Page 150 of His Good Girl

Vale slid a document across the table. Tom caught it before it reached me. His eyes moved down the first page, and his face tightened.

“What is this?” I demanded.

“A path to resolution,” Vale explained condescendingly. “Rowe Structural exercises the voluntary withdrawal clause under Section 14. Hartwell proceeds without litigation, without a public fight, and without further disruption. Interested parties agree not to disseminate certain reputationally sensitive materials that would otherwise become relevant to public discourse.”

Tom looked up. “This is extortion.”

Vale’s associate said, “No one is demanding payment.”

Benjamin smiled without warmth. “How refreshing. A blackmail coupon.”

Vale folded his hands. “Mr. Rowe negotiated the withdrawal provision himself. Exercising a contractual right is not unlawful.”

“Conditioning non-distribution of private surveillance materials on that exercise is,” Tom retorted.

“I’m not here to argue criminal theory.”

“No,” Dana said. “You’re here to launder it.”

Vale looked at me then and, finally, he stopped pretending this meeting was about clauses.

“You have built an extraordinary company, Mr. Rowe. You also have enemies, as successful men often do. Hartwell is visible, politically sensitive, and financially ambitious.” His gaze flicked, briefly, to the windows behind us. “Perhaps overly ambitious.”

With a hard swallow, I sat back. Hartwell was not the only project Rowe Structural had ever taken that mattered, but it was the largest civic contract we had ever won. We had expandedteams for it, reallocated capital and taken on debt. We’d put our name, our balance sheet, and no small portion of our next few years behind it. Walking away would not kill Rowe Structural overnight. I was too wealthy and the company too diversified for one contract to finish us completely, but it would wound us badly.

Vale opened a slim black folder and turned it toward me.

Tom said, “Do not?—”

I looked anyway.

The first photograph was from outside Avery’s apartment. My car. The second from Marcel’s. The third from the sidewalk outside Rowe Tower. The fourth from my office, taken at a distance through glass, blurred but not meaningless.

The fifth made my heart drop.

A still image, captured from above and at an angle, the city lights fractured against the glass of my office. It was an unambiguous drone shot featuring Avery and me against the window after hours, her body pressed to the glass, mine behind hers, my hands on her hips. The image was slightly grainy, but not nearly grainy enough.

Dana swore under her breath.

Benjamin went silent in a way that frightened even me.

Tom’s voice was low. “That image was taken illegally.”

Vale closed the folder. “I have no knowledge of how any material was obtained.”

“Convenient,” Dana said.

“Also irrelevant to the question before Mr. Rowe.”

I did not move.

Vale must have mistaken that for hesitation, because he leaned forward slightly. “No one is asking you to end your personal relationship. That is not our concern. Withdraw from Hartwell, and the material disappears. Refuse, and the public may decide whether or not a man exercising this kind of judgment should be trusted with a civic landmark.”

Tom said, “You understand you’re threatening distribution of intimate images.”

“I am explaining reputational consequences.”

Benjamin tilted his head. “Do you practice saying things that disgusting in mirrors, or does it come naturally for you?”