Alexandra looked at her for a moment. Then she nodded and got into her car.
Simone walked to her rental. She put her hand on the door and didn't open it for a second. She watched Alexandra's brake lights flash on across the lot. She got in and started the engine, then followed Alexandra's car down the access road toward the house on the hill.
23
Chapter 23: Alexandra
The garage was warm under the building, which was the only warm part of the drive in. Alexandra had taken the same exit off Marine Drive for twelve years, the light through the drizzle on Lakefront, the empty turn lane onto Tillamook, and the slow climb up the parkade ramp—all of it was a sequence her body could do without her needing to pay attention. She slid into her dedicated parking space at six-fifty and rode the elevator up to the executive floor.
Helen was already there, which wasn’t unusual since she got in at six-thirty when she had a packed day she wanted to get ahead of, but she was standing at the reception desk instead of sitting and holding a printout. She looked up. “Alexandra, good morning.”
“Helen.”
“Ruth is on her way up. You should sit down before you read this.”
“What is it?”
“Claire Whitfield wrote another article inThe Tribune.”Helen handed her the printout.
Alexandra took the paper without breaking her stride and read the headline as she walked.
A Question of Distance: The Vaughn-Rousseau Merger and the Relationship Behind It
She didn’t slow her pace, but something caught in her throat. She barely registered that Helen was following her to her office. At least she stopped at the doorway and gave her an encouraging, “Good luck,” before going back to her desk.
Alexandra set the article on the desk and put her hands on either side of it and leaned over to read.
“According to multiple sources within Phoenix Ridge’s civic and corporate communities, the chief executives of Vaughn Industries and Rousseau Global—until recently engaged in a contested takeover battle—have been in a personal relationship for some weeks.”
Alexandra sat down. The rain was steady on the window behind her, and the radiator in the south wall, which Alexandra had been telling Bethany in facilities to look at for two months, made a small ticking noise. She kept reading.
“The two executives were observed dining together at Elements in October, a dinner described by one attendee as ‘noticeably long.’ Their joint appearance at the Sustainability Summit in January was characterized by colleagues as marked by ‘a particular ease’ inconsistent with adversarial negotiations. More recently, sources confirm that Ms. Rousseau has been a regular evening visitor at Ms. Vaughn’s residence.”
She stopped on that sentence. Tuesday night through Wednesday morning. Simone had left before six because the Vancouver call was at seven, and Alexandra had come downstairs to the kitchen to find Simone’s mug already washedand put in the rack on the counter to dry. The line was specific, though, “regular evening visitor.” Whoever Claire’s source was had been paying attention and counting. She continued reading.
“The relationship raises significant questions about the merger currently being negotiated. With both executives positioned on opposite sides of the deal, the structure and terms of any final agreement will be scrutinized for evidence of personal influence and interference. Sources at Vaughn Industries have declined to comment on the ongoing situation, and Rousseau Global did not respond by the deadline.”
There was a sentence near the end that she read three times, chewing it over slowly each time.
“Whether the proposed merger reflects the deliberation of two CEOs acting in their shareholders’ interests or the negotiation of two private individuals invested in a particular outcome is now an open question.”
She set the paper down and looked up. Something twisted in her chest. Dorothy had spent forty years making sure no one could write an article about her like the one Alexandra had just read three times. The lesson, absorbed from the kitchen table from the time Alexandra could read, was that a Vaughn woman did not appear in the news unless she was controlling the narrative. Appearing so publicly as a question mark was unacceptable.
And by taking Simone to Elements in October, by calling her by her first name across a regulatory panel in January, and by letting Simone stay the night at her house, she had called everything into question. Alexandra knew what the rules and expectations of her were. She had grown up hearing them repeated, if not in words then through actions. And now, after decades of following them studiously, she had broken several of them on purpose, and she couldn’t find it in herself to regret any of it.
Dorothy would have; she knew that. Dorothy would have read the article and understood, line by line, what exactly had happened and which acquaintances said what and to whom. She would have spent the next six hours in crisis management mode, assembling a version of the story that she could put together by the end of the day that would make people feel silly for even questioning her.
But Alexandra wasn’t going to call anyone, and she wasn’t going to do any damage control. The piece itself was as fair as Claire could report it. The central question—did Alexandra and Simone still have their shareholders’ best interests in mind or were they invested in their own private outcome—was valid, and Claire wouldn’t be the only one answering it. The chairman would ask, so would the institutional investors, some of them politely and some with lawyers on the line. The board would convene, and the deal she had been drafting last week had already answered the question, on merits, before the article had ever been written. Nothing really had changed, except the timeline for her to take action had been compressed with it being a public conversation.
Simone would have read the article on her phone in Maplewood, where her calendar showed her to be until eleven, which meant she could be back in Phoenix Ridge by one if she took the noon flight and earlier if she chartered. Alexandra knew that Simone would know the only viable solution: you removed yourself from the picture and protected what you loved by ceasing to be near it.
Alexandra leaned back against the back of her chair, a sinking feeling in her stomach as she knew exactly what Simone was going to do. She pulled the leather portfolio from her bag and set it on the desk. In the margin of the second page, written in pencil, was the inscription:Elements, private room,Thursday or Friday. She crossed outFridayand pressed the intercom.
“Helen?”
“Yes?”
“Call Elements and ask Rachel for the private dining room tonight from seven until eleven.”
