Chapter 25
Chapter Twenty-Five
Emilia “Em” Rivera
Three months had passed since Sebastian’s press conference changed everything.
The board meeting had lasted four hours.
Sebastian had walked in with documentation, his resignation not on the table, and the specific cold authority of a man who had decided he was done being managed by people who’d benefited from his company’s corruption.
He’d walked out still CEO, with three board members having tendered their own resignations by end of day — including Charles Preston, whose involvement in the gala sabotage was now a matter of legal record.
Laurent Enterprises was still standing. Changed, leaner, and beginning the slow work of becoming something worth the name. But standing.
I stood in the library of our townhouse — the one we’d moved into six weeks ago, after a conversation that had started as a practical discussion about security and ended with Sebastian saying I want to wake up knowing where you are and me saying that’s either very sweet or very controlling and him saying probably both, but I’m asking not assuming and me saying yes — watching late afternoon light spill across the hardwood floors.
His minimalist aesthetic still dominated most of the space: clean lines, neutral tones, everything precisely arranged. But my chaos had infiltrated every corner like a slow-moving invasion.
Research files stacked on the antique coffee table he’d inherited from his grandmother.
Coffee mugs I’d forgotten on windowsills, leaving rings he pretended not to notice.
A corkboard I’d hung on the wall above the built-in shelves, covered in notes and photographs and half-formed story ideas connected by colored string.
Sebastian had stared at that corkboard for a full minute the first time he saw it.
“It looks like a crime scene investigation,” he’d said finally.
“That’s because it is. Sort of.” I’d kissed his jaw, feeling the scratch of his beard against my lips. “You married a journalist. This is what you get.”
We weren’t married. Not yet. But the word had slipped out, and neither of us had corrected it, and it had been sitting between us in the warm comfortable way of things that were inevitable and neither of us was in a hurry to rush.
Now I heard his footsteps on the stairs — the familiar rhythm of him moving through the space we’d carved out together, unhurried and certain.
He appeared in the doorway wearing dark slacks and a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, his signet ring catching the afternoon light as he paused to take me in.
This was something he still did — paused in doorways to look at me, like he was making sure I was real, like some part of him was still surprised to find me here.
I’d stopped pretending I didn’t love it.
“You’re staring at my corkboard again,” I said without turning around.
“I’m staring at you.” His voice was low, warm in the specific way that had taken me months to stop being caught off guard by. “You’re standing in my library looking like you belong here.”
“Our library.” I finally turned, finding him closer than I’d expected. “And I do belong here. You said so yourself. Repeatedly. Usually while we’re naked.”
The corner of his mouth twitched. “I stand by those statements.”
He crossed the remaining distance between us, his hand finding my hip with the easy familiarity of something built rather than assumed.
I leaned into his warmth, breathing in cedar and leather and the particular scent that was just him — the one I’d cataloged in a service corridor at a charity gala and never been able to forget.
“The press conference is in two hours,” I said against his shoulder.
“I’m aware.”
“Are you nervous?”
His chest moved with a quiet laugh. “Terrified. But that’s never stopped me before.”
I pulled back enough to look at him properly.
The storm-gray eyes that had once seemed cold now held something softer when they found mine.
He still wore control like a second skin — probably always would — but he’d learned to take it off when we were alone.
To let me see the man underneath without managing what I did with what I found.
“You don’t have to do this,” I reminded him. “The NDA termination could be handled through lawyers. A joint statement. Something less public.”
“No.” His thumb traced circles on my hip through the fabric of my dress. “We agreed. No more half-measures. No more managing narratives behind closed doors.” Something flickered across his expression. “Besides, the press will be there anyway. Might as well give them something worth reporting.”
I reached up to straighten his collar, though it didn’t need straightening. An excuse to touch him that we both understood wasn’t an excuse at all anymore.
“Sebastian Laurent, billionaire CEO, publicly terminates his own NDA with investigative journalist. No exclusivity clauses. No penalties. No strings.”
“It sounds ridiculous when you say it like that.”
“It is ridiculous. That’s what makes it newsworthy.”
He caught my hand before I could pull it away, pressing a kiss to my knuckles with the unhurried deliberateness that was so specifically his. “The ridiculous part is that I ever thought I could put our relationship in a contract.”
“To be fair, you were trying to protect yourself.”
“I was trying to control something that couldn’t be controlled.” His grip tightened slightly on my hand. “I’m still learning the difference.”
This was what we’d built over the past three months.
Not a fairy tale — we still argued, still pushed against each other’s edges with the specific friction of two people who were both accustomed to being right and neither of whom was temperamentally suited to backing down gracefully.
But we’d learned to do it as partners instead of opponents.
To fight toward something rather than against each other.
His investment in my production company had come only after I asked for it.
Only after I’d presented a business plan and projections and made it clear that I wasn’t interested in being funded as a favor or a gesture or a way of keeping me close.
He’d agreed to my terms without negotiating them, treating me like any other professional venture rather than a girlfriend he needed to take care of.
The novelty of that — of being taken seriously by someone who had every resource to make it easier to simply take over — still occasionally made me stop and sit with it.
And I’d kept my studio space in Logan Square.
The small office with the mismatched chairs and equipment stacked in every corner and the organized chaos that helped me think.
He’d visited exactly once, looked around with an expression somewhere between confusion and admiration, and never once suggested I move it somewhere more convenient to his world.
Independence within partnership. That had been the deal we’d struck, the language we’d built, the thing we returned to every time one of us forgot and had to be reminded.
“Want help or want me to listen?” he asked now, pulling me back to the present.
I blinked at him. “What?”
“You’ve got that look. The one where you’re working through something in your head.” He tilted his head slightly. “So. Want help, or want me to listen?”
A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. Six months ago, Sebastian Laurent would have simply started solving whatever problem he perceived. Would have offered money or connections or his particular brand of ruthless efficiency without asking what I actually needed.
“Listening,” I said. “For now.”
He nodded and guided me to the leather sofa by the window, pulling me down beside him. His arm settled around my shoulders, and I tucked my feet beneath me and let myself sink into the solid warmth of him — the specific warmth of someone who had earned the right to hold you and knows it.
“I keep thinking about the first time we met,” I admitted. “At that charity gala. You were so—”
“Insufferable?”
“I was going to say intimidating. But yes, also insufferable.” I traced the edge of his collar. “You looked at me like you were solving a puzzle. Like if you stared hard enough, you’d figure out all my secrets.”
“I was.” His voice dropped. “I’m still trying.”
“I know.” I met his eyes. “That’s what I keep thinking about. How you saw me that night. Not as a journalist or a threat or a complication. Just me. Before you even knew my name.”
His hand came up to cup my face, thumb brushing across my cheekbone. “You were the first person in years who didn’t look at me and see dollar signs or board positions or the particular uses of a man with my resources. You looked at me like I might be worth knowing beyond what I could offer.”
“To be fair, I also wanted to destroy your entire empire.”
“There’s that too.” His smile was soft, private — the smile I’d cataloged over months and still hadn’t gotten used to. “You’re still the most dangerous woman I’ve ever met.”
I turned my head to press a kiss to his palm. “Flatterer.”
“Honest.”
We sat in comfortable silence for a long moment, watching dust motes drift through the afternoon light.
Outside, Chicago hummed with its usual energy — traffic and voices and the distant wail of sirens.
But here, in this space we’d made together out of two very different lives and more conflict than most relationships survived, everything felt still.
“I’m going to mess up,” I said finally. “You know that, right? I’m going to push too hard or forget to communicate or bury myself in a story for three days straight without coming up for air.”
“I know.”
“And you’re going to try to fix things without asking. Or make decisions you think are protecting me. Or forget that I don’t need a handler, I need a partner.”
“Probably.” His arm tightened around me. “I’m still learning how to be the second one.”
“You’re getting better.”
“High praise.”
I shifted to look at him properly, holding his gaze. “You’ll stay?”