At that exact moment, as if she heard my thoughts, her gaze moves to mine and locks on. If I was a woman, I’d have blushed scarlet.
I don’t look away, though, and we study each other unsmilingly across the table. She observes me calmly, although I can see her pulse fluttering in her throat.
A fresh wave of hurt surges through me at the thought that she lied to me. I feel like an idiot. I was completely, one hundred percent myself that night, and I thought she was, too. I feel manipulated and scammed, the same way I felt when Huxley told me what Kristen was saying to people about me. Are all women this deceptive? Are there any genuine ones left in the world?
“And please help yourself to morning tea,” Dad says, finishing his welcome speech.
Everyone starts taking cakes and savories. I can’t bear the thought of eating anything, and it doesn’t surprise me when Maddie doesn’t either.
As I have a mouthful of coffee, Aurelia lifts the plate in front of her and offers it to Maddie. “Cupcake?” she asks.
I cough and nearly spray the coffee across the table, and Maddie turns scarlet. Oh yes. It’s definitely her.
“Caesar?”
My head snaps around. Everyone’s looking at me. “Sorry,” I say. “My mind was elsewhere.”
“I’ll answer that,” Marcus interjects smoothly, speaking to Tom, who must have asked me a question. “We want to start by saying we’re not prepared to transfer ownership of our core IP.”
Tom nods as if he expected that.
“Our system is fully patented and proprietary,” Marcus continues. “Any partnership would need strict licensing boundaries.”
“We don’t want to compromise system integrity,” my father adds. “Our model relies on controlled implementation. I’m sure you understand that.”
Tom nods. “Let me be clear. “We’re not here to take control. We’re here to build something bigger.”
“I don’t believe that,” I say.
The table falls quiet.
“Caesar,” Dad says.
But I’m not twelve anymore, and the days are gone when that one word of warning would make me stop in my tracks. “I’m sorry,” I continue, my frustration and anger spilling over, “but I’m not going to sit here and listen to a takeover plan being presented as a partnership.” I fiddle with my pen. “I’m tired of deception,” I say quietly. I don’t look at Tom when I say it.
Maddie is studying a statistics sheet in her folder. Her gaze flicks up to me briefly, then returns to the sheet.
Tom leans forward, hands clasped, and rests his lips on his fingers for a moment. Then he says, “I understand what this looks like, and why you’re hostile. You want us to put our cards on the table? Yes, of course we’d be interested in acquiring Ashford AgriTech. It’s the fastest-growing agriculturalcompany in New Zealand, and you’ve made impressive inroads internationally, too. But we know you don’t want to sell. That’s not why we’re here. We’re offering capital to accelerate growth. We want to help you expand internationally faster.”
I don’t believe him. But I’m conscious of my father and Marcus both glaring at me. When it comes to it, my opinion isn’t as important as what the rest of the board and our investors think. I could easily be outvoted, and because of that, Dad isn’t going to let me stay if I don’t listen to what the Rutherfords have to say.
Still, I’m not just going to roll over. “Two board seats shifts the balance,” I snap. “It’s out of the question.”
Dad opens his mouth, but Tom holds up a hand. “Let me make a suggestion,” he says. “Why don’t we let Brielle give her presentation, and you can see exactly what we’re suggesting?”
I don’t want to listen, but I don’t have a choice, so I give a short nod and lean back, simmering quietly as Brielle gets to her feet.
She’s brought her own laptop, and she plugs the projector lead in and then moves in front of the screen. I open the folder she gave me, and irritation surges again at the sight of a copy of her flashy slides.
She presses a button, and the first slide appears on the screen. “I’d like to introduce our AI system,” she says. “Verdant.” The word appears in the center of the screen and then glows green and blooms with flowers.
The next slide has the Ashford AgriTech and Rutherford Group logos on either side. When she presses a button, they move towards the center and cleverly merge into the shape of a sheep that emits a loud ‘baaa’.
Marcus and my father give a short laugh. Brielle grins. “Okay, that wasn’t exactly sophisticated. But the sentiment behind it was real. We have something to offer you, too.”
For five minutes, she runs through her slides, talking in buzzwords as she shows us professional photos of green fields and sparkling laboratories obviously enhanced with filters. By the end of it, I’m bored and resentful that she thinks we’ll be dazzled by her Canva animations.
She flicks to the last slide. “So the important thing to take away from this is that Verdant integrates satellite data, climate modelling, and on-farm inputs to optimize performance in real time.”
