Chapter 12 — The Woman Beside Him
The first image on the presentation screen showed Kit and Saskia leaving a restaurant two years earlier.
The photograph had been taken after a campaign dinner in Milan. Tom, three buyers and the photographer were cropped out. Saskia’s hand appeared at the back of Kit’s coat because she had stepped around a waiter carrying glassware. The caption called them Harcourt main profile remains executive/creative.
The craft feature never ran.
Another email warned that Saskia and Kit leaving the same hotel could prompt relationship speculation. His office answered that separate cars would delay the airport departure. Use the photograph if the caption states conference delegation.
The published caption omitted the delegation.
Kit had noticed it at breakfast and decided correction would increase circulation. He had not shown it to Ottilie. When she asked why strangers were commenting beneath her studio account, he told her tabloids invented closeness whenever a man and woman worked together.
The statement was true in general and false as an account of what he had permitted.
“Were any personal rumours deliberately planted?” the independent director asked.
“Not to my knowledge.”
“Were they deliberately left uncorrected?”
Kit read the hotel email again. “Yes.”
The director asked communications to preserve engagement reports showing whether romantic speculation affected reach.
Kit wanted to say the analysis demeaned an ordinary professional partnership.
The partnership had already been sold through that implication.
Refusing to measure it now would protect only his preferred description.
“Yes,” he said. “I was aware that their working partnership was being used as part of the brand narrative.”
“Did Mrs Harcourt approve?”
“No.”
Saskia leant back in her chair. “Ottilie knew we attended events together.”
“She knew the events. She didn’t see every crop or caption before publication.”
The communications director closed the presentation. “If we release a denial now, it may look like a response to marital proceedings rather than a brand correction.”
Kit’s instinct assembled a timetable. Review every image. Remove misleading captions. Issue a factual statement. Send Ottilie the archive of changes as proof.
The last step broke against Felicity Marr’s contact notice. He had no right to turn correction into a personal report she had to receive.
“Preserve the original publications for disclosure,” he said. “Stop reusing photographs cropped to imply a private relationship. Future biographies describe roles only.”
“And the public denial?”
Kit looked at the screen, now black. “Not until counsel advises it can be issued without prejudicing the authorship proceedings.”
The answer protected litigation. It also left the ambiguity in place.
Saskia recognised that. A small, tired smile touched her mouth.
The meeting ended with the independent directors taking the communications archive for review.
Kit remained behind to sign the decision log.
Each page required him to identify his authority and conflicts before approval.
A month ago, the repetition would have felt insulting.
Now it documented how much the company had previously accepted because his signature made questions inconvenient.
Saskia waited by the door after her counsel left to make a call.
“I need five minutes,” she said.
“With your solicitor present.”
“He will turn it into employment evidence.”
“It is employment evidence.”
She closed the door but stayed beside it, visible through the glass wall. “You know I didn’t invent the access.”
“I authorised access. You claimed authorship.”
“I claimed direction. The registration field became authorship after Ottilie challenged it.”
“You told Mina the work came from your family memory.”
For the first time, Saskia looked away. “Press wanted a story before the show. The archive theme was approved.”
“Your family was not in that archive.”
“Neither was the public meant to inspect the distinction.”
The frankness arrived too late to be useful and too early to be remorse.
Saskia came towards the table. “Harcourt still needs a creative lead. The undisputed collection needs a face. If we appear separately now, the market sees a chief executive hiding and a creative director being sacrificed.”
“You will not appear for the company while suspended.”
“Then lift it.”
“No.”
She stopped across from him. “You are trying to save your marriage by making me disposable.”
Kit closed the decision file. “My marriage is not yours to bargain with.”
“It became part of the campaign because you let it. Every profile said Ottilie was private and I was the person beside you building the future. You never corrected them until the word affair became dangerous.”
“There was no affair.”
“I know.”
Saskia placed her hand flat on the table between them. Not on his. The distance was deliberate enough to show she understood where the line ran.
“The public doesn’t need an affair,” she said. “It needs an image. They already have one.”
“And you used it.”
“So did you. It made the house modern. It made buyers believe creative leadership was aligned.”
The word aligned had appeared in the acquisition deck beside a photograph of them leaving the Milan dinner. Kit had approved that deck too.
Saskia’s expression softened, though nothing in her eyes did. “We could steady this. One interview. You say the rights dispute is technical and I remain creative director. I say you acted consistently to protect the house. Nobody has to discuss what your wife did or didn’t sign until settlement.”
“Ottilie’s innocence is not a technical delay.”
“Then why is your statement still online?”
Kit had no answer that didn’t repeat the buyer, the factory and the board review. All were consequences. None altered what the page called his wife.
Saskia moved around the table until only one chair separated them. “There is a version of this where you and I stop apologising for the image and use it. The company survives. Your marriage is already in legal channels.”
“Step back.”
She did, immediately. Her face became unreadable.
“There has never been a private relationship between us,” Kit said. “There will not be one. You do not come into this office without counsel again, and you do not use speculation about my marriage in company strategy.”
“But you will not deny it publicly.”
“Not while counsel says the statement could affect the proceedings.”
“Of course.”
Her solicitor returned. Saskia opened the door before he reached it.
At the threshold, she looked back at Kit.
“You already chose me in public,” she said. “The rest is only wording.”
After she left, Kit reviewed the old caption approvals. Six had reached his office. He had corrected product names, investor titles and the spelling of a hotel. He had never asked why Ottilie disappeared from the frame.
The omission had been useful before it became scandalous. That was why a denial now could not make his silence neutral.