Chapter 46

46

P ersonal assistant, editor of AI-generated content, PR and media relations specialist, ghostwriter for corporate materials and—Sol's favorite—AI trainer to help robots become better writers. All those professions were now a wide-open opportunity for her. There was really no reason why she shouldn't consider one of them as the next step in her professional life. One thing was clear: all signs pointed to the fact that she needed to pivot.

In the past, there had always been the unattractive option of following her family members and opting for wealth management and administration of family assets. As unfascinating as that sounded, she had to admit that strategic investment had tended to be lucrative for her relatives—until her parents had proved that it was also a risky endeavor.

Besides reconsidering her taste for expensive travel, she needed to figure out what to do when it came to applying a more judicious model to her spending. Should she move to a cheaper place? Was she going to be forced to sell one of her two places?

She was still lost in her thoughts—and horrified at the prospect of having to pack a house—when her telephone rang, and Sol saw Luke's name on the screen. She'd edited his contact information again on her cell phone. He'd been demoted from Luke (Ear Whisperer) to a very boring, very basic—and almost lacking any sexual connotation— Luke .

"Hey," she answered, imitating him in his latest impersonal greeting. Cold and unemotional.

"Hey," he quipped. Whatever had been between the two of them had been completely—and officially—annihilated with that way of saluting one another. "So, I asked my mate Sanjay at T&T to take a look at the CCTV video, and it looks legitimate."

"Meaning?" Was it bad that she really didn't care about the damn video? It had to be.

"Meaning it's not some deep fake or anything. It's actually you on the street, leaving Josie's with a stack of papers in your bag."

"Unless you're some sort of zealous ecological activist, carrying paper around is not a crime, correct?" The whole situation was almost too surreal to bother taking it seriously.

"I'm glad you still conserve your sense of humor," he said, not a drop of irony in his voice.

"Are you actually mad at me right now?"

"I forgot you're the only one who's able to react in a dramatic way."

"Are you serious?" She was about to lose it. "In the last twenty-four hours, I've been accused of stealing, of mischaracterizing an asshole, and—what's worse—of not knowing how to write a five-hundred-word profile-ish puff piece. The last thing I need is you calling me, greeting me with a fucking hey , and telling me I'm a drama queen."

"How should I have greeted you?" he asked, and the warmth in his voice softened her slightly.

"You used to talk to me in Italian." Her voice was on the brink of breaking. "But I don't think you're interested in me in that way anymore."

"Would you believe me if I told you that up until two seconds ago, I thought it was you who wasn't interested in me anymore?" His voice was honeyed and caring once more. "I was trying to give you space while still being on top of this mess. Allora, bella. Come posso aiutarti?"

"You can start by promising never to call me mate again."

"Done. I never thought it suited you. You're more of a cara or a regina," he said huskily.

"Okay, let's focus. Why have you called me, Luca?" She took her use of his Italian name as an indication that her subconscious had forgiven him for any word misuse directed her way in the past.

"My colleague Sanjay did some image processing with the CCTV video Voyeur published," he said. "Those papers in your bag do look like The Privateers script. A portion of the title is partially visible and so is Sara Daniels's name watermarked on the page."

Sol was so angry, she could no longer hide it. "First your agency gets me in trouble—I've reread Voyeur 's so-called article this morning. There's a quote from one of your managers saying their investigation led them to think I was the culprit!" She realized how much she was yelling only once she started doing it. "I'm sure it was your agency who gave them the scoop about this supposed story in the first place! And now you tell me this!"

"If you had let me finish," Luke managed to interrupt her. "I would have told you that someone could have planted the script in your bag and then made sure you were caught on video with it. But you're such a cliché of the passionate Mediterranean sometimes, it's impossible to reason with you."

"I'm not sure if you're insulting me."

"I'm not!" Luke told her almost defeatedly.

He'd been uneasy since he'd seen the CCTV video again that morning. He'd genuinely contemplated the idea of Sol as the script thief for the first time then, despite the fact that he should have done it weeks earlier. When it came to her, he couldn't be objective. He'd made many assumptions about the case based on Sol's account of what went on. But what if she'd lied? Could his supposed good nose have been misled all these weeks by the attraction he felt for her?

"Why didn't you tell me about the AI controversy surrounding The Privateers ?" he finally asked her. He was trying to figure out one of the things that had been bothering him in order to eliminate her as a suspect once and for all.

There was silence after his question. Was she thinking? Was she coming up with a plausible explanation?

"The fact that the credits weren't designed by Martha Broch but an AI imitator, you mean?" She sounded surprised.

"Yes, you never told me about it."

"Because I didn't remember it! Do you have any idea how many scandals and controversies Hollywood has in a single week?"

"You mentioned this particular one in your review of the show."

"Do you know how many of those I write in a year?" she yelled. "Do you really think I remember everything I've written? Sadly, I don't."

"So you weren't concealing information on purpose?"

"Why would I do that?" He could hear the frustration in her tone. He also couldn't help it—he believed her even if he wasn't sure he could totally trust himself when it came to her.

But it made no sense that she would hide something like that when it gave Martha Broch a motive—unless they were working together.

There was something else he needed to ask her.

"And you're sure you've never met Leonardo Pascual?"

It still bothered him that he'd run into Sol at Fortnum & Mason while he'd been following The Privateers actor. It could be a coincidence, but did that really happen in a city the size of London? What if Sol and Leonardo were meeting there for some reason?

"To be honest, I've interviewed so many actors over the years that I've forgotten most of them at this point," she said. "But believe me when I say I would not forget him."

"Oh yes, irrefutably sexy," Luke said. A pang of jealousy immediately made him forget anything else he wanted to ask her.

"Basically that, yes," she said. "Are we done yelling and throwing allegations?"

"Please." Once again, when it came to her, he preferred to stop digging whenever he felt he was getting too close to unearthing something potentially unpleasant.

"Okay, whatever happens today—and, if yesterday is an indication of anything, I could either be accused of not knowing how to properly conjugate a verb in the subjunctive mood in Spanish or of murder—would you come to my place tonight and we can talk?"

"Red or white?"

"What?"

"The wine I'll be bringing because we need it. I'm not sure tea will be enough—double meaning intended. So red or white?"

"We're talking about wine, all answers are right. You know that." The wine allusion took them back to the first time they had dinner together in Barcelona, changing the mood.

There was a long silence on the phone after that, and he wasn't sure how to proceed. Was the conversation over? Were they saying goodbye? And, if so, what was the proper way of doing it so that no one called each other mate or simply said bye ? Sol would probably view that as the goodbye equivalent of hey , which was unacceptable in their once-again-tending-toward-scorching relationship. He opted for candidness.

"Sadly, I need to go and keep following a bloke with questionable taste in doughnuts," he told her.

"Are you investigating him because of that ?"

"Basically. But all the bloody time I can steal, I'm devoting it to your case. And I'll see you tonight." He paused. "Let me rephrase that: Ci vediamo stasera, cara."

"Adeu, Luca."