Page 14 of Under Her Protection

"Madame."

"Yes."

"Compliance has flagged a document."

"Which."

"An internal financial strategy memo. The June revision. It is circulating on a private European finance list this morning."

Vivienne's hand, which had been holding a pen, set the pen down. The pen made the small dry sound of a pen being set down on paper, and she registered the sound because she registered everything in this office, and then she did not move.

"Where."

"A subscriber-only bulletin. Quiet. Not public yet. My contact forwarded it to me ten minutes ago. The content is our internal commentary on the Bellini target, the pricing model, and the fallback offer."

"The fallback offer was in that memo."

"Yes, Madame."

The fallback had been a number Vivienne had put on a single page in June, in her own hand, and had given to four people. Four. Two of whom had been in the conference room this morning. One of whom had been on a plane. One of whom was a lawyer in a firm that charged her twelve hundred euros an hour for, among other things, not leaking.

Four people. One of them had done this. One of them, or one of them had shown it to someone else, which was nearly as bad.

She breathed in once through her nose, slowly. She breathed out the same way.

"I will read it," she said.

"I have it here."

Fournier handed her the pages. Vivienne took them without shaking, and her hand did not shake, because she did not let her hand shake. She read the memo. It was their memo. Not paraphrased. Not summarized. Reproduced. Three paragraphs in she stopped being able to keep reading because she had understood what the memo told her. It told her that what had happened yesterday was not a deal leak. What had happened yesterday was the opening move. The memo hitting the finance bulletin this morning was the second move, and it was not a move an outside competitor would bother with, because it did not help the competitor. It was for her.

"Thank you, Fournier."

"Shall I⁠—"

"Close the door when you leave."

"Yes, Madame."

She did.

Vivienne sat with the pages in her hand for thirty seconds. She did not cry. She had not cried in her office in twenty-seven years and she was not going to start this morning. She did set the pages down carefully, as if she were setting down something breakable. She was aware, vaguely, that her own hands were cooler than they had been an hour ago, and that her jaw had set in a line she had learned to hold at twenty-three. She did reach for the phone.

She pressed the line.

"Marie. Get me Dominique Moreau at Blackthorn."

"Right away, Madame."

She did not have to wait. The line was connected inside ninety seconds. Dominique's voice came through, low and unsurprised.

"Vivienne."

"Dominique.” A pause. “I am signing the engagement."

"I know." Dominique’s voice was as steady as iron.

Vivienne's hand tightened, once, around the receiver, and released. "Send her today. The bodyguard. The one you suggested.”