Jesus Christ, she shouldn’t be here. I watch her disappear into the crowd. I don’t need to chase after her right away—I saw her press badge, I know she’s here legitimately.
But it’s not safe.
Melinda Gray is anonymous for a reason. She’s persona non grata in a lot of corners because of her investigations. I was up half the night devouring her words, searching for some understanding of what she might be working on now.
I came up blank, except for the obvious. She has a bullseye on my client. But everything we have found has underlined Mayfair’s story. The photos are fake, and the blackmailer has now gone silent. In the five years since Melinda broke her first story—shortly after she left the Horus Group—she hasn’t had a miss.
And Mayfair has nothing to do with this luncheon, so the fact she’s here must be about another story, one I can’t guess at. And yet it’s important enough for her to show her face, albeit behind a blonde wig and a pair of glasses that stir me in the most inappropriate ways.
I’ve already had the meeting I was here for, a sit-down with the Prime Minister’s principal secretary, who went to Harvard with my brother. When Mack sets me up on blind dates with people who have the ear of world leaders, I take the meeting—but this one was more small talk than anything.
I got the distinct impression that he didn’t like me, in fact.
So I don’t need to stay for lunch. I wasn’t planning on it until I saw her. Now I make my way to a table just so I can keep my eye on the receptionist-turned-journalist who has gotten under my skin.
She isn’t eating. Instead, she’s set up a laptop at the side of the room and has buried herself in work. It looks like she’s ignoring the room, although I don’t assume that to be true for a second.
It still gives me a chance to observe her for a good while, and I like what I see. She’s wearing a suit today, black pants and a jacket. Underneath it was a shock of red silk that looked loose and touchable when she appeared in front of me earlier. Now I can’t see it, the way she’s sitting, but I can see the curve of her thigh, and that gives me flashbacks that make it uncomfortable to sit with my legs too close together.
She was always fit and curvy, but in the last five years, she’s gained a tough edge to her body that makes me want to spar with her. See what she might do if I pinned her to a mat and tried to force some answers out of her soft little mouth.
Not once during lunch do the people at my table try to make conversation with me, and that’s just fine. As soon as my untouched plate is cleared, I make my way across to the studious journalist who lied her way onto my desk once upon a time.
She glances up when I stop beside her. Her gaze takes its time reaching my face. “Yes?”
“You really shouldn’t be here.”
“You already said that.”
“You aren’t going to ask me why?”
She puts her laptop away and stands. “No. Maybe you shouldn’t be here, either, did you think of that?”
“I’m working.”
“And so am I. We can do this all afternoon.”
I try another tack, lightening my voice. “We need to stop meeting like this. Can we try again?”
She doesn’t bite. “No. You need to stop telling me where I can and can’t go, when I’m a grown-up and you’re not the boss of me.”
“I’m very aware I’m not the boss of you,” I mutter. “That’s not what I meant. If anything, I could protect you if you weren’t so stubborn.”
“That would almost certainly be a conflict of interest.” She pulls out her phone, glancing at the screen before putting it away. “I’m leaving soon, if that makes you happy. I have a car coming to pick me up at the top of the hour.”
I have watched her the whole time. She hasn’t spoken to a soul. “What were you here for?”
“I had hoped to meet up with a source, but it couldn’t happen because this guy who keeps following me got in the way.” She says it in a deliberately bored voice that is obviously meant to get my back up.
It works. “I’m not following you. You keep showing up where I am. Maybe I should ask myself if you are following me?”
“And how would I know your schedule? You’re the one with a professional hacker on staff.”
“You think I had Wilson—” I’m officially mad now. “Listen, Ellie.”
“Uh uh,” she says softly. “We talked about this. My name is Melinda.”
“Is it, though?” I match her soft tone. “Let’s stop doing this in public, Melinda. Clearly, we have some issues to work through. Let’s do it in private.”
She gives me an appraising look before her eyelashes dust her cheeks. “Dinner?”
Too public still. “My place.”
She laughs. “Okay, Captain Obvious. I’m not fucking you, so put that nonsense away.”
“That’s not what this is about. But I do want to protect you, and one day soon, you might need to trust me enough to let that happen.”
“Because you want to fuck me.”
“In spite of the fact that I want to fuck you. That’s a complication, not a perk.”
“Oh, it would be a perk.”
“God fucking damn it, do you need to argue everything I say?”
“Yes,” she says breathlessly, and that’s when I catch it. The dilated pupils, the swollen lips. The drift toward me as we verbally spar. She wants this to be physical just as much as I do.
“What would it take?” I ask coarsely. “To get you alone in a room. Any room, your choice.”
“An interview. On the record.”
“With me?”
“With someone who knows the ins and outs of PRISM.”
Literally any other answer would have shocked me less. I blink at her, sparring potential dropping quickly down the priority list. “That’s your story? Mayfair has nothing to do with PRISM.”
“That’s something else. Will you comment on the record about Mayfair?”
“No.”
“PRISM?”
“No.”
“Jason—”
“Don’t Jason me. You disappeared for five years, and now you think you can bat your eyelashes and get a quote from me? One that could kill my reputation in this town?”
“If my story is correct, this is bigger than protecting one’s reputation.” She shrugs. “And you were the one batting your eyelashes at me a minute ago. If you want to get me alone in a room, it’ll be in a professional capacity.”
And that’s not happening.
Frustrated, I watch as she sweeps out of the room, a curious chameleon who manages to not capture anyone’s attention. I don’t get it. She’s all I can see, but her little disguise complete with press pass works perfectly on everyone else.
I wait a beat, then follow her at a safe distance. By the time I get outside, she has disappeared from sight, which doesn’t surprise me. But I don’t see a hired car, either, and I wait, scanning the street for some sign of trouble.
Just before I turn to go back inside, a motorbike peels out. The helmet obscures the blonde wig, but the black suit is the same, and the shape of Ellie is unmistakable.
She’s a beautiful liar, I think to myself as I watch her turn at the end of the street. Then I grind my teeth together, because those secrets could get her killed, and I can’t let that happen.