The conference room they used for Ethics & Standards meetings was too bright and too small.
Olivia sat at one end of the table, a legal pad in front of her with nothing written on it. A pitcher of water sweated on a coaster near her elbow. Through the glass wall she could see the *Metro* bullpen humming—phones, keyboards, a reporter gesturing wildly as she pitched something about Staten Island ferries.
In here, it was quiet.
Sam, rumpled as always, sat opposite her. To his left, the managing editor, Fran, whose silver bob and sharp eyes gave the impression of someone who could slice a bad argument in half with a single look. On Sam’s right, Laura, jaw set.
“This isn’t a trial,” Sam said, for the third time. “We’re not here to punish. We’re here to… clarify.”
“Feels like a trial,” Olivia said, voice flat.
“That’s because you’re guilty of good work,” Laura muttered.
Fran shot her a look. “Let’s keep the editorializing for after,” she said. Then, to Olivia: “You know why we called this.”
“The gossip garbage,” Olivia said. “The door note. The panel disclosure going viral. The fact that half of Twitter thinks I’m secretly whispering sweet nothings into Jake Morrison’s ear in exchange for scoops.”
Sam’s mouth twitched. “And the other half thinks you’re out to ruin his life for not marrying you,” he said.
“Charming,” Olivia said. “Love being turned into a trope.”
Fran folded her hands.
“The series is strong,” she said. “No one is disputing that. You’ve handled yourself with… impressive rigor given the circumstances. But circumstances are changing.”
“The story is changing,” Laura said. “We went from ‘profile and impact piece’ to ‘ongoing coverage of legislation, contracts, hacks, accidents.’ We’re in it, and we’ll be in it a while.”
“And your role in that coverage is drawing its own spotlight,” Fran finished. “We have to ask whether that spotlight is helping or hurting our ability to cover TerraNova and the PAO Act.”
Olivia stared at the condensation on the pitcher.
“You want me off the beat,” she said.
Sam inhaled. “Not… entirely,” he said. “We’re leaning toward a partial reassignment.”
“There are two questions,” Fran said. “One: Can you continue to report on TerraNova without compromising your independence? Two: Can the public reasonably perceive you as independent in that coverage, regardless of the truth for question one?”
“On one? Yes,” Olivia said tightly. “On two? Apparently not, because people are idiots.”
“People are people,” Fran corrected gently. “Which is worse.”
Laura leaned in. “Say what you said to me last night,” she told Olivia.
Olivia clenched her jaw.
“Which part,” she asked. “The screaming or the crying?”
“The part where you said you’re tired,” Laura said, eyes sympathetic but unyielding. “Tired of every sentence you write about him being run through a mental metal detector. Tired of wondering if you’re pushing too hard or not hard enough because of something that happened when you were twenty.”
She flushed.
“I am tired,” she admitted. “But I’m also… invested. Not in him. In the story. In the bill. In South Side. In the way cities decide who gets a bus and who gets a shrug.”
“That doesn’t go away if we move you to another beat,” Sam said. “You’ll still be that person. That’s actually why we want you covering the fallout, not just the man at the center.”
Olivia blinked.
“The… fallout?” she asked.
Fran tapped a stack of papers.
“Here’s what we’re proposing,” she said. “We assign another reporter—someone with policy chops but no personal history—to take the lead on the TerraNova corporate coverage going forward. Contracts, internal hacks, future versions. You shift your focus to the PAO Act implementation, community oversight, and the broader ‘code and city’ landscape.”
“So… less Morrison, more system,” Olivia said slowly.
“Mostly,” Fran said. “You’d still write about him when he intersects with those things. But you’d no longer be *the* Morrison reporter. That removes some of the… personal heat.”
“And the disclosure line?” Olivia asked.
“Stays,” Sam said. “On anything that mentions him directly. It’s part of the record now.”
“So I get to be branded forever,” she said.
Laura spoke up. “You also get to keep writing the work you care about,” she said. “The alternative was pulling you entirely. No more code stories. No more PAO. I argued against that.”
Olivia’s chest tightened.
“You did?” she asked.
“You think I was going to let some trashy tabloid piece sideline my best reporter on the biggest story we’ve had in years?” Laura said. “Please. I have a reputation as a bitch to maintain.”
Fran hid a smile.
“The optics are still tricky,” Fran said. “But this is a compromise. It respects the work you’ve done and the concerns about perception going forward.”
Olivia swallowed.
“So I lose him,” she said. “As a… subject.”
“You lose him as your primary, exclusive subject,” Sam said. “You gain air. Room to write about the things his work set in motion without everything being colored by… whatever the two of you are.”
“Whatever we are is… complicated,” she said.
“We noticed,” Fran said dryly.
Silence hovered.
Olivia stared at her blank legal pad.
She could fight. Insist she was fine. That she could remain Spartacus while half the city whispered about her sleeping with the emperor. That she didn’t care what people thought.
But that wasn’t true.
She did care. Not about her “reputation” in the gossipy sense.
About the story.
About whether anyone would read her work on its merits, or whether every line would be filtered through *scorned ex* or *secret mistress* lenses.
She exhaled.
“When?” she asked.
Laura’s shoulders dropped a fraction—relief she tried not to show.
“We’d like to transition over the next couple of weeks,” she said. “You finish Part Three. We run it. Then we bring in someone to shadow you on the Morrison angle. They’ll start taking point on those calls. You keep the PAO beat.”
“And Jake?” she asked before she could stop herself. “Does he… know?”
“Not yet,” Sam said. “We’re not in the business of updating sources on our internal personnel moves. That’s your call. If you want to tell him, as a courtesy, you can. Off the record.”
Her chest ached.
He’d offered her a grace period.
She hadn’t known it would end like this.
“Okay,” she said quietly. “I’ll… make it work.”
Fran nodded.
“Good,” she said. “Because we’re going to need you when this bill hits the mayor’s desk.”
***
She didn’t go back to her desk right away.
Instead, she took the elevator down to the street, wrapped her coat tighter, and walked.
Cold air slapped her cheeks, cleared her head.
She cut down side streets, boots crunching on old salt and ice, until she found herself by the river. The wind coming off the water knifed through her layers.
She sat on a bench anyway, breath fogging, fingers numb.
Her phone felt heavy in her hand.
She could wait. Tell him later. Tell him never, let him find out when some new byline appeared under the next TerraNova headline.
That would be cleaner.
Less… vulnerable.
It would also be cowardly.
She tapped his name.
He answered on the second ring.
“Hey,” he said. “You okay?”
No greeting. No preamble.
He heard it in her silence.
“Sort of,” she said. “Can you talk?”
“Always,” he said. “You want me to come—”
“No,” she cut in. “This is… fine. Over the phone.”
He was quiet.
“Ethics meeting went well?” he guessed, dry.
“As well as anything involving the phrase ‘conflict of interest’ can go,” she said. “They’re not pulling me. Yet. But…”
“But,” he echoed.
“But I’m… being moved,” she said. “Not out. Sideways. Off you.”
It hung there.
“Off… me,” he said finally.
“Another reporter’s going to take point on TerraNova corporate,” she said. “I’ll cover the PAO Act implementation. Oversight. Systems. You’ll still… show up. But you won’t be… mine.”
She winced at the last word. Too intimate. Too revealing.
He let out a breath.
“Okay,” he said softly.
“That’s it?” she snapped before she could stop herself. “No ‘this is outrageous’? No speech about my integrity?”
He laughed, short and surprised.
“You want me to yell at your bosses?” he said. “That’ll go over great. ‘Hi, this is the billionaire you’re supposed to be holding to account. Please keep assigning the reporter who kissed me on an ice rink to my coverage.’”
Heat flared in her cheeks.
“You know what I mean,” she muttered.
His tone gentled.
“Liv,” he said. “I’m not… happy about it. I’m selfish enough to want you in every room I walk into with a notebook. But I’m also… not an idiot. You’ve been carrying a lot. Too much. If this takes some of that off your shoulders, maybe it’s… not all bad.”
She blinked.
“You think this is about my workload?” she said.
“I think it’s about perception,” he said. “And perception has… weight. On you. On the paper. On our ability to do anything in this city without everything turning into a bad romance subplot.”
The words stung.
Because they were true.
“Does this… change the grace period?” he asked quietly.
Her breath caught.
“No,” she said. “I mean… the opposite, actually. It might… make it real.”
“How so?” he asked.
“Before, as long as I was… on you, there was always this… excuse,” she said. “‘We can’t. It’s unethical. It’s messy.’ Now… once the handoff’s done…”
“Once you’re not professionally entangled with me anymore,” he said slowly.
“Yeah,” she said. “Then any entanglement would be… personal. And fully… on purpose.”
Silence hummed.
“So,” he said, voice rough, “you’re telling me I should… hold onto hope.”
She closed her eyes.
“I’m telling you I’m… not ready to answer yet,” she said. “But that the question is getting… clearer.”
He let out a shaky breath.
“I can live with that,” he said.
“For now,” she said.
“For now,” he agreed.
They sat there, on opposite sides of the river, phones pressed to frozen ears, warmth bleeding through the line.
“Olivia,” he said, after a moment.
“Yeah,” she said.
“I’m proud of you,” he said simply. “For fighting. For walking that tightrope. For knowing when to step sideways instead of falling off.”
Her throat closed.
“Don’t,” she said hoarsely. “You’re going to make me cry in public.”
He chuckled.
“I’ll stop,” he said. “Go inside. Write something that makes city hall regret underestimating you.”
She sniffed, laughed.
“Always,” she said.
She hung up.
For a long moment, she sat there, staring at the water.
Then she stood.
And went back to work.
The grace period was continuing.
But the ground under her feet had shifted.
She didn’t know yet if that would make her next step easier or harder.
She just knew she was still walking toward something.
And that, for now, was enough.
---