Page 82 of Gifted & Talented

When their father’s legacy crumbled in Eilidh’s hands, under the leadership of Meredith’s little sister, whom everyone liked because they had no reason to hate her, how would Meredith feel then? It would all be Eilidh’s fault, Eilidh’s doing.

Suddenly, Meredith felt a surety that she could not,wouldnot, go down without a fight.

“Magitekis a niche industry magazine with limited subscribers,” Meredith reminded herself. “Nobody pays attention to it, at least not in any significant way.” Even if the article went viral, so few people would know what to make of the accusations therein that the damage would fade, like all trends faded. Cass nodded, so Meredith knew her reasoning was sound. It would be bad for a few weeks, fine, but then everyone would move on. It wasn’t the same as an investigation by theTimesor thePost. “I’ll get a lawyer,” she said. “And I’ll hire a third-party PR manager. Not someone who represents Birdsong or Chirp.”

“Good idea,” Cass said.

“And at Dad’s funeral… I should look devastated, right? A total wreck.”

“Might be meme fodder,” said Cass blandly.

True. Meredith shuddered to think what they might do with her face if they could control it. If she looked vulnerable, if she looked sad, how would people puppet her, how might they put words in her mouth? “Private, then. Really private. We’ll get someone to be an insider source or something, some anonymous voice.” Probably Ryan, that lawyering son of a bitch. He’d take the payday in a second.

She turned to Cass then, realizing something. “Are you going to leave me?”

Cass looked blankly at her.

“I’m a stain on your reputation,” she said. “At least until all of this goes away.”

Cass said nothing.

“You haven’t even asked me why,” Meredith realized with a bitter laugh.

“I don’t have to.” His voice was characteristically calm, the way it always was. “Everyone fakes it until they make it. Your data was always too perfect, it skewed impossible right from the start, but what you created is profitable. It made us a lot of money. We recouped our investment the moment you said yes to the partnership with Demeter.”Corporate sleaze,said Jamie in her head.Jesus, Meredith, you sold out, it’s all over you.“Mer, by any corporate measure you’ve already succeeded. The job is high risk, and there are always losses. All things considered, yours isn’t that bad. Assuming you don’t go to prison for fraud.”

“Ha,” said Meredith, dully.

“You won’t,” Cass assured her. “A good lawyer will make a good deal. You get what you pay for when it comes to defense attorneys, but you’ve got the money, especially now. Tyche will make sure the article gets enough holes poked in it that nobody takes it seriously, you’ll do what you can, theneventually this will all go away and you’ll rebrand and move on to your next idea. That’s what geniuses in this industry do. It’s what Kip did, it’s what Thayer did, and it’s what you’ll do.” He sounded emphatic, devoutly capitalist, like reciting a childhood prayer by heart.

“Cass,” said Meredith, “I invented a way for Tyche to make more money off people who just wanted to be happy. I not only said yes, I manipulated the data to make sure it would happen.”

“You invented a product that sold for a lot of money because everyone could see the value in its success,” Cass corrected, or maybe paraphrased. “I don’t need to ask why you said yes, Mer, because I make my living in this industry too. Philanthropy for the sake of philanthropy doesn’t pay the bills. It’s about compromise—getting to do a little more of what you want each time you play the game correctly. You think corporate operations is what I dreamed about doing as a little boy?”

Meredith hadn’t the faintest clue what Cass dreamed about. She had never considered the possibility that once upon a time, he had been innocent or young. “You still want to marry me? I’m telling you explicitly that I’m a criminal.”

“Mer, listen to me when I tell you this,” said Cass. “I already knew you were lying about something. Whether or not that’s a crime depends on you.”

Meredith wanted to laugh or something, maybe throw up.

“I’m going to spend my life with a man who loves me because I’m a bad person,” she informed the air. “And Dad, you said it couldn’t be done!”

“Look, maybe you need a minute to yourself.” Cass rose to his feet, wiping his hands on the tops of his thighs like there was grime on them, probably her corporate sleaze. “And by the way, I don’t love you because you’re a bad person. I love you, and you’re a person. If I were in your position I’d have done the same thing. It’s not easy, and not everybody gets it. You climb every step of this tower and then you lock yourself inside—because this is it, Meredith. This is the top, and there’s no other way to make it. It might be lonely once you get here, but nobody chooses it for the company. They choose it for the view.”

He leaned forward and gripped the back of her head with one strong hand, pulling her forward to press his lips to her hair. “Meredith Wren, you’re a fucking genius,” he said. “You don’t have to be anything else.”

Like a good person or a fair person or a person that Jamie Ammar could possibly love.

She nodded and didn’t say anything. Cass grabbed a pair of navy joggers, some socks, and she watched him until something occurred to her.

“Do you know what Wrenfare was working on?” she asked, and Cass looked up with a blankness, bemusement. “The talk of lawsuits, the bad investment rumors,” she explained, and he nodded with delayed recognition. “I never wanted to look into the details of my father’s work before, but…”

She trailed off, and the look Cass gave her was more pitying than she expected.

“As far as anyone at Tyche can say, a lot of what seemed to be killing Wrenfare was the culture—I can’t comment on that, I wouldn’t know how true those rumors were. But on the product side there were just too many big ideas, a lack of corporate focus. Expensive stuff, you know, space race, deep sea shit, VR. And there was also—” He stopped.

“What?”

Cass shook himself. “A neuromantic chip,” he said. “That was one of the things they were rumored to be working on.”

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