TERMS OF THE HEART
Grace pressed, genuine urgency entering her voice.
"He said the investigation started as calculated deception," Eleanor said slowly, "but somewhere across these past few months, it genuinely stopped being purely professional. He said he's fallen in love with me, genuinely, despite everything dishonest about how our relationship actually began. And he says he's decided not to publish the piece at all, regardless of what that decision costs his own career, because he can't bring himself to weaponize my family's private pain for professional advancement anymore."