once without one of them breaking.
The water ran over my face, and I closed my eyes.
Last night had been something. The way he’d looked at me when I’d finally crossed the space between us — like I’d just answered a question he’d been afraid to ask.
The way his hands had found my hips like they’d been waiting.
The way he’d said my name in the dark, not Em but Emilia — the full weight of it, like something he’d been saving.
I was in so much trouble.
By eight-fifteen I was dressed, caffeinated, and pretending I had everything under control.
Jenna’s red blouse helped — silk had a way of making me feel like I could conquer small nations.
My notebook was stuffed with evidence, my recorder was charged, and my cardiovascular system was staging a full rebellion every time I thought about walking through his office doors.
Stop it, I told my pulse. We’re professionals.
My phone rang as I was locking my apartment door. Unknown number.
“Rivera.”
“Miss Rivera.” The voice was unfamiliar. Male. Cold in the specific way of someone who had prepared what they were going to say. “We hope you enjoyed the Peninsula.”
My blood turned to ice. My brain cataloged automatically — the controlled cadence, the deliberate pauses, the careful avoidance of names. Whoever this was, he wasn’t improvising. “Who is this?”
“Someone who’s been watching.” A pause that felt architectural, built for effect. “Someone who knows you’ve gotten… close to Mr. Laurent. We also know about Marco Benedetti’s confession. And the city inspector. And that charming recording device you carry in your clutch.”
My hand tightened on my keys until the metal bit into my palm. “If you have something to say, say it.”
“Stop digging. This is your only warning.”
The line went dead.
I stood in the hallway for a full thirty seconds, breath coming too fast, mind racing through the shape of what I’d just heard. Someone had been at the gala. Someone had been watching me for days, maybe weeks. Someone knew about my evidence, my sources, my movements.
My connection to Sebastian.
The last part settled in my chest with a specific, cold weight.
I made it to Laurent Enterprises by eight forty-five, my composure held together by caffeine and sheer stubbornness. Daniel Mercer met me in the lobby with his usual professional neutrality, though I caught something flickering in his expression that might have been concern.
“Miss Rivera. Mr. Laurent is expecting you.”
“I know.” I managed a tight smile. “Thanks, Daniel.”
The elevator ride felt endless. I’d stood in this elevator before, knew the view that waited at the top, knew the office and the desk and the window where he stood when he was thinking.
Everything felt different now — charged with the accumulated weight of a month that had fundamentally rearranged my understanding of what I was doing here.
Get it together, Rivera.
The doors opened.
Sebastian was standing by the window, silhouetted against the Chicago skyline, and when he turned to look at me something in his expression made my breath catch.
He looked tired — not physically, Sebastian Laurent could probably intimidate boardrooms on three hours of sleep — but somewhere beneath the surface.
Something raw that hadn’t been there before.
“You’re early,” he said.
“I got a phone call.” I stepped into his office and let the door close behind me. “Someone who wanted me to know they’ve been watching. Someone who knows about my sources, my evidence, and—” I met his eyes. “You.”
Sebastian’s jaw tightened. That tell I’d learned to recognize — the subtle flex, the hands shifting at his sides. “Tell me everything.”
I did. Every word of the call, every detail I could remember about the voice, the phrasing, the timing.
Sebastian listened without interrupting, and I watched his expression move through concern into something darker.
Protective, in a way that made the professional distance I was trying to maintain considerably harder to maintain.
When I finished, he picked up his phone.
“Daniel. I need Garrett in my office. Now. And tell security to pull footage from Miss Rivera’s building — last forty-eight hours.” He hung up without waiting for a response and turned back to me. “You’re not going anywhere without protection.”
“Excuse me?”
“Someone is threatening you directly. This isn’t a warning we can ignore.”
“And your solution is to assign me a babysitter?”
“My solution is to keep you alive.” His voice was calm, which somehow made it more authoritative than anger would have. “Garrett is the best in the city. You won’t even know he’s there.”
“Sebastian—”
“This isn’t negotiable.”
I stared at him, frustration warring with something that felt dangerously like being cared for — the specific, unwelcome warmth of it.
“I’ve been handling threats for years. I exposed a pharmaceutical company that tried to have me followed.
I took down a city councilman who sent people to intimidate my sources. I don’t need—”
“This is different.” He crossed the space between us in three strides, stopping close enough that I caught cedar and leather, close enough that my body remembered with embarrassing specificity exactly what his hands felt like.
“These people aren’t amateurs. And they’re not just coming after your story.” His voice dropped. “They’re coming after you because of me.”
The words landed with a weight he clearly hadn’t intended to say out loud.
“Because of you,” I repeated slowly.
“Because someone knows that hurting you would be the fastest way to destroy me.”
My heart did something complicated and inconvenient.
“Sebastian—”
“I know you don’t want protection. I know you value your independence more than almost anything.
” Something in his voice softened in the way it only did when he stopped performing.
“But I’m asking you to let me help. Not because I think you’re weak.
Because I can’t—” He stopped. Swallowed.
“Because I can’t focus on finding who’s behind this if I’m terrified something will happen to you. ”
The silence stretched. I could hear my own breathing, feel the heat radiating off him, see the way his hands had curled at his sides like he was physically restraining himself from touching me.
“Fine,” I said quietly. “But I want access to your files. Real access. Everything related to the Lakefront project, including internal communications.”
“Done.”
“And I want to meet whoever’s been authorizing the cover-up. Face to face.”
A muscle in his jaw moved. “That might be more complicated.”
“Why?”
Sebastian turned toward the window. For a long moment he just stood there, looking out at the city he’d spent decades building, and I waited with the patience I reserved for sources who needed a moment before they could say the thing they’d come to say.
“Because I’m starting to think it might be someone close to me,” he said finally. “Someone who’s been with Laurent Enterprises since the beginning.”
My journalist instincts sharpened. “Who?”
“My CFO. Richard Hartley.” His shoulders tensed almost imperceptibly. “He’s been with me for fifteen years. I trusted him with everything — the financials, the contracts, the internal oversight. And now I’m finding discrepancies that lead directly to his office.”
“Have you confronted him?”