The hurt on her face gets there before satisfaction does.
I drag a hand over my jaw. “That came out wrong.”
“Did it?”
The question is quiet enough to bruise.
I look at her hands. The right thumb worries at the edge of her nail. She is scared. Not of me. Of the thing already in motion.
“What did you write?” I ask.
“The true version I could prove.”
“That’s different from the truth?”
“Sometimes it’s the only part of the truth a lawyer lets you keep.”
I nearly smile.
Peyton sees it. Does not reward me for it.
“Does it include my family?” I ask.
She turns to me then. “Only where leaving them out would make the piece dishonest. I did not quote your mother. I did not quote your father. I did not write about anything private for texture.”
“But the farm is in it.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because the organization used the farm. If I leave that out, I protect the mechanism. If I write it wrong, I exploit you. I tried to do neither.”
I stare at the seat back in front of me.
I hate this.
I hate that she sounds right.
“The organization is going to come for you,” I say.
“I know.”
“And me.”
She turns.
“Not because you lied. Because you didn’t give them what they thought the access bought.”
Her mouth tightens. “I told them I would write my own piece.”
“You did. They heard profile. Brand story. Captain with a farm and a mother everyone can feel good about. Not a map of how they use him.”
She looks ahead.
“They will say you violated the spirit of the access, even if you never agreed to their version of it. Credentials. Legal. Jennifer saying you turned cooperation into an accusation. Ownership calling your editor. People asking when the reporter got too close to the subject.”
“And you?” she asks.
