“No.”
Silence on the other end. Then: “Corin, if you don’t respond aggressively—”
“I’m not hiding behind you and the lawyers this time.” I close my eyes. “That’s what got me into this mess in the first place. Letting the board handle it. Letting legal teams craft careful non-statements. I’m done with that playbook.”
“Then what do you want to do?” Liora presses.
“I don’t know yet.” My jaw clenches. “Give me a few hours.”
“You don’t have a few hours. The Today Show wants a comment by nine.”
The Today Show?
Fuck.
“Tell them I’ll have a statement by end of day.” I hang up before she can argue.
By 7:30 AM, the largest donor to the clinic has officially retracted their pledge. A quarter million dollars, gone.
Ysela brings coffee I don’t touch. The mug sits on my desk, while I read increasingly panicked emails from foundation staff.
By eight, Liora forwards a new op-ed my way.
THE WOMAN BEHIND SAELINGER’S REDEMPTION TOUR: ENABLER OR ACCOMPLICE?
I don’t need to read past the headline. But I do anyway. Because apparently I’m a masochist.
The piece eviscerates Amara. Calls her a “convenient legal shield” for my “reputation laundering operation.” It questionsher ethics, and suggests she’s either willfully ignorant or actively complicit in covering up the foundation’s failures.
It’s brutal. Designed to destroy her credibility the way the previous article destroyed mine.
Xavier didn’t just come for me. He came for everyone I care about.
Keon texts to confirm the jet is being prepped for a flight back to Manhattan.
I should be strategizing. Running scenarios. Figuring out how to salvage what’s left.
Instead I’m thinking about Amara, still asleep upstairs, and how she’s going to react when she finds out what Xavier has done.
How he’s dragged her into this.
I get up to wake her, but find her already on the terrace outside.
She’s sitting in one of the low chairs, staring at her phone.
Of course.
She would’ve found out by now, too, courtesy of her own professional connections.
I open the door to the patio.
Her face is blank, that careful lawyer mask she wears when she’s processing something devastating.
“Amara.”
She doesn’t look up. “They’re saying I’m complicit.”
I sit in the chair across from her. The ocean stretches out indifferently before us.
