Mike didn't blink. He didn't look away, and he didn't offer the easy, comfortable smile of a man who had just been "seen."
He simply let her words hang in the air between them, heavy and unvarnished.
"That's the most accurate thing anyone in this city has said about me," he said, his voice devoid of ego. It was a simple statement of fact.
Sabrina leaned in, her eyes searching his face for the slightest flicker of a lie, a hint of deflection. "Is it true?"
"It's true enough," he replied.
She studied him for a long minute. The tension didn't dissipate, but it changed shape.
The sharp, defensive edge in her posture softened not into warmth, exactly, but into a different kind of intensity. It was the recalibration of a strategist who had just seen a theory confirmed and was now mentally recalculating her next move.
"You're easier to talk to than I expected," she said, the admission coming out more candid than she likely intended.
"You expected it to be hard?"
