“No. That’s fine.” She seemed to curl up into a ball then, as he had found her at the desk.
“Olive,” he said, his tone terse now. “What is going on?”
“You’re the one that knows everything. Why don’t you tell me? Why don’t you tell me everything? Including how you plan to ruin me.”
“Oh. It is very simple. I want Ambient to become a subsidiary of Magnum.”
Because one thing was clear, even as part of him wanted to protect her. There was only one true punishment for this transgression.
“You want to buy me out?”
“Yes.”
“I feel like that violates multiple antitrust laws, Gunnar. And there’s no way that you’re going to be allowed to do that.”
“I disagree. There are other major tech corporations.”
“Any as big as ours?”
“As big as yours. And anyway, my company has other facets to it.”
“Why would I agree to that?”
“Because the alternative is prison. You will find.”
“Really. You would really have me arrested?”
“Think about it. Do you think that your father would really have had my father arrested?”
“Well. You know he would have.”
“And do you think that I should spare you because you are a woman? Is that how this is going to go?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’m a girl. You can’t send a girl to prison.”
“Last I checked, they had prisons for girls.”
Olive huffed, the sound practically a hiss. “That is incredibly unkind.”
He could see she did not truly believe he would do it.
“Was it unkind of you to go about snooping into my affairs when you should not? And then... Seducing me?”
“Seducing you,” she said. “Ha! Seducing you. Last I checked, I wasn’t the one with the entire online forums dedicated to my sexual prowess, Gunnar. So I would assume, that if anyone had done the seducing...”
“Was I the one that took my shirt off in the middle of my living room?”
“Well. No. But. Some people would consider a steady stream of chocolate cupcakes to be foreplay.”
“I’m not going to deny it.”
“What I wanted,” she said, leaning in, “was to have it all done. All of it. I didn’t want to see you anymore. I wanted to come out on top in business, and I wanted to deal with this... This thing. It’s always been there. You know it. I know it. We ignore it. We go into boardrooms and we spar, and by the time I’m done I feel like I need a cigarette and I’ve never even had a cigarette. It’s the most... The most invigorating, infuriating thing, and I needed something to... To finish it. Because you know, Gunnar, when fighting with the man I hate most in the world excites me more than making out with a different man, something is wrong. I just wanted to... I just wanted to be done with it. That’s all.”
There was something about the admission that humanized her again. That tempted him to look at her and see his Olive. The one he had cared for all this time.
But she had revealed herself to be untrustworthy.
And even if not...