n this time, not sitting behind the d

all shift unsettled her more than his usual armor would have. It was harder to distrust a man w

you had a li

d

liste

at eye level, not across a desk built to remind people who was in charge of the room. She had spent enough of her career watchin

f those things for a while," she said. "That's not a good enough reason to sign my name to anythin

told him something he suspected but had not confirmed. He did not look offende

n," h

t myself, in writing, with time to actually think about it, not

ree

my housing on your shareholder vote going well. If this arrangement ends

, brief enough that she almost missed it, g

d," he

, or exploitative, or asks something of me I didn't sign up for, I walk. Seven days' notice. I keep whatever's

except there was less assessment in it now and something closer to attention, the particu

said again. "

ork. Not the PR version. The real one. I've read enough contracts t

he already had. For a long moment he did not answer, and she let the silence sit rather than filling it for him, another habit

oncern. The board wants stability without ever asking what it costs the person providing it. Even Camille Whitfield wants a version of me that photographs well at her events, polished, available, ha

bleak way to ch

ng you to help me solve a problem. I'd rather do that with someone who tells me the truth about what she needs th

aid. "If six months in, something about this doesn't

nished the question. "I'm not interested in holding you to terms that stop being fair just because they're al

e print, the way she had learned to look for load bearing walls hidden behind pretty re

finding one would have. It was easier, in some ways

thing I just said, in writing, where it can't quietly disappear later, wher

"But I understand why you needed to hear yours

o that,"

wh

decided how much of myself

way she had not seen from him yet, gone again almost before it arrived,

the signing for tomorrow. Take the rest of

won

ng anyway. That's the whole po

ore than she yet knew. Something closer to the first real proof that this man, whatever else he turned out to be, might actually

ing the numbers fall, and let herself sit with t

at made the arrangement safer,