"I need to tell you something," I said.
Elena looked up from her laptop. It was a Thursday evening and she was at the kitchen counter with a client file open and a cup of cold tea she had forgotten about. She had that particular focused stillness she got when she was in the middle of a problem, and I was interrupting it.
"It's not about the reporter," I said.
"Okay." She closed the laptop halfway. "What is it?"
I sat down across from her. I had been carrying this since the Sunday dinner, since I sat at her family's table and heard her sister say the last four guys never looked at you like that, and I had spent four days deciding whether to say it at all.
I had decided that not saying it was worse.
"I've seen you before," I said. "Before you came to my office."
She was very still. "W
