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Bane reaches my floor six minutes later with Theo beside him and an expression that tells me both men have already read everything.

Theo’s carrying his phone and looking considerably less entertained by life than usual.

Bane walks straight to me. “Are you okay?”

“Yes.” His eyes search my face anyway. “I mean it.”

“Okay.”

His attention stays on me another beat before he pulls the chair beside mine closer, accepting the answer because I gave it to him instead of deciding he knows better.

Theo drags a chair over and sits backward on it. “Communications has received fourteen media inquiries in the last twenty minutes.”

Lena whistles. “Efficient vultures.”

“They’re usually faster.”

Bane ignores them and keeps his attention on me. “We’re postponing tomorrow.”

I knew the trip to see Nora would be the first casualty as soon as I opened the article, but hearing Bane confirm it still pushes disappointment through my anger. “For how long?”

“Until this calms down.”

“That could be weeks.”

“It won’t.”

The confidence in his answer makes me look at him more closely. “What are you planning?”

“Nothing illegal.”

Theo rubs his jaw. “Interesting that you led with that.”

Theo would’ve gotten a laugh out of me yesterday, but today I turn my laptop toward them instead. “Can we focus?”

Whatever Theo was about to add dies when the article fills the screen again.

I turn my laptop toward them and open the article again. “Spencer wants us reacting.”

Bane reaches past me and scrolls back to the photograph of us. “He’s accusing you of cheating.”

“He’s implying it,” I correct, tapping the careful wording beneath the headline. “That difference matters if we’re responding publicly.”

Theo leans closer to read the paragraph. “She’s right. They’ve left themselves room to claim they never made the accusation outright.”

Bane pushes the laptop back toward me with considerably more restraint than I expect. “Then we make sure nobody misses what they’re implying.”

I scroll to the paragraph about my hiring. “He’s tied everything together deliberately. My job, why you left Spencer, when we started seeing each other. If people question one part of the timeline, they start questioning all of it.”

Lena pulls another chair over. “So what do you want to say?”

“The truth.”

Bane’s attention returns to me.

I breathe through the anger before continuing. “I ended my relationship with Spencer before I started working here. Bane and I weren’t having an affair. He didn’t hire me because we were secretly together. I’m done letting Spencer’s version become the default because he gets to a reporter first.”

Theo’s mouth curves, though the expression isn’t amused. “Communications will enjoy you.”