Page 64 of His Good Girl

“To reopen the bid,” Elise said.

“To hand it to Lang,” Dana corrected.

There it was, sitting plainly in the room now.

No one needed the entire history spoken aloud. The prior site the article was talking about had been messy and political. There had been a safety audit, then a second one. There had been protests for reasons only partly connected to the building. There had been a councilman looking for a microphone, a subcontractor with a discipline problem, and one structural question that had been answered in writing, stamped, reviewed, and closed. Nothing there justified this. Nothing there endangered Hartwell.

“What do we need to do?” I asked.

Tom spoke first. “Legal team is already preserving everything. We send notice to the newsletter and every outlet that repeats this language that it has no merit, no factual basis, all rights reserved. We don’t threaten suit unless they cross into something actionable.”

“I hate that phrase,” Dana complained.

“All rights reserved?”

“No, actionable. It’s lawyer speak for ‘we have to sit here while someone flicks lit matches at our curtains.’”

Benjamin nodded. “Vivid and correct.”

Elise tapped her pen once against the table. “Defensive posturing alone won’t be enough. We need our own fact sheet ready. Prior site, audits, approvals, independent review. Short, plain language. No twenty-page engineering sermon.”

I looked at Marcus.

He nodded. “I’ll speak with the mayor’s chief of staff before lunch. We tell them we’re aware of the rumor campaign, we take it seriously, and we’ll supply documentation. The mayor needs political cover to stay steady.”

“Do we name Lang?” Dana asked.

“No,” Marcus said.

“I hate that.”

“So do I,” he replied. “But if we come out swinging at Lang without proof, we look defensive. Worse, we elevate them.”

Benjamin lifted one finger. “What if I anonymously release a tasteful yet devastating poem?”

“No,” I said.

“A limerick?”

“No.”

“An acrostic that spells Lang Lies?”

“Benjamin.”

“Just testing the boundaries of institutional courage.”

Despite the room’s tension, Dana lips curved just slightly, but then immediately flattened. Then she looked back at me. “We can’t just sit up on the high road while they throw dirt at us.”

“No,” I responded. “We don’t sit. We stand there with floodlights.” I looked around the table. “We aggressively deny the implication without repeating it. We provide documentation before they ask for it. We put legal on every outlet. We give the mayor’s office facts, not emotion. We keep our project teamcalm. No one freelances. No one speculates. No one gives an off-the-record comment because they want to feel important for fifteen minutes.”

Benjamin’s gaze cut toward Marcus.

Marcus raised both hands. “Why is everyone looking at government relations?”

“Because your people treat journalists like houseplants,” Benjamin said. “You feed them too often and then act surprised when they grow toward the light.”

“Enough,” I interjected, though not as harshly as I could have. “Lang doesn’t need to prove we did anything wrong. They just need to introduce doubt.”