Chapter 20
Chapter Twenty
Sebastian “Bash” Laurent
Laurent Enterprises’ Reputational Hazard: CEO’s Romantic Entanglement with Investigating Journalist Raises Ethical Questions
I read it twice. Then a third time, my coffee growing cold beside me while Chicago’s skyline brightened through the floor-to-ceiling windows.
The leak traced back to a lobbyist connected to Marcus Thornton’s circle — the same people who’d been whispering about Emilia at galas weeks ago.
They’d taken their campaign public, weaponizing her success against both of us.
The memo they’d obtained painted her as compromised, suggested her reporting was influenced by pillow talk and preferential access.
It was bullshit. Anyone who’d spent five minutes with Emilia Rivera knew she couldn’t be bought, bribed, or persuaded into anything she didn’t want. The woman had turned down Victor Corsetti’s offer to destroy me when she’d had every reason to take it.
But bullshit, properly packaged, could still draw blood.
My phone buzzed with the first of what would become an avalanche. Daniel’s name flashed across the screen.
“I’ve seen it,” I said before he could speak.
“Sir, the board members are already calling. Charles Preston wants an emergency session moved up to this afternoon. He’s claiming this validates his concerns about your judgment.”
Charles. Of course. The man had been gunning for my chair since before Emilia’s first article dropped. Now he had ammunition wrapped in a bow.
“What’s the temperature?”
A pause. Daniel never paused unless the news was genuinely bad. “Mixed. Some members are defending you — citing the Corsetti exposure as proof the relationship hasn’t compromised company interests. Others are calling it a liability regardless of outcome.”
“And the swing votes?”
“Undecided. Waiting to see which way the wind blows.”
I ended the call and stared at the leaked memo glowing on my laptop screen.
The instinct hit me immediately and with full force — handle this alone.
Bury the lobbyist. Leverage every connection I had to kill the story’s oxygen before it spread further.
I knew exactly which calls to make, which favors to collect, which pressure points would make this disappear before noon.
Six months ago, I wouldn’t have hesitated.
I pulled up her contact and typed three words before I could talk myself out of it.
I have a problem.
The response came faster than I expected.
Tell me.
Two words. No judgment, no demands for context she was probably already piecing together from her own feeds. Just a door held open.
Leaked memo. Crain’s. They’re calling you a reputational hazard.
Three dots appeared, disappeared, appeared again.
I saw it. I’m coming to you.
Something loosened in my chest that I hadn’t realized was clenched.
The old instinct whispered that I was being weak — that reaching for her was a vulnerability waiting to be exploited.
But I’d been exploiting vulnerabilities my entire life, and the life I’d built from that principle was an empire I was in the process of deliberately dismantling.
Emilia didn’t want my protection. She wanted my partnership.
I was still learning the difference.
The boardroom filled faster than anticipated, suits and skepticism arranging themselves around the polished table while I stood at the windows, watching the city I’d helped reshape spread beneath me. Daniel had positioned himself near the door, tablet in hand, a study in controlled anxiety.
Charles Preston arrived last, making an entrance of it. Silver-haired, impeccably tailored, wearing his self-righteousness like a designer accessory. He’d been on this board since before I consolidated majority control, and he’d never forgiven me for not needing his approval.
“Sebastian.” He didn’t offer his hand. “I assume you’ve read the piece.”
“I’m familiar with it.”
“Then you understand why this meeting couldn’t wait.” He addressed the room, playing to his audience. “The allegations paint Ms. Rivera as a journalist whose access was granted through personal channels rather than professional merit.”
“The allegations,” I said, “are convenient fiction funded by people who’d rather I stopped exposing corruption in this industry.”
“That’s speculation.”
“It’s pattern recognition.” I turned from the window, letting my gaze move deliberately across the assembled board.
Some wouldn’t meet my eyes. Others watched with the clinical interest of people who had come to watch something fall.
“Marcus Thornton’s lobbyists have been running interference since the first Lakefront article dropped.
They tried whisper campaigns. They tried threatening her sources.
Now they’re trying to delegitimize her work by attacking her character. ”
“Her character isn’t the issue.” Charles leaned forward. “Your judgment is. You’ve allowed a personal relationship to compromise this company’s standing—”
“My judgment exposed Richard Hartley’s embezzlement and severed our connections to Victor Corsetti’s criminal enterprise.” I let the silence stretch. “What, precisely, would you have done differently?”
“I would have kept my personal entanglements separate from company business.”
“There were no entanglements when Ms. Rivera began her investigation. She pursued the story independently. She published independently. She continues to operate independently, regardless of our relationship.”
“The perception—”
“The perception is being manufactured by people who benefit from silence.” I moved toward the table, claiming space the way I’d learned to claim space at seventeen years old in rooms that didn’t want me there.
“This company has spent decades insulated from scrutiny because the old guard preferred it that way. Richard Hartley was stealing millions under our noses. Victor Corsetti was using our developments as laundering fronts. Those were the actual threats to our standing.”
A murmur moved through the room. I caught the eyes of board members who’d thanked me privately for cleaning house, who’d watched their own positions stabilize after the initial volatility passed.
“I’m calling a vote,” Charles announced. “On whether Sebastian Laurent’s conduct represents a censurable offense warranting formal review of his position.”
“Seconded,” said someone to his left.
“Before we vote,” Daniel interrupted, stepping forward with the timing of a man who had been waiting for exactly this moment, “Ms. Rivera has arrived. She’s requesting permission to address the room.”
Charles’s composure cracked. “Absolutely not. This is an internal matter.”
“She’s the subject of the leaked memo,” I said. “If we’re discussing her alleged impact on company integrity, she has standing to respond.”
“She has no standing. She’s not a shareholder, an employee, or—”
“She’s the journalist whose reporting exposed systemic corruption in this organization.” I held Charles’s gaze until he looked away. “Unless you’re afraid of what she might say.”
The challenge landed. I watched him calculate the optics of refusing versus the risk of letting her speak, and I watched cowardice win, dressed up as procedure.
“Fine. Five minutes.”
Daniel opened the door.
Emilia walked in.
She was wearing the blazer she’d worn the night of the gala — the one she claimed to hate but kept reaching for when it mattered.
Her hair was pulled back, severe and professional, and I could see the tension in her shoulders.
The way she held herself like armor against a room that had already decided what she was.
Our eyes met. Something passed between us that the board couldn’t read — a question and an answer, wordless and complete.
She positioned herself at the head of the table, directly opposite me. She didn’t sit.
“Ms. Rivera.” Charles made her name sound like an exhibit. “You’ve been granted five minutes.”
“I’ll need three.” Her voice was steady, carrying to every corner of the room without effort.
“The leaked memo characterizes me as compromised. As someone who traded integrity for access.” She let that sit for exactly one beat.
“The documents I obtained to expose Richard Hartley came from forensic accounting records, not pillow talk. The sources I cultivated for the Corsetti investigation were industry whistleblowers, not Sebastian Laurent. My editor can verify my methodology. The FBI agents now investigating Corsetti’s holdings can verify my evidence chain. ”
She pulled a folder from her bag — tabbed, organized, prepared with the specific precision of a woman who had anticipated every argument this room might try — and slid it down the table toward Charles.
“That’s a timeline of my reporting, cross-referenced with the documented initiation of my relationship with Mr. Laurent. The investigation began months before any personal involvement. The evidence speaks for itself.”
Charles didn’t touch the folder. “And your current relationship? How does that affect your objectivity?”
“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.”