“All right?”
“I can work with honest obstruction.”
“Obstruction?”
“What would you call it?”
“Protection.”
“Of the company?”
“Yes.”
“And of yourself?”
“Yes.”
The honesty costs me less than lying would. It also gives her more than I planned.
Her eyes flicker, and I know she heard it.
“Then we should be clear about something,” she says.
“Go on.”
“My job is not to expose you unnecessarily.”
“I know.”
“But it is also not to protect you from things you need to confront.”
I lean back in the chair.
There are men who would punish her for that. There are men who would laugh. There are men who would dismiss her because she is young and beautiful, and sitting across from power she cannot yet measure.
I am not those men.
“I understand,” I say.
Her face gives nothing away.
But I see the smallest release of tension in her shoulders.
She expected resistance. She was ready for it.
I did not give it to her.
That unsettles her more.
Before she can ask another question, there is a knock at the door.
Her gaze cuts to it.
A young man in a Conti IT badge stands there with a tablet held against his chest. He looks from Victoria to me and immediately understands he has interrupted something he would prefer not to have interrupted.
“Sorry, Mr. Conti. Ms. Murray. I was told to help with system access.”
“You can come back,” I say.
