Page 65 of His Good Girl

“And if the mayor folds?” Elise asked.

“Then we fight.”

Tom looked at me. “Publicly or legally?”

“Yes.”

Benjamin murmured, “There he is.”

I ignored that too.

For the next twenty minutes, we built the response in pieces. Legal would draft notices and map exposure. Risk would compile the clean chronology of the prior site, with every inspection, approval, third-party review, and council communication in one place. Marcus would get in front of the mayor’s office and the two council members most likely to perform outrage for cameras. Dana would brief internal project leadership and make it clear that anyone caught gossiping intoa reporter’s lap would have a short meeting with her that would coincide with a swift kick in the ass out the door.

By the time we broke, the room had shifted from alarm to motion. They left in clusters, already making calls, arguing in lower voices, turning poison into process.

Benjamin closed the conference room door after the last person left and looked at me over his tablet. “Well.”

“That’s rarely a complete thought with you.”

“It was a respectful pause before I say something irritating.”

“Proceed.”

“You are very good at the building part.”

“I know.”

“You are less good at the public relations,” he continued. “Feelings. Optics. Narrative. The great swamp of human impression.”

“I’m aware.”

“Are you? Because your natural instinct when someone lies about you is to gather evidence, arrange it alphabetically, and wait for reality to experience shame.”

“That has worked for me in the past.”

“In courtrooms and engineering reviews. It won’t in politics.”

I leaned against the table. “What do you suggest?”

His eyes narrowed with focus. This was why I kept him close. Beneath the theatrics, Benjamin’s instincts were excellent andusually faster than mine in the places where mine were weakest. He was an effective counterpart.

“We need a clean statement by noon,” he said. “It needs to be boringly confident. We welcome questions. Safety and integrity are foundational. Prior concerns were fully reviewed and closed. Hartwell deserves facts, not anonymous speculation or insinuation. That sort of thing.”

“I hate it already.”

“Good. That means it sounds like PR.”

“What else?”

“Get a third-party engineer ready to speak if needed. Someone credible and aggressively unsexy.”

“Engineers are generally good at the aggressively unsexy.”

“I know. It’s your industry’s primary public offering.”

I gave him a look.

He continued, unmoved. “Also, you do not personally go on camera unless necessary.”