Page 10 of The Prime-Time Experiment

Riley exhaled slowly. “I corrected repeatedly. I allowed the discussion to become unstructured. I—” She stopped. Because the conclusion was already clear. “I undermined the purpose of the segment.”

There it was, ordered into something manageable. Dee held her gaze, her expression refining into consideration rather than disagreement. Then she reached out, picked up Riley’s phone, and held it out again.

“Or” she said, “you just got more people in a completely different community talking about your work in twelve hours than you probably would have in the next twelve months.”

Riley didn’t take the phone. “That is not the kind of attention that leads to credible research engagement.”

“Isn’t it?”

Riley hesitated very briefly. Dee leaned forward slightly, her tone softening. She sounded no less certain, just more deliberate now.

“You’ve been trying to figure out what your work actually applies to,” she said. “Not exclusively in theory. In actual practice, Ri. You wanted to run an experiment.”

Riley didn’t respond, Dee knew her more than she seemed to know herself.

“You’ve been building frameworks,” Dee continued, “but you haven’t had a clean way to test them outside controlled environments.”

Riley’s focus shifted, just slightly.

“That,” Dee said, gesturing toward the phone, “is not controlled. It’s messy, inconsistent, and none of it is ideal—”

“Which compromises validity,” Riley said automatically.

“Or,” Dee cut in, “it gives you exactly what you’ve been missing.”

Riley stilled. Dee held her gaze now.

“Real behaviour,” she said. “Real adherence, real training drop-offs. Real people making decisions without perfect conditions. And Declan has the popularity to back your research purely through media attention and being a personal trainer, you wouldn’t require any funding.”

Riley’s attention moved back to the screen. The video, the comments, to the entire scale of it. “You didn’t ruin anything,” Dee said. “If anything, you just found your sample.”

Riley didn’t respond immediately, because the framework had already shifted.

“I think Declan would be happy to turn this into something long-term, too.”

Riley’s focus stalled. “Based on what evidence?” she asked.

Dee gave her a look. “Based on the fact that people like Declan don’t let this kind of attention sit there unused. If he’s getting media attention this large from a video he didn’t even post, he’s going to want to use this momentum to get money himself.”

Riley’s gaze returned to the screen. Declan Montgomery. He was an asshole, but he had the platform and influence to push her from a theoretical cognitive psychologist to a groundbreaking scientific name. The framework began assembling again, faster this time, less conjectural. The variables were uncontrolled, she knew that. The data would be inconsistent in comparison to her theory. But the behaviour? Observable at scale. Her gaze remained on the screen.

“This would require parameters,” she said. “Defined conditions. Measurable outcomes. Him to behave professionally,” she added, glancing toward Dee briefly. “Which, based on current evidence, does not appear to be a skillset he possesses.”

Dee smiled slightly. “Then I guess it’s a good thing you like negotiating those.”

Riley did not respond, because the conclusion was no longer forming in isolation. It was already in motion.

Chapter 3

Defining Parameters

Riley

The room was designed to feel neutral. Glass walls, muted neutral tones. A table large enough to establish distance without making the distance itself obvious. Even the lighting had been considered carefully; bright enough to maintain alertness, soft enough to prevent strain. Minimal external noise. Minimal visual clutter. Everything about the space suggested intentional regulation, engineered to facilitate agreement without distraction.

It worked, which made the disruption inside the room easier for Riley to isolate.

She placed her folder neatly on the table before sitting, adjusting its alignment once against the edge. Across from her, two members of Declan’s team were already seated. One legal, one operational, if she had to infer based on presentation alone. Both organised and prepared, with clearly tabbed documents, polished briefcase and a refined posture. They looked comfortable in this environment in the way people did when negotiation had become routine rather than consequential.