Chapter Six #2
I rise, my heart racing, and walk around the table. “Oh God,” she’s saying, “I can’t believe I did that. I was going for smooth and suave, but I don’t think my brain got the memo.”
It’s definitely her. I lower down, take the pot out of her hands, and put it down, saying, “Don’t worry, I’ll get someone to clean it up.”
She looks up, right into my eyes, and I have a startling revelation. Her expression contains no surprise, only wariness.
Does she recognize me? It’s hard to tell, but as I continue to stare at her, her pale cheeks slowly flush. I don’t think she’s shocked to see me. She knew I’d be here.
That means when we met at the ball she must have known my real identity.
Hurt and anger surge through me. Why did she lie to me?
Did she go to the ball with the intention of tracking me down and seducing me?
For what reason? To soften me up before her grandfather swept in with his offer?
What’s the plan? To blackmail me by saying she’ll reveal our one-night stand unless I agree to the partnership?
I open my mouth to ask what’s going on, but to my surprise she gives a small shake of her head.
She doesn’t want me to say anything. Who the fuck does she think she is?
Resentment almost makes me blurt out an accusation anyway…
but as I look into her eyes, the memories of that night are strong enough to make me close my mouth and rise to my feet.
I hold out a hand to her, and she slides hers into it and rises.
“Jeez, Maddie,” Brielle says. “You’ve only been in the room for five seconds.”
“A personal record,” Maddie jokes. She looks down at where my fingers are curled around hers, then withdraws her hand.
My father chuckles and says, “Don’t worry about it. It’s good to know the Rutherfords are human too,” and Tom grins.
I’m not so sure he’s wholly human. He’s at least part Rottweiler.
I open the glass door and call out to Imogen, one of our PAs, who’s passing by. “Immi, would you mind finding a dustpan and brush? We’ve had a slight spillage.”
“No worries,” she says, and goes off to the stationery cupboard.
She’s back almost immediately with the items, and Maddie says, “Thank you,” and holds out her hand for them.
“It’s okay, I’ll do it,” Immi says. “You carry on with your meeting.” She lowers down and quickly begins brushing up the loose soil.
“I’m so sorry,” Maddie says to her, sitting next to her sister. “You might want to leave the dustpan afterward. It’s quite likely I’ll spill something else before the meeting’s over.”
Immi laughs. I thank her and walk around the table to take my seat, which happens to be opposite Maddie’s. As I sit, I glance over at her. She meets my gaze evenly, then drops hers to the folder in front of her.
“Okay,” Dad says, “well now we’ve had the entertainment…” He smiles warmly at Maddie. “Let me start by saying thank you for coming for this exploratory meeting. I’m hoping we can all approach what comes out of today with open minds.” He looks pointedly at me.
I look down at my own folder. He knows how much I dislike Tom, and he agreed to meet with him anyway. My father isn’t my favorite person right now.
As he gives a short introductory speech about the future of farming, without moving my head I lift my gaze to Maddie. She’s looking at Dad, and it gives me a moment to study her profile.
No wonder she wore a disguise on the night of the ball.
Her hair is incredibly distinctive, especially when matched with her white eyebrows.
She must have either dyed them or covered them with makeup at the ball.
The same with her eyelashes, which were probably false.
The albinism explains why her lips were so pale beneath her bright-pink lipstick. And also why she had such pale nipples.
At that exact moment, as if she heard my thoughts, her gaze moves to mine and locks on. If I was a woman, I’d have blushed scarlet.
I don’t look away, though, and we study each other unsmilingly across the table. She observes me calmly, although I can see her pulse fluttering in her throat.
A fresh wave of hurt surges through me at the thought that she lied to me.
I feel like an idiot. I was completely, one hundred percent myself that night, and I thought she was, too.
I feel manipulated and scammed, the same way I felt when Huxley told me what Kristen was saying to people about me.
Are all women this deceptive? Are there any genuine ones left in the world?
“And please help yourself to morning tea,” Dad says, finishing his welcome speech.
Everyone starts taking cakes and savories. I can’t bear the thought of eating anything, and it doesn’t surprise me when Maddie doesn’t either.
As I have a mouthful of coffee, Aurelia lifts the plate in front of her and offers it to Maddie. “Cupcake?” she asks.
I cough and nearly spray the coffee across the table, and Maddie turns scarlet. Oh yes. It’s definitely her.
“Caesar?”
My head snaps around. Everyone’s looking at me. “Sorry,” I say. “My mind was elsewhere.”
“I’ll answer that,” Marcus interjects smoothly, speaking to Tom, who must have asked me a question. “We want to start by saying we’re not prepared to transfer ownership of our core IP.”
Tom nods as if he expected that.
“Our system is fully patented and proprietary,” Marcus continues. “Any partnership would need strict licensing boundaries.”
“We don’t want to compromise system integrity,” my father adds. “Our model relies on controlled implementation. I’m sure you understand that.”
Tom nods. “Let me be clear. “We’re not here to take control. We’re here to build something bigger.”
“I don’t believe that,” I say.
The table falls quiet.
“Caesar,” Dad says.
But I’m not twelve anymore, and the days are gone when that one word of warning would make me stop in my tracks.
“I’m sorry,” I continue, my frustration and anger spilling over, “but I’m not going to sit here and listen to a takeover plan being presented as a partnership.
” I fiddle with my pen. “I’m tired of deception,” I say quietly. I don’t look at Tom when I say it.
Maddie is studying a statistics sheet in her folder. Her gaze flicks up to me briefly, then returns to the sheet.
Tom leans forward, hands clasped, and rests his lips on his fingers for a moment.
Then he says, “I understand what this looks like, and why you’re hostile.
You want us to put our cards on the table?
Yes, of course we’d be interested in acquiring Ashford AgriTech.
It’s the fastest-growing agricultural company in New Zealand, and you’ve made impressive inroads internationally, too.
But we know you don’t want to sell. That’s not why we’re here.
We’re offering capital to accelerate growth.
We want to help you expand internationally faster. ”
I don’t believe him. But I’m conscious of my father and Marcus both glaring at me.
When it comes to it, my opinion isn’t as important as what the rest of the board and our investors think.
I could easily be outvoted, and because of that, Dad isn’t going to let me stay if I don’t listen to what the Rutherfords have to say.
Still, I’m not just going to roll over. “Two board seats shifts the balance,” I snap. “It’s out of the question.”
Dad opens his mouth, but Tom holds up a hand. “Let me make a suggestion,” he says. “Why don’t we let Brielle give her presentation, and you can see exactly what we’re suggesting?”
I don’t want to listen, but I don’t have a choice, so I give a short nod and lean back, simmering quietly as Brielle gets to her feet.
She’s brought her own laptop, and she plugs the projector lead in and then moves in front of the screen. I open the folder she gave me, and irritation surges again at the sight of a copy of her flashy slides.
She presses a button, and the first slide appears on the screen. “I’d like to introduce our AI system,” she says. “Verdant.” The word appears in the center of the screen and then glows green and blooms with flowers.
The next slide has the Ashford AgriTech and Rutherford Group logos on either side. When she presses a button, they move towards the center and cleverly merge into the shape of a sheep that emits a loud ‘baaa’.
Marcus and my father give a short laugh. Brielle grins. “Okay, that wasn’t exactly sophisticated. But the sentiment behind it was real. We have something to offer you, too.”
For five minutes, she runs through her slides, talking in buzzwords as she shows us professional photos of green fields and sparkling laboratories obviously enhanced with filters. By the end of it, I’m bored and resentful that she thinks we’ll be dazzled by her Canva animations.
She flicks to the last slide. “So the important thing to take away from this is that Verdant integrates satellite data, climate modelling, and on-farm inputs to optimize performance in real time.”
Marcus frowns. My father shifts in his seat. I know what they’re thinking, but they’re hesitant to voice their objections.
Well, I’m happy to play the bad cop in this situation. “Optimize how?” I ask.
Brielle pauses, then smiles. “By identifying patterns across—”
“Patterns aren’t outcomes,” I state. “You’re describing a layer that sits above operational systems. Which means you’d be making decisions based on data we generate.”
I look at Tom, whose face is expressionless. Then I look at Maddie. She hasn’t said anything yet. Why is she here?
“Perhaps we should let Brielle finish her presentation,” Aurelia says in her best ‘shut the fuck up, brother,’ voice.
I ignore her. “You’re saying your platform becomes the decision-making layer, and our system feeds into it. You’re asking us to plug our system into something we don’t control, using data we’ve spent years developing.”
Dad massages the bridge of his nose. “To be fair, Caesar has a point.”
“It sounds impressive,” I tell Brielle. “I’m just not clear what it actually does that isn’t already being done. We’d be giving you control over Ashford’s core asset—its data infrastructure. Why would we do that?”
Tom runs his tongue across his top teeth. The conversation is slipping away from him, and he knows it.
To my surprise, he glances at Maddie. She leans forward, resting her forearms on the table. “Let me tell you a story,” she says softly. She puts a hand over her heart. “And then maybe you’ll see that we’re not trying to deceive you, Caesar. I swear.”