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The man who looks for me when he walks into a room.

Oh, shit.

I shouldn’t be thinking that because none of it belongs in the article.

That belongs to me.

And maybe that's the real problem. Somewhere along the way, this stopped being only about finding the man behind the billionaire.

Chapter 21

Layla

I'm starting to care what happens to him when I do. I'm starting to feel protective of him. I'm starting to want the world to understand him.

A journalist can survive liking her subject. She can compensate for attraction. She can double-check her assumptions, verify her facts, rely on her editor, interrogate her own biases.

But falling in love with her subject?

Fuck. That's something else entirely.

Because sitting here surrounded by people who clearly love Mitchell Knight, I'm forced to consider something I've been trying very hard not to examine.

Maybe I wish I was one of them. Maybe, in my heart, I already am.

Because the real truth is I think I've fallen in love with the man I'm supposed to be investigating. And that’s a much bigger problem than figuring out why he bought a rugby team.

Because now the question isn't only Who is Mitchell Knight?

It's whether I can still tell the truth about him once I know. And whether it's already too late to protect my own heart from whatever that truth turns out to be.

Carolina tilts her head. “So, why?”

“What?”

“I'm asking why you care.”

Oh.

Well, shit.

Good question.

I sigh slowly.

“Because contradictions make good stories.”

Something shifts in her expression. Like she knows the answer I’m going to give her isn’t the real one.

I continue, anyway.

“Mitchell Knight makes sense everywhere else. The businesses make sense. The investments make sense. The acquisitions make sense. Even his obsession with privacy makes sense once you spend enough time around him.”

Probably more time than a journalist should spend naked around her subject, but we're not discussing that yet.

“The Rovers don't.”

I shake my head.