All Chapters of Once Bitten, Twice Shy: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

For the first time in months, the first thing I thought about when I woke up was toast.Not Gideon. Not Harold. Not a wire slip or a folder or a face on a courtroom screen. Toast, and whether we were out of butter.I lay still and listened to the quiet in my apartment. The light through the curtain was plain and yellow. No knot in my chest. No list of what I had to prove.My phone buzzed on the nightstand.*Nathaniel: Did you sleep?**Me: I did.**Nathaniel: Did you check the door?*I looked at the bedroom door, which stood open, as it always did now. I smiled at the ceiling.*Me: I forgot.**Nathaniel: Good. Eat something. See you at eight.*I put the phone down and got up. I was going to have a good day. I decided it the way you decide on a coat. By nine thirty, the day had a different opinion."Postponed," Priya Nair said. She stood at the head of the conference table with a tablet pressed to her chest. "Five client meetings, all this week. Every one of them said the same thing. S

"Take the money," Calvin Reeve said. "Nine digits, Elise. We'd be debt-free by Monday."He said it across the boardroom table with his palms open, like a man offering a gift. Six directors sat around us. The black folder lay in the center, still open to page one."And Northstar owns Lakeside by Tuesday," Foster said."A fair trade.""A first step." Foster tapped the table. "I've watched companies like Northstar. They buy the best piece, then the second best. Four years later, the founder's name is on a plaque in their lobby.""That's a guess.""It's a pattern."Ingrid Solberg, who ran my audit committee, turned to me. "What do you think?"Every head swung my way.I had spent the night with the folder. I read it at my kitchen table with a pot of tea going cold. Nathaniel sat across from me and said almost nothing. At three in the morning, I put the pages down."I won't decide on pride," I said. "I won't decide on fear, either. Those two have run this company into the ground before.""T

"I can't promise that," I told Rosa Delgado. "Anyone who does is lying to you."I had said the same thing on the phone the night before. She had hung up without a word. At six that morning, a text had arrived: *Come anyway.*So I drove two hours north and found her at the gate of a low gray plant, in steel-toed boots and a canvas jacket, her braid tucked under a hard hat. She didn't offer her hand. She looked at me the way a mechanic looks at an engine that might knock."Then why did you drive up here?" she asked."Because you'd want the truth more than a promise.""Hm." She turned and walked inside. "Come on."Two people waited in her office, drinking coffee from mismatched mugs. A thin man in a flannel shirt introduced himself as Joon Park, of Park Packaging. A round-faced woman in glasses was Bea Lindgren, who made foam inserts for shipping crates."I called them last night," Rosa said. "I figured if we're going to talk, we should all be in the room.""Good," I said. "Tell me what

"Tell me I can sue them," I said.Milo's voice came through my office speaker, flat and tired. "I can tell you I'd lose.""They wanted every customer list from every business in the network.""They asked for it. Asking is legal." I heard papers shuffle. "Elise, I know that's not what you want to hear. Tessa Morgan told you about one failed negotiation. No contract, no email, no witness besides her. A regulator would laugh me out of the room.""It's a pattern.""It's a story. Patterns need documents."I pressed my fingers against my temple. Across the room, Nathaniel sat at the long table with his arms folded. He didn't speak. He had learned when to leave a silence alone."So I can't prove anything," I said."Not yet. And maybe not ever. Aggressive isn't the same as illegal." Milo's tone softened. "If you build your response around an accusation you can't back up, you'll look like the grieving heiress with a grudge. Northstar would love that headline."I closed my eyes. I could see it

"It's legal," Milo said. "That's the problem."He sat at my father's desk with Renata Cole beside him, a contracts specialist from his firm who had read every page of Northstar's forty-one before dawn. She had a pen behind each ear and a coffee in each hand."Section nine is broad," Renata said. "It gives Northstar wide discretion over your access. Ten days' notice, no required reason.""Can they really shut me out?""They can try. Whether it works depends on the surrounding terms." She flipped to a tabbed page. "There's a dispute clause in section twelve, and a notice rule in fourteen. In some states, a court might limit how a company uses a clause like that. In others, it wouldn't.""So you can't say yes or no.""I can say it exposes you. If the relationship went bad, your network could be stranded." She capped her pen. "It isn't proof of anything wrong. It's an unusually one-sided deal."Nathaniel, by the window, spoke without turning. "A deal that looks like a partnership and work