Chapter Three #2
Glass walls soared three stories high, every surface catching and scattering light from crystal chandeliers strung between the steel beams. Inside, thousands of roses bloomed in defiance of the cold — red, white, coral, pink so pale it was almost white.
Orchids hung from iron trellises overhead, their petals ghostly in the warm mist that drifted through the pathways.
The air was humid and thick, fragrant, a full-body embrace the second you walked through the doors.
Valentine's week had transformed the space into an extravagance that bordered on obscene.
Candles floated in stone basins between the rose beds.
String quartets played from alcoves hidden behind cascading ferns.
Cupid City's elite drifted through the mist in gowns and tuxedos, champagne catching the light like liquid crystal.
Dominic and I walked in together. His hand settled at the small of my back — warm through the silk, his fingers spread wide enough that I felt each one. My arm looped through his. To anyone watching, we were just another couple attending the Winter Rose Gala.
I was very aware that we were not a couple.
I was also very aware of the warmth through the silk.
"Senator Tully is near the orchid display," I murmured, scanning the room over the rim of a champagne flute I'd snagged from a passing server.
"Wife's in blue, standing with the head of the children's hospital board.
Mistress is the blonde in the gold dress, pretending to admire the dendrobiums about fifteen feet to his left. "
"I see them."
"I need shots of him with both. Separately first, then together if I can engineer it."
"Engineer it?"
"Tully's a handshaker. He'll work the room toward gold dress eventually — he can't help himself. I just need to be in the right spot when he does."
"And where's the right spot?"
I smiled up at him — playing the adoring date while my eyes mapped every sightline in the conservatory.
"Behind the largest rose display in the west gallery.
The lighting's low, the arrangement is big enough to crouch behind, and there's a service corridor six steps to the right if we need to disappear. "
"You've done this before."
"I've done everything before." I squeezed his arm. "Come on. Let's make the rounds first. Alexandra Winters doesn't skulk. She mingles."
We worked the room. I played my part — charming, forgettable, asking just enough questions to seem interested without being memorable.
Dominic stayed close, one hand always somewhere on me — my back, my arm, the curve of my waist when we turned.
Attentive date to anyone watching. Bodyguard counting exits to me.
The problem was that my body didn't know the difference.
Every time his fingers shifted on my waist, heat bloomed under the silk. Every time he leaned down to murmur in my ear — an observation about a guest, a sight line, a dry comment that almost made me laugh out loud — his breath hit my neck and I lost my train of thought.
Two days. Two days of this man in my space, catching me in dark closets, his body pressed against mine while I pretended it was strategy. Two nights of lying in bed knowing he was fifteen feet away, listening to him breathe, wondering what would happen if I stopped pretending I didn't want —
Focus. I had a job.
I spotted Deb Hoyle before she spotted me.
She was near the champagne fountain, swaying on heels that didn't fit right.
Mascara already smudged. Her dress — designer, probably from a time when she could still afford designers — was wrinkled, like she'd been sitting in it for hours before coming.
Hair unwashed, pulled into a bun that was falling apart.
Six months ago, Deb Hoyle had hosted the most exclusive poker nights in Cupid City. Money, power, secrets traded across green felt in her penthouse. I'd gotten in with a fake invite, documented the whole operation, and Cupid Confidential had broken the story.
She'd lost everything. Husband filed for divorce. Friends scattered. Accounts frozen. Now she was at a charity gala, drinking free champagne because she couldn't afford to buy her own.
I did that.
The guilt hit hard — harder than it should have, because I'd told myself a hundred times that I reported facts. That she'd run an illegal gambling ring and I'd done my job. That she'd made her choices.
But watching her sway at the champagne fountain, mascara running, nobody talking to her — it didn't feel like justice. It felt like wreckage.
She saw me.
Her eyes went wide. Then furious. She shoved through the crowd, stumbling, champagne sloshing over her wrist.
"You." Her voice carried. Conversations stopped. Heads turned. "You RUINED me!"
Dominic shifted instantly, putting himself half a step ahead, angling his body between us. But Deb wasn't dangerous. She was devastated.
"You destroyed my LIFE, you bitch!" Tears cut tracks through her smeared makeup.
Security was already approaching. Two men in black, faces blank, moving with the smooth discretion of people trained to remove problems without causing scenes.
"Deb —" I started.
She laughed over the sound of my voice — brittle, jagged, the sound of someone holding herself together with rage because if she let go she'd collapse. "You're a vulture. I hope you get exactly what's coming to you."
Security took her arms. She fought them — weakly, sobbing — still screaming as they guided her toward the exit. The crowd watched the way crowds always watch — hungry for the spectacle, relieved it wasn't them.
Then, slowly, conversations resumed. Drinks flowed. The string quartet played on.
Like nothing had happened.
"You okay?" Dominic's voice was low, just for me.
"She's a mess." I stared at the doors Deb had disappeared through. "Not a mastermind. Not a threat. Just a mess I made."
"You didn't make her run an illegal gambling ring."
"I know."
"She broke the law. You reported it."
"I know that too." I took a breath, forcing my shoulders down.
"It doesn't mean I don't feel it. Every person I expose — they're people.
They have lives that fall apart. I tell myself it's journalism, it's truth, it's important.
And then I watch someone cry at a party because I took everything from her, and I wonder if the truth was worth the cost."
He was quiet for a moment. "It doesn't make you a bad person. Feeling it."
"Doesn't make me a good one either."
"Didn't say it did." Palm at the small of my back again. Steady pressure. Grounding. "But the people who don't feel it — those are the ones you worry about."
I looked up at him. His eyes were serious, but there was something in them I hadn't seen before — not pity, not judgment. Understanding. Like he knew what it was like to do hard things and carry the weight of them after.
"Senator's moving toward the west gallery," he said quietly. "Gold dress is following. If you want your shot, now's the time."
Right. The job. I shoved down the guilt and the fear and the warm, dangerous feeling that touch on my back was creating, and I focused.
"Let's go."
Senator Harlan Tully was a walking cliché — silver-haired, square-jawed, wedding ring catching the light while his eyes tracked every woman under forty in the room.
His wife was beautiful in a polished way — blue gown, diamonds, a smile polished by decades of performance.
She stood at his elbow, hand on his arm, the picture of political partnership.
The blonde in gold was his aide. Twenty-eight, maybe. Standing just close enough to be noticed if you were looking, just far enough to be denied if you weren't. She laughed at something Tully said, touching her collarbone, and the gesture was so intimate it might as well have been a neon sign.
I slipped away from Dominic's side and moved through the crowd toward the rose displays in the west gallery.
Found the spot I'd picked — behind a massive arrangement of roses so deep red they looked black in the low light.
I crouched down, hiked my skirt up so I could move if I needed to, and lifted my camera.
"You're going to get us arrested."
I didn't jump. Barely. Dominic had materialized behind me without making a sound, crouched beside me in his tux like this was a perfectly normal thing for two adults to be doing behind a flower arrangement at a party.
"Only if you keep talking," I whispered.
"You realize we're hiding behind roses at a black-tie event."
"Journalism requires sacrifice."
"This isn't journalism. This is espionage in formalwear."
"You say that like it's a bad thing."
He went quiet — but I felt the almost-laugh. The way the air shifted between us when he swallowed it down. I was getting better at reading him. The not-quite-smile. The almost-laugh. The way he went still when I caught him off guard.
Tully moved into view. Wife on his right, nodding at something a donor was saying. The aide drifted closer — subtle — until she was at his left elbow. The senator's hand dropped to his side, and his pinky brushed the aide's wrist. Quick. Easy to miss if you weren't looking.
I was always looking.
I fired off a dozen shots. Him touching the blonde's arm.
The wife's oblivious smile. The aide leaning in just a fraction too close while his wife looked the other way.
Then the golden shot: the senator turning to say something to the aide, his mouth close to her ear, her eyes half-closed, his wife visible in the background talking to someone else entirely — unaware, trusting, betrayed.
"Got it," I breathed.
"Then let's move before someone wonders why two people are crouching in the flowers."