Page 113 of The Friend Zone Experiment

“She’s been busy,” said Su Khoon quickly. “Got a launch for Virtu coming up.”

“That’s next year,” said Renee. Her tone was light, but the reference to Virtu at Home smarted. She hadn’t found an alternative supplier yet. “Next year” was optimistic.

Well, she’d have all the time in the world to devote to putting Virtu in order, after this.

“Did you, uh, did you have anything to add?” said Su Khoon. He nodded at the slides.

He was evidently in some suspense about how and when she was going to introduce the fact he’d been having her followed. In his place, Renee might have tried to get ahead of the revelation, announced it herself. That way, Su Khoon could frame it in a favourable light. After all, he could always fall back on claiming he was worried about Renee, had hired a guy to follow her around London with a camera for her own safety.

But of course, that wasn’t the only secret Renee was keeping for him. Maybe he was wary of trying her patience too far.

Though in that case, he really should have resisted the temptation to do a solo presentation effectively taking the credit for the deal they had won together. Careers had been ruined for lesser offences.

Part of Renee was enjoying his nervousness, not least because it was a distraction from her own trepidation. Dad was not going to be happy about her news.

Oh well. No point in putting it off.

“I do, actually,” said Renee. She turned to her father. “I’m afraid the deal’s off. Freshview’s going with someone else, a British player. Er Ge should be getting the email soon. It’s an easy choice for them to justify. They’ll say we don’t have the local contacts. That was always the weakness of our pitch.”

The two men stared at her.

“What are you talking about?” said Su Khoon.

Dad looked from him to Renee. “I thought you all were working together?”

“We were,” said Su Khoon, correcting himself: “I thought we were.Iwas being collaborative.”

“Oh yes,” said Renee. “You’ve been paying very close attention to my business.”

Su Khoon went red.

Dad said, “Then?”

Renee uncrossed her arms, clasping her hands and resting them on the table.

“Around the time we were pitching Freshview, I received some concerning intelligence about the company,” she said. “I hired some people to look into it, and I talked to contacts at Freshview. The group has a chequered history in Malaysia. They’re the subject of a lawsuit accusing them of illicit logging in Sarawak, and there are rumours they were involved in the disappearance of an activist in KL some years back. In my view, they’re not a company Chahaya should be doing business with.”

She reached over to her bag on the chair next to her, pulled out a plastic folder, and slid it across the table to her father. He picked it up gingerly, as though it might bite him.

“I printed off some documents, in case you want to look through them,” she said. “I can email the materials to you, Er Ge.”

“What the hell?” said Su Khoon, his voice rising. “Dad, I don’t know what this is all about. This is the first I’ve heard of any of this.” He turned to Renee. “What’s wrong with you? You told me you wanted to work together. Now you’re trying to blow up the deal? Because, what, Andrew Yeoh rubbed your knee at lunch?”

“What did Andrew Yeoh do?” said Dad, looking up from the folder.

“That’s a separate issue,” said Renee. “Andrew Yeoh has a record of sexually harassing his staff. Turns out there have been quite a few complaints by Freshview employees.”

“That’s what you were getting so cosy with Hazlina about,” said Su Khoon, his lip curling. “I suppose you encouraged her to report Andrew. So long as you get your revenge, you don’t care what happens. What’s Lin going to do if she gets pushed out of the company? Did you bother to ask yourself that?”

“Funny you should mention it,” said Renee. “Lin’s decided to leave Freshview. She’s going to be joining Virtu as our new business affairs manager. I’ve been feeling the need for someone who can take on the strategic side of the business, free me up so I can focus more on the creative side. It’s a new direction for Lin, but I think her skillset’s a good fit for us.

“Anyway,” she went on, having struck Su Khoon speechless, “the sexual harassment allegations are a problem for Freshview’s HR department, not us. It’s theGuardianexposé you should be worried about.”

That got Dad’s attention. “What exposé?”

“Do you know theGuardian,Dad?” said Renee. “It’s one of the big UK newspapers. They’re planning to publish an article on corruption in Sarawak. Freshview features heavily.”

Dad was frowning. “How do you know that?”

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