Chapter 5 - Saying Yes

Sophia

I'm standing in the elevator, watching the numbers climb, and trying to figure out what the hell just happened back there.

Did I just agree to have dinner with Marcus Blackwood? The man I'm supposed to be investigating? The man who might be running a criminal enterprise that's getting people killed?

The man who just looked at me like I wasn’t a ticking time bomb?

"Get it together, Chen," I mutter to my reflection in the polished steel doors. "You're a professional. You've infiltrated corporate boardrooms and political fundraisers. You can handle one dinner with a ridiculously attractive potential criminal."

But that's the problem, isn't it? The ridiculously attractive part is starting to overshadow the potential criminal part, and that's exactly how good journalists end up dead in dumpsters.

My phone buzzes. A text from Jamie: How'd it go? Did you get the goods on Mr. Tall Dark and Handsome?

I type back: Terrible match. Decent intel. Having dinner with target tomorrow.

Three dots appear immediately, then: EXCUSE ME WHAT

Soon followed by, Sophia Rebecca Chen do NOT tell me you're going on a date with the man you're investigating

Then, Also your middle name isn't Rebecca but I'm too panicked to remember what it actually is

I can't help but smile. Jamie's panic-texting is oddly comforting, like a familiar blanket in a world gone completely sideways.

It's not a date. It's reconnaissance, I text back.

Reconnaissance that involves wine and candlelight?

Reconnaissance that involves getting him to trust me enough to slip up.

Uh huh. And what happens when YOU slip up because you're busy staring at his cheekbones?

I pause, my fingers hovering over the keyboard. Because that's the real question, isn't it? What happens when the lines blur between Sophia Chen, investigative journalist, and Sophia Sterling, woman who hasn't had a real conversation with an attractive man in... God, how long has it been?

I'm a professional, I finally type.

You're a human being. With eyes. And hormones.

I don't have hormones.

Right. And I don't have a thing for shirtless cowboys.

The elevator dings, and I step out into the late afternoon sunlight streaming through the building's glass facade. Outside, the city is doing its usual chaos dance. Taxis honking, people shouting into phones, the general symphony of urban life that usually centers me.

Today, it just feels loud.

I have to do this, Jamie. If he's involved in whatever's happening to these people, I need to get close enough to find out. And if he's not...

I delete that last part. Because if he's not involved, then what? Then I'm lying to a good man who just asked me to dinner like it actually mattered to him. Then I'm the one using people, manipulating them, playing with their emotions for a story.

Then I'm exactly the kind of person I usually expose.

My phone rings. Jamie, of course.

"Don't you dare hang up on me," he says before I can even say hello.

"I wasn't going to-"

"You were thinking about it. I can hear it in your breathing." There's a pause, then his voice softens. "Soph, talk to me. What's really going on?"

I lean against the building's stone facade, watching people rush past with their important lives and their uncomplicated problems. "I think I'm in over my head."

"With the investigation?"

"With him." The words come out quieter than I intended. "He's not what I expected, Jamie. He's... God, I don't know how to explain it. When he looks at me, it's like he's seeing something I don't even know is there."

"And that's terrifying because?"

"Because I don't know if it's real or if it's just part of whatever game he's playing." I close my eyes, feeling the weight of the last few hours settling on my shoulders. "And I don't know if I want it to be real or if I'm hoping it's not."

"Jesus, Soph." Jamie's quiet for a moment. "You really like him."

"I don't know him well enough to like him. I know he's intelligent and observant and he has this way of making me feel like I'm the only person in the room." I pause. "And I know he's hiding something."

"So are you."

"That's different."

"Is it?"

I don't answer, because we both know it's not. I'm lying about who I am, what I want, why I'm here. If anything, I'm the one manipulating the situation. He's just... responding to it.

"What if I'm wrong about him?" I ask finally.

"What if you're right?"

"That's not helpful."

"It's not supposed to be helpful. It's supposed to be honest." Jamie's voice is gentle now, the way it gets when he's about to say something I don't want to hear. "Soph, you've been doing this job for three years. You've never once called me questioning whether a source might be innocent. What's different about this guy?"

I think about Marcus in the lobby, the way he stepped closer when he asked me to dinner. The way his voice went soft when I said I didn’t think dinner was a good idea. The way he looked at me like I was something precious instead of something to be solved.

"Everything," I whisper.

"Then maybe that's your answer."

After I hang up, I stand there for a long moment, watching the city move around me. People heading home from work, meeting friends for drinks, living their normal lives where the biggest deception is maybe fibbing about being late because of traffic.

I pull out my phone and scroll through my contacts until I find the name I'm looking for. Elena Vasquez. Marcus's business partner. The woman who barely looked at me during our brief introduction but whose eyes tracked my every movement like a predator sizing up potential prey.

If Marcus is involved in something criminal, she'd know about it. And if she's the one really running things... well, that could mean Marcus is an innocent bystander whose life could be in danger if I find out things I shouldn’t by using him.

I stop walking so abruptly that a man behind me nearly crashes into my back. He mutters something unflattering about tourists, but I barely hear him.

"Oh, fuck," I say out loud, earning a scandalized look from a woman pushing a stroller.

This just got infinitely more complicated.

I need to call Jamie back. I need to do more research on Elena Vasquez. I need to figure out what the hell I've gotten myself into.

But first, I need to decide what I'm going to wear to dinner with a man who might rue the day he ever met me.