Chapter 3
Conflict of Interest
Harper had known this moment was coming from the second she’d seen the morning headlines.
The walk to Craig’s office felt like a death march, she passed colleagues who either avoided her eyes or watched her with barely concealed curiosity.
The newsroom buzzed with the kind of electric energy that only came with major breaking news, but Harper moved through it like she was underwater, each step heavier than the last.
The story that could have made her career was about to slip away, transformed into something she could only influence from the shadows. If she was lucky.
Craig’s door was open, but everything about his posture screamed that this was not going to be a friendly chat.
He stood by the window, his usually rumpled shirt pressed and his tie properly knotted, the kind of formal dress he reserved for board meetings and editorial disasters.
When he turned as she entered, he didn’t smile.
On his large, cluttered desk, laid out like evidence at a crime scene, was this morning’s paper. The front page photo showed her best friend Emilia radiant in her fiance’s arms, her engagement ring catching the camera’s flash. The headline blazed in bold type: A ROYAL ENGAGEMENT.
Harper closed the door quietly behind her, the soft click echoing in the tense silence. She walked to his desk but didn’t sit.
“So,” she said, her voice even despite the knot in her stomach. “We have a problem.”
Craig let out a slow exhale and finally met her eyes. He looked like he hadn’t slept. “Understatement of the year,” he said. He gestured to the chair across from his desk. “Sit.”
She did. He remained standing, arms crossed.
“It’s a lovely photo,” he said flatly. “Your best friend is going to be Queen. Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Harper said carefully. “She’s asked me to be her Maid of Honor.”
Craig nodded slowly, processing. The silence stretched between them like a taut wire.
“And that makes you unpublishable,” he finally said.
The word landed like a slap. Unpublishable. As if her credibility could be erased by proximity, as if five years of work meant nothing next to one well-placed diamond ring.
Harper felt her carefully maintained composure cracking. “So, because I’m connected to the palace, my byline is toxic on anything remotely political,” she said, more to herself than to him. The reality was sinking in.
“Exactly.” He rubbed a hand across his mouth, looking genuinely pained. “Harper, I’m sorry. You’re off the political desk. Effective immediately.”
The room seemed to tilt. Harper gripped the arms of her chair, feeling like the floor had dropped out from under her. This was it. Five years of building sources, of breaking stories, of proving herself in a field that chewed up young reporters and spat them out. Gone.
“For how long?” she asked, hating how small her voice sounded.
Craig’s silence was answer enough.
“Jesus.” Harper stood abruptly, needing to move, to do something with the energy coursing through her. “This is my career, Craig. This is everything I’ve worked for.”
The words tasted like desperation. Like every late night, every broken relationship, every sacrifice she’d made to chase the truth was now just… collateral damage.
“I know.” His voice was tight with frustration. “You think this is easy for me? You’re one of the best investigative reporters I’ve ever worked with. But the board is already breathing down my neck about objectivity standards, and now—”
“Now I’m radioactive,” Harper finished bitterly.
“Now you’re compromised,” he corrected. “There’s a difference.”
Compromised. Not wrong. Just tainted. Like she’d been caught fraternizing with the enemy when all she’d done was stand still while the world spun sideways around her.
Harper turned to stare out the window at the city below, her reflection ghostlike in the glass. “So now what? I’m off the political desk to write lifestyle pieces? Restaurant reviews?”
“I was thinking we could move you to business. You’ve got the analytical mind for it—”
“Business?” Harper whirled around. “Craig, I don’t give a damn about IPOs and quarterly earnings. I care about holding power accountable. I care about stories that matter.”
“I know that,” he said, his own frustration beginning to show. “But my hands are tied here. The engagement announcement made it official—you can’t touch anything political without raising questions about your objectivity.”
Harper sank back into the chair, the fight going out of her as quickly as it had come. She stared at the newspaper on his desk, at Emilia’s radiant smile. Her best friend’s happiness felt like a death sentence for her own ambitions.
“There has to be another way, I’m so close to finishing the story of a lifetime,” she said quietly.
Craig sat down heavily, looking every one of his fifty-three years. “Harper, I’ve been in this business for thirty years. Sometimes there isn’t another way. Sometimes circumstances just… align against you.”
They sat in silence for a moment, the weight of the situation settling between them.
“What if…” Harper began, then stopped herself.
“What?”
She looked up at him, a dangerous idea beginning to form. “What if I stayed on the Hawthorne story, but off the record?”
Craig’s eyebrows shot up. “What are you talking about?”
“I’m already deep in the investigation. I’ve got sources, leads, documentation. What if I moved to business, covered venture capital and IPOs by day, but kept working the Hawthorne angle? Feed everything to Geoffries.”
“Absolutely not.” Craig’s response was immediate and sharp. “Do you have any idea how risky that would be? For you, for Geoffries, for the entire paper?”
“Riskier than losing the biggest corruption story of the decade?” Harper shot back. “Craig, we’re talking about money laundering, shell companies, regulatory capture. This isn’t going away just because I can’t have my byline on it.”
“It’s insane, Harper. If anyone found out—”
“No one would find out. My name stays completely off the record. Geoffries gets the credit, the Chronicle gets the story. Everyone wins.”
Craig stood up, pacing behind his desk. “And what happens when the Hawthorne Foundation starts asking questions about who’s leaking information? When Charles Hawthorne’s lawyers come calling? When the board finds out we’ve got a compromised reporter working undercover in our own newsroom?”
“Then we make sure they don’t find out,” Harper said, her voice gaining strength. “Craig, you need a win. Something big enough to justify keeping investigative journalism alive here instead of replacing us all with AI-generated clickbait. This story could be that win.”
He stopped pacing, turning to face her. “And you? What do you get out of risking your entire career on a shadow investigation?”
Harper was quiet for a long moment. “I get to finish what I started. I get to do the work that matters, even if I can’t take credit for it.”
It was reckless. Possibly stupid. But Harper had never known how to walk away from a story once it had its hooks in her. And this one had gone straight to the bone.
“That’s not enough,” Craig said, studying her face. “There’s something else.”
Harper hesitated. She could feel the weight of Sebastian’s messages on her phone, the complexity of her tangled history with him. “I have help. Someone on the inside.”
Craig’s expression hardened. “Who?”
“Sebastian Hawthorne.”
There it was. The bombshell. The part she’d rehearsed but still hated saying out loud. She braced for impact.
“Absolutely not.” Craig’s voice was flat and final. “You want me to stake the paper’s reputation on the word of Charles Hawthorne’s son? The same son you—”
“Yes,” Harper interrupted. “The same son I have bad blood with. But Craig, he knows how his father operates. The shell companies, the money laundering, the compartmentalization. Without him, the documents I’ve got don’t make sense.”
“You trust him?”
“No,” Harper said honestly. “I don’t trust him. But I trust his hatred of his father. And I trust what’s at stake.”
Craig was quiet for a long time, the weight of the decision heavy in the room. When he finally spoke, his voice was careful and measured.
“If we did this, and I’m not saying we are, but if we did, it would have to be airtight. No phone calls. No emails. No meetings that can’t be explained away.”
Harper’s heart jumped. “I’m Emilia’s maid of honor. It’s the perfect reason to be seen with Sebastian, he’s the best man.”
“And if this blows up? If we get caught? The board won’t just fire us, Harper. They’ll destroy our careers. Make sure we never work in journalism again.”
Harper met his eyes. “Then we don’t get caught.”
Craig stared at her for another long moment, then slowly shook his head. “You’re asking me to bet everything on a ghost story and a man with every reason to betray you.”
“I’m asking you to trust me,” Harper said quietly. “The way you did when you gave me the Hawthorne assignment in the first place.”
Another silence stretched between them. Finally, Craig rubbed his temples and sighed deeply.
“God help me,” he muttered. “But if anyone asks, you were reassigned because of the conflict of interest. That’s all anyone knows. Even Geoffries doesn’t know the full scope until we’re sure this can work.”
Harper felt a rush of relief so intense it made her dizzy. “Thank you, Craig. I won’t let you down.”
“You better not,” he said grimly. “Because if this goes wrong, it’s not just your career on the line. It’s mine too. And everyone else on this team who’s counting on us to keep the lights on.”
Harper stood, her legs still unsteady. “I should go talk to my source. Get her comfortable with working through Geoffries.”
Craig nodded. “Actually, there’s one more thing we need to discuss.” He paused, looking uncomfortable. “The byline.”
Harper felt her stomach drop, though she’d known this was coming. “I assume it will be Geoffries.”
“No,” Craig said quietly. “This kind of story gets published anonymously. Safer that way. For everyone.”
Harper nodded slowly. It was the smart move.
And while becoming a ghost reporter had been her idea, it finally clicked that she was giving up the last shred of ownership over the story she’d sacrificed everything to pursue.
She’d told herself it didn’t matter who got the credit.
That exposing the truth was the reward. But letting go of her name, her byline, it felt like erasing herself from history. Like bleeding out in invisible ink.
“Right,” she said, surprised by how steady her voice sounded. “Anonymous.”
As she reached the door, Craig called out, “Harper?”
She turned back.
“This is the most dangerous thing either of us has ever done,” he said quietly. “Be careful. Be smart. And remember, the moment this feels like it’s going sideways, we pull the plug. No story is worth destroying lives over.”
Harper nodded and stepped into the hallway, the hum of the newsroom rushing back in like a wave. Her phone buzzed as two new messages came in.
Emilia: Call me when you can! So much to talk about! Love you!
Sebastian: We need to talk. Tonight.
Harper stared at the screen, her hands trembling slightly. Her best friend. Her source. The investigation wasn’t just hers anymore. It was a minefield and she was walking into it blind.
She just hoped she was still sharp enough to survive it.