Page 42 of When Ice Queens Collide
“Has she been working with Simone?”
“No. She’s had no direct contact with Rousseau Global. No documents ever left the building, and there was no money trail. I checked three times.”
Alexandra was quiet. She had been certain that whoever it was had been bought. It had been a comforting sentence—an opponent with a price had a strategy, and a strategy could beunderstood then countered. But Vivian hadn’t been bought. It had to be something else.
Through the wall, she heard a phone ring then get picked up before the second trill could finish. Someone laughed once, a short, unnatural sound to Alexandra’s ears, and then a drawer closed.
“My working theory,” Ruth said, “is that she’s been shaping what the board sees and hears since last spring. She hasn’t been lying, exactly, just being selective about who sees what. The members who wavered in November weren’t surprised by what they heard in the presentation because they had been reading versions of it for months.”
Alexandra nodded. “What are our options?”
“Internally, we can fire her for cause and pursue a civil case. Externally, though, you’ll want to think about how much becomes public and when it surfaces. The board needs to know, but I want a day to consider the SEC disclosure. Dealing with the press is your call.”
“What does the timeline look like?”
“I can have the full file to you by one. About the conversation with her, I’d suggest tomorrow but you could choose today if you want it.”
Tomorrow was the sensible answer. It would give her the rest of the day to pore over the file, to think, and to walk into the conversation as prepared as she could be. It would also mean spending another day under the same roof as Vivian, and Alexandra knew she wouldn't last.
“Today,” Alexandra decided. “In the small conference room, not my office, at two o’clock. Just us two and Vivian.”
“Understood.”
“I’ll send her a note from my line to discuss a routine matter, fifteen minutes.” Alexandra stood and walked through the door, closing it softly behind her.
Helen was sitting at her desk and glanced up as she passed. Alexandra returned the small professional smile and was grateful she had maintained composure. Walking back down the hallway, she let herself think about the September presentation. Vivian had stood at the head of the conference table in a blue blouse, presenting the sustainability initiative with easy command. Afterward, Vivian had walked out alongside Meg, and the two of them had laughed about something at the threshold. Alexandra had watched them go and was pleased.
Alexandra had chosen Vivian because she was excellent at the work. It was the standard her mother had used to build the company and what Alexandra had inherited without ever questioning whether or not it was the right metric to use. Excellence was measurable, though. Loyalty wasn’t.
Alexandra reached her own door, and Helen looked up at her again.
“Hold my morning,” Alexandra said. “I’ll need the small conference room at two for an off-the-books meeting.”
“Done.”
Alexandra stepped inside her office and closed the door behind her. It felt strange that everything was the same as she had left it an hour ago. The chair, the desk, the stack of papers waiting for her—all of it was unchanged. Whathadchanged, though, was the unsettling feeling that she could no longer say with certainty who else inside this building knew or had helped Vivian or had simply looked the other way.
Alexandra worked at her desk through the morning. She answered messages, approved the supplier renewals Helen had stacked in her queue, and made two short calls about the Sustainability Summit follow-up, giving answers without remembering, afterward, what either call had been about specifically. Her competence was running on autopilot.
At one o’clock, the file arrived. Helen brought it in herself rather than buzzing it through. She set the bound folder on Alexandra’s desk and stood for half a second longer than she needed to.
“There’s a sandwich on the credenza,” Helen said. “Whenever you have a minute.”
“Thank you,” she said, even though she hadn’t noticed it before.
Helen closed the door behind her, leaving Alexandra alone with the file. She looked once at the sandwich, then returned her focus back to her desk, opening the folder.
Ruth had organized the file by importance: the most damning material first, procedural matter second, and the legal recommendations third. Alexandra read each page quickly but thoroughly, committing specifics to memory.
Five board members had received the alternate projections through the working-group channel. Their names were on page three, and as Alexandra went down the list, she felt a chasm opening in her sternum. She knew all the names; she had worked alongside them through proxy fights and fundraising rounds. They believed in her—Alexandra knew that—but they had wavered because of the information they’d been given. Anyone would have, and she couldn’t blame them.
She flipped the page and kept reading. The timeline on page seven told her what she had not let herself imagine in Ruth’s office. It hadn’t been one project, one slip, or one bad decision that compounded. It had been four separate operations. Four discrete six-week campaigns, each timed to a board meeting, each professionally executed. It was clear: Vivian hadn’t simply stumbled into this. She had built it, document by document, and Alexandra knew Vivian would have run the same playbook a fifth time in March if Ruth hadn't found the trail.
By a quarter to two, Alexandra had read the file twice. She closed it, straightening the papers, then stood. When she got to the conference room, Ruth was already there. She had set out water glasses for three and had drawn the blinds against the harbor light. The room was small enough that the table filled most of it, and that’s precisely why she had chosen it. There wasn’t any room to hide or perform.
Alexandra took the chair beside Ruth, the one facing the door. She placed the closed file on the table in front of her and squared its edges against the table out of habit. Ruth said nothing. They had agreed, years ago, that silence between them didn’t need to be filled. The clock moved to one-fifty-seven.
Vivian arrived at two exactly. She had taken the time, Alexandra had noticed, to put on the navy suit she wore for board appearances. Her hair was up in a chignon, and she carried a leather portfolio. She opened the door with practiced confidence, and Alexandra studied her face as Vivian looked around the small space.
