CHAPTER EIGHT
621 Words
The Interview
He had done hundreds of press interviews.
He knew how to manage them through preparation, precision, and the careful rationing of actual information. Journalists were looking for one of three things: scandal, vulnerability, or a narrative they'd already written that needed confirming. He gave them none of those things.
He had not, however, done a press interview with a woman sitting close enough that he could smell her perfume and feel the warmth of her arm against his, expected to look at her like she was the most important thing in the room.
The journalist's name was Patricia Osei. Sharp, well prepared, the kind who asked the soft question first to make you comfortable and then asked the real one before you'd readjusted.
"So," Patricia said, settling across from them in the penthouse sitting room, "tell me how it really happened. In your own words, of course."
Elara smiled beside him; the public smile, warm and practiced. He'd learned it from the real one by now. The real one was slower and less symmetrical and arrived in her eyes before her mouth.
"The Harlow Gala," Elara said. " Two years ago. I was having a very spirited conversation with a caterer and this man appeared at my elbow and said ..." she paused, glanced at him.
"I said the salmon was overcooked and your instincts were correct," he said.
Patricia laughed. Elara's smile shifted fractionally, just enough into something that was not entirely performance.
"He was right," Elara said. "I didn't forgive him for it immediately."
"Why not?"
"Because I'd wanted to win that argument myself." She looked at him. "He has an irritating habit of being right."
"And you, Mr. Valecrest? What was it about her?"
"She gave her dessert to someone who looked like they needed it more. She didn't make a thing of it. She just did it." He said.
Silence.
Patricia was writing. Elara was very still beside him.
"She was the most genuine person in a room full of performances," he said. "It's not a common quality."
Under the camera's sight line, hidden by the angle of his body, Elara's hand found his on the cushion between them. Her fingers curled around his it was not the practiced public contact. Something quieter. Something that might have been involuntary.
He didn't move.
He didn't breathe particularly evenly for the rest of the interview.
Patricia left forty minutes later describing them to her photographer in the elevator as “the real thing, I think. You can always tell”.
Elara appeared in the doorway with two coffees; real coffee, from the machine she'd bought, which was objectively better than the pods and he had quietly admitted this to himself several days ago.
"You remembered the gala," she said. Not an accusation. Not quite a question.
"I told you I have a good memory."
She studied him for a long moment.
"Yes, you did."She said finally in a mocking tone.
She set the coffee on the table in front of him and left the room.
He sat with it going slowly warm in his hands and his phone buzzed on the armrest. Marcus.
Sebastian Vance. Confirmed sighting at a lobby of 432 Park. Same building as the law firm handling the acquisition group's third shell company. Timestamp: this morning, 9:47 AM.
Deborah's brother. Walking into the same building as the lawyers constructing the trap around Elara. The morning after the engagement announcement went live.
He typed back: Photos?
Lobby camera. Partial face. Enough.
He looked at the doorway Elara had just walked through.
Don't tell her yet, he thought. Not until it's certain.
He picked up his coffee.
It was, as always, better than the pods.
- Writer
