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There is a certain skill in maintaining a reputation for something that one almost never indulges in. At least, Kim tells herself there’s a skill involved, but honestly she doesn’t think she could try any harder to wiggle free of the names she gets called by the assorted media outlets who think her life is too fascinating to quit reporting on.‘Billionaire CEO Wonderchild Crashes Super-Model Fashion Event’(An accident, she’d gone into the wrong dining room. She had not taken any of the very pretty men home with her.)‘Fast Food Sugarmama’(One of her design staff has parents who own a family restaurant and when they were nearly forced to declare bankruptcy and sell to the bank, Kim had bought it for them so they could keep on cooking their family recipes. The purchase had nothing to do with her sleeping with her layout editor.)‘Bailey Boy Toy Beached’(Okay, so a trashy gossip rag column about her breakup with Chip Bailey maybe doesn’t count since they did break up – and he was mad about it. The problem with this headline is the implication that she broke up with him because he’d put on weight. Untrue. He’d gained weight for a movie role and their breakup had coincidentally been around that time. The two did not go together. He just painted her like some shallow chit who only wanted him while he was fit. Ridiculous.)Anyway, the point is, Kim runs a very successful architectural and construction business but she also happens to be young, conventionally attractive, and a woman. All of these things combine to make her an easy target.The appealing nature of this target comes to light well before the sun does when she gets an email from Billy.
From: Cranston_B
Subject: we need a new cc
Time: 4.21 am
Sorry to wake you, K. I just got a photo-drop from the PR department. Your current chief counsel has quit on the grounds that you’re the sort of boss who propositioned him for. Um. Favours. Says he’s got in writing that you only hired him for his body. PR is taking care of it, but I thought I’d attach a few cvs for your perusal before you get to work. Might as well start looking now.
She groans and flops face first into her pillow. Of course he would do that. Naturally he’d hit on her, get mad when she kept it professional and quit like a whiny baby. This is what she gets for hiring a male lawyer.Kim downloads the files and goes back to sleep. -- Her head drops heavily onto her desk. None of the four references Billy gave her have seemed like anything more than just another future disappointment slash scandal. How can a good chief counsel possibly be this hard to find.When Billy pops through the door and says, “Morning, K. Your meeting with the zoning commissioner is in ten,” her head is still on the desk.“Thanks, B,” she grumbles. “Can you be my counsel full time?”He laughs, gives her a polite no and scurries out. No doubt worried she’d try to push that.She heaves herself to her feet, sticks a cookie between her teeth and trudges through her office towards the board room. Two crumbly old men in crisp suits sit at the long table, waiting. One of them gives her a look that says he saw the news already, and the other wears an expression she’s intimately familiar with. It’s the one that says ‘this is what happens when you put a girl in charge’. The expression means he’s going to try and roll over her today.“So you want us to rebuild and revitalize the Riverside regions,” she begins before either of them have a chance to talk. “Great, we’d love to. What we need from you, is permission to reclassify some of the more derelict buildings in the area. As you know, the Riverside has some of the oldest structures in Angel Grove, which is great for history, bad for maintenance.”The meeting goes off without a hitch.But then it’s back to reality. Lawyer hunting.“No, Billy,” she tells him. “Nope. No way. Keep him, I’m going home.”“Home.” He blinks. Checks his watch. Blinks at her again. “It’s barely lunch.”“I cannot talk to another of these fools for the rest of the day. You can do them, I trust you.”He hardly has time to open his mouth before she’s whirling past him and heading down to the footpath. Her usual car is parked on the curb; her driver, Jason, is leaning against the door staring at his phone.She doesn’t make it to him.A woman who comes to Kim’s shoulder cuts between them and starts glaring.“If you’re here for the counsel position,” Kim says tiredly. “Tell reception, they’ll point you to Billy.”“Counsel?” the woman sounds entirely offended by the notion. “No. I don’t want to work for you. I want to know why you think demolishing the Riverside Centre is a good idea.”“We’re going to breathe some new life into the region,” she explains, voice automatically hitting the tone she uses for public speeches.“By killing the life it’s already got?”She snorts, trying to sidle past. “Killing? That place is a dead zone.”The woman cuts her off again. “Have you been there? Have you seen the purpose it serves the locals? How loved it is? It is the heart of the area. Where’s yours?”“It’s a grotty old place that will be better with a face lift.”“Not everything needs to be pretty to be useful.”Kim stops and looks at this woman properly for the first time. Her dark hair is pulled back in a tail, braided tightly on one side and her eyes are full of fire. She’s wearing a pant suit that was once nice but now shows age and wear. She’s also stunningly pretty with her round face and cute nose, even clouded by anger as it is.“Not form over function with you, huh?” Kim asks her.The woman’s mouth twists. “I’m a ‘don’t fix what ain’t broken’ kinda girl.”Kim stares at her a moment longer and then looks up for Jason. He’s finally noticed her and looks like he’s waiting for her to give the word so he can toss this chick onto her backside. She waves him back and skips around the woman towards her car.“No, hey! Wait,” the woman says, “I’m not done with you.”“Good,” Kim says, pulling a door open. “Get in.”The woman flinches, pauses, stares at her very hard.“If you wanna talk then get in. I have somewhere to be.”She hesitates a moment longer and then climbs in. Kim doesn’t think she’s ever seen someone make an expression that more deserves the phrase ‘glare daggers’.“So,” Kim says once she’s seated and Jason has pulled away from the curb. “You clearly know who I am, but I’m afraid I’m at a bit of a loss.”“I work for the Historic Building Society and Environmental Trust,” the woman tells her flatly.“Okay. But who are you?”Her eyes narrow. “Trini. Kwan.”“And you ambushed me because…?”“Because your firm wants to knock down the old Riverside buildings!” Trini tells her, voice full of reproach. “Because it’s going to do way more harm than good to the locals and I must insist that you leave the buildings alone. They represent the roots of the region, they are what holds the community together.”“You want to make a counter offer?”Trini’s mouth flounders. “A counter… What?”And then Kim’s brain hits on an idea. “Are you a lawyer? If you’re working for the Trust in this capacity, you must be.”“I graduated from Yale, top of my class,” she admits slowly, very clearly unsure where this is all going.“Would you like a job?”“I… a job? I have a job.”Kim smiles, leans across the cab. “Come work for me. I need a chief counsel, one with a solid legal background.”Trini’s eyes just about roll out of her head. “You want me?”“Why not? You’re bright, know what you’re on about. You’re a woman, so that’ll piss off the entire board. You want to change the way we’re revitalizing the Riverside districts? Where better to do that than from inside the company?”Something flickers over Trini’s face as she speaks, then the car stops and Jason taps on the interior window.Kim pulls her card from her inside jacket pocket and tucks it into Trini’s breast pocket. “Think about it.”She tells Jason to take Trini wherever she wants to go and then goes up to her penthouse and passes out on the couch. -- “There is a very disgruntled woman at reception for you, ma’am.”Kim looks up and spots the aide who spoke. He gestures over his shoulder. Through the glass walls and past the cubicles, Kim can just make out a vaguely familiar shape.“Should I call security?” he asks.She smiles, standing. “No thank you, Tim. I’ve got this.”Trini is leaning on the desk, speaking in a soft, firm voice to the receptionist for this floor. Kim can’t hear what she’s saying, but the thunderous look on her face means she doesn’t even begrudge Sue the mild terror she’s wearing.“… don’t have an appointment,” Trini is telling her through gritted teeth. “I promise you, this wasn’t part of my plan this morning.”“Oh no?” Kim asks, leaning her hip against the door frame. “Should I be insulted that I’m not part of the plan?”Sue gives her a wide-eyed look, shuffles some papers together and darts away from her desk, clearly not intending on being anywhere near something she expects to involve pyrotechnics. Trini, for her part, swivels almost dangerously to look at her.“I’m sure you’re more accustomed to dealing with people who worship you, Miss Hart,” Trini says flatly. “But I will not be one of them.”“Worship me, ha,” she laughs, pushing away from the door. “Hardly. Come on.”She arches a perfectly plucked eyebrow. “Come on where? I haven’t agreed to anything.”Kim smiles at her. “You’re here, Miss Kwan, which means at the very least you’re intrigued by my offer. So. Come on.”Trini opens her mouth but closes it again with a click of her teeth. “You remembered my name,” is what she grumbles, shuffling with mostly feigned reluctance after Kim.“Of course. Trini Kwan, environmental law, did a turn at a real estate firm with a focus on historic protection clauses. Legal pedigree and all that, your father was a titan, what’s he up to now?”She gets some top tier stink eye. “So you did your research, good. I did mine too. Kimberly Hart, notorious flirt, inappropriate in the extreme, often a demanding hardass on par with Miranda Priestly, eccentric in the way only the absurdly rich can manage.”Kim gives her another smile. “None of that was particularly flattering, I’ll be honest.”“Wasn’t meant to be.”“We’ll work on that then.” Kim stops her in front of a tall glass door, inside is warm wood paneling and a lovely heavy desk, complete with view over the city. “Your office, should you choose to accept it.”Kim is just in time to catch Trini’s eyes as they almost bug out of her head. “An office?”“Chief Counsel is a position with perks,” she explains with a half shrug. “Including a very nice salary, access to the company divers, dental and medical expenses, paid leave, you name it.”“There’s also a very nice Christmas bonus.”They turn to find Billy, nose buried in a stack of files, all of which look like they have somewhere to be yesterday.Kim clears her throat before he looks up and then he beams at them both – a smidge wider for Trini, perhaps, but Kim doesn’t hold it against him.“A Christmas bonus, huh?” Trini asks wryly. “Well don’t you know how to sell to a girl.”He blushes and goes back to hiding in his files. “Oh. Uh. One sec.” Billy rifles through them all and fishes out a thin blue folder which he gives to Kim. “Two new files for you to look over.”She flicks through them quickly and hands them back. “No.”“To which part?”“All of it. Billy, this is Trini Kwan.”He smiles at her but his eyes are still confused when he looks back to Kim. Then he does a double take. “Oh? Oh! You’re hiring her! Oh, okay. Can I get a copy of your resume? Just for filing purposes, if Kim has already hired you I’m sure you don’t need to be vetted, it’s just for record keeping, you understand?”“Whoa, whoa. Hold up there. I haven’t agreed to any of this.” Trini lifts her hands, palms out, to Billy and waves him back.He blinks again. “Oh. No?” He looks to Kim.“It’s not official,” she hedges. “We’re working on it. Just. Hammering out the last of the details.”Trini lifts her eyebrow. “Last details? I didn’t realise we’d started negotiating.”“I did ask you for your counter offer.”There’s a long pause, Trini’s eyes glitter but Kim remains unfazed. “The community centre will remain as is,” Trini eventual says.Kim scrunches her nose. “We keep all the historical fittings and add them to the new building.”“No demolishing of the centre. At all.”“We get rid of the unsound parts but maintain the façade.”“Top down refurbishing with all historical aspects intact.”She opens her mouth, closes it, thinks for a moment (risks a glance away from her opponent to give Billy a questioning look; he wibble-wobbles his hand between them). Finally, she says, “Deal,” and holds out a hand.Trini eyes her, not sure at all of this, if the pinch to her eyes and mouth is anything to go by. But she takes Kim’s hand in her own all the same.And that, as they say, is that. -- “What about this one?”Trini rolls her eyes, the leg tipped over her knee bobs absently. “I’m a lawyer, Hart,” she says. “Not a fashion consultant.”Kim swishes the skirt through her fingers. “Sure, but I value your opinion.”“You could wear that to a garden party, I guess,” Trini tells her, eyes lidded. “Not to a fancy business soiree at the Hampton.”She lets Trini’s words wash over her, lips pursed as she inspects the skirt in the stand mirror where it’s held up to her waist. It’s probably inevitable that she reaches the same conclusion as Trini. “Good point.” She tosses it back over the stand and plucks another from a nearby rack.It’s nicer, a warm gold colour, comes with a matching jacket, would look real lovely with a cream blouse. Kim holds it one way and then another, looking at it from an angle. And then the strangest thing happens: she catches sight of Trini in the mirror and the edge of the skirt lines up with her leg. She lowers the hanger an inch or two so she can see Trini’s face over the fabric and without really meaning to, she makes a soft sound in the back of her throat.Trini looks up, eyes refocusing on the present. “What?”Kim spins slowly, flourishing the ensemble and drapes it over Trini’s knee. “Try this on.”Her eyebrows shoot into her hairline. “Why?”“You’ll look nice in it.”Trini snorts. “Do I look like a Barbie to you?” Kim offers her a brilliant smile and Trini holds up a hand. “Don’t answer that. You insisted I accompany you so we could brainstorm, not… whatever this is.”“You can’t wear grey suits everywhere.”“Why not? They’ve worked well so far.”Kim dances the hanger over Trini’s knee. “Sure, in boring offices. You need a splash of colour to survive in this business.”The way Trini’s eyes rove from her neckline to her heels and back up to her face is slow, warm, teasing, but it does something to her stomach that Kim wasn’t ready for. “Right,” she drawls. “Because your wardrobe is more expansive than just a monochrome collection of power suits.”“They’re not grey power suits,” she sing songs. “Come on. Humour me.”Trini snatches the hanger and stalks to the change room. While she’s gone, Kim goes back to looking at dresses she could feasibly wear to this dreary function Billy’s making her go to. Not blue, not red, not that horrible, awful orange. She’s fingering something pink and ruffled when the door opens behind her.And isn’t it so nice to be right.She smiles, wide and slow when Trini steps out. It’s funny what some brighter colour does to her; really highlights the gold in her eyes, makes the dark of her hair seem more stark in comparison to the cream shirt, with a proper cut at the waist the coat sits much more snugly than her usual drab outfits.“Now that’s…” Kim breathes and trails off, at a loss. Trini glares at her and when Kim makes a circle to make sure the skirt sits at the waist nicely and the back of the coat holds its shape, Trini twists her head in an effort to keep the glare in place. “That’s something.”When she stops in front again, Trini holds up a finger. “That tone, those eyes and this whole thing is borderline workplace harassment,” she says. Her voice shoots for flat but comes off just a bit too tight and strained to work.“Sorry,” Kim says lightly, eyes settling once more on Trini’s face. “It’s amazing what you can do with a proper cut and something more colourful than austere.”Trini’s jaw works a moment and then she spins on her heel. “Ridiculous.”When Kim buys herself that frilly pink dress, she pays for the gold suit as well. -- Billy’s overworked hunch chases her off before she even gets to ask her question. Sue was useless (something Kim should’ve learned by now), and not a single one of the interns offered any real assistance.It’s fate that Kim bumps into Trini while she’s barking orders at some poor assistant fellow.“I need your thoughts,” Kim says to Trini without preamble or polite break in conversation. The assistant takes her interruption as his cue to scuttle away and Trini fixes one hundred percent of her ire on Kim in exchange. Not that it ruffles Kim at all, she just holds up two envelopes. “These are being sent to our investors,” she explains, “Invitations to our gala in a few months. Which of these looks fancier?”Trini glares some more. And then a little longer. Without breaking eye contact she snatches one of the envelopes and squints at it. She runs her finger over the embossing on the front, rubs her thumb under the flap to gauge the grade of paper, does the same to the other one and then looks back up at Kim.“These are identical.”“No, no. One is watermarked finish and the other is vellum.”Trini stares at her suspiciously a moment longer as if waiting for the joke. Then she wrinkles her nose and licks the tab of the envelope in her hand. Her nose wrinkles further and she hums, dissatisfied, and takes the other one to lick.After a beat, head bobbing from one side to the other as she thinks, she licks the first one again and then taps it. “This one. Tastes the least like feet.”Without waiting, she turns and storms off, already calling for the assistant who had escaped her clutches before.Kim hurries after her. “What made you think of that?” she asks. “No one else gave me an answer quite so reasonable.”“If you’re going to be sending out several of those you don’t want your tongue to taste like glue when you’re done,” she explains, deadpan. “I had to send a bunch of rejection letters to job applicants at my first internship and they tasted terrible.” She snatches a file off one of the desks they pass and immediately begins skimming its contents before passing it off to someone else with a set of curt instructions.“You’re very good,” Kim breathes.“That’s what you hired me for. Putting my law degree to good use evaluating stationary.” She whirls on Kim then and says, “If you want me to do my job now, I have several audits to put through and a rezoning petition to evaluate before it’s submitted.”Kim blinks after her dumbly. Or perhaps with wonder. -- Jason sits with his bad leg thrown over the arm of his sofa, mostly empty beer bottle clutched to his chest like a life vest. His eyes roll towards her lazily when she sighs.“You trying to say something, K?” he asks her gently. “Billy said you’ve been sighing a lot lately.”She shrugs a shoulder, swipes a bottle from the fridge and slouches into the chair beside him so she can drop her head on his chest. “I don’t know,” she admits. “We got a great new chief counsel.”He hums. “Yeah, I heard. That’s the girl you had me drive home a few weeks back?”“That’s her. She’s great. Knows what she’s on about, brilliant, takes zero shits.”“Easy on the eyes.”She slaps his arm and he laughs. He laughs because he knows he’s right. She slaps him again for good measure.“She’s brilliant,” Kim reiterates. This time she’s not sure if the adjective is to describe her intelligence or something else. Jason, goddamn him, hears it.“You cannot date your chief counsel, K,” he warns her.She snorts. “Oh she wouldn’t date me. Not if we were the last two people alive.”“You could fire her and ask?”Kim shakes her head, messing up her hair against his vest. “She’s only here to make sure the Riverside developments go how she wants.”“Maybe,” he muses, smoothing her hair back into place. “Try treating her less like you’re the weird CEO and more like how you talk to me and Billy.”She scrunches her nose and eyes up. “You guys are different. We’ve been best friends for years.”“Yeah, we have.” He smacks a loud kiss to her cheek. “So listen to me now and then.” -- Trini holds up a finger. “Boundaries, Hart. Let’s not have a sexual misconduct suit on our hands.”“You think an awful lot of yourself,” she replies, folding herself onto the wheelie chair in Trini’s office, feet tucked up beneath her, flipping her laptop open on Trini’s table.“Everyone thinks you’re sleeping with your driver,” Trini tells her as she reads. “I’d not like to join him.”Kim bursts out laughing. “Jason? Absurd.”At that, Trini does look up. “Explain.”“Jason, Billy and I all went to college together. Jason wanted to join the police force but he… got into some trouble, nothing major, but with a mark on his criminal history he couldn’t finish his studies, so instead when Billy and I put the company together, he joined us as our head of security. He’s had a pretty bad run of it, he hurt his knee quite badly a little while ago and while he recovered I had him drive me places. Now that’s his official job title. They’re my best friends, Trini.”Her mouth makes a little ‘o’ shape and she turns back to her work.Kim means to say something more, has her mouth open and everything, but instead she goes back to her laptop.In a shocking twist, it’s Trini who breaks the silence.“If you’re not…” she begins slowly, picking her words carefully, “having relations with your staff… then why put up with all the stories about you?”Kim keeps typing a moment and then tips her laptop lid down so she can rest her chin on the edge. “I’m young,” she says softly. “And a woman in a man’s game. Some people try to slander me because I’m good at what I do and discrediting me is good for business. I put up with it because it doesn’t seem to matter what I do, people still want to see me as the inappropriate boss.”There’s another long beat of quiet in which Kim watches Trini work, her eyes are laser focused on her typing, she’s sucking on her tongue in concentration and one knee is bouncing just a little. Her fingers still on the keyboard before she says, “I got an email from Lacey, the woman in PR? It was meant for Billy, I think, but I was CC’d in. About Chip Bailey?”Kim grunts.Finally, Trini meets her eyes. “He said some nasty things about you, Hart.”“People do.”“You could not play into it, you know. It might make you seem like less of a fool if you were just a tad less eccentric in how you say and do things.”Kim arches an eyebrow but she’s smiling. “Life advice? You think I should be less weird?”Trini’s eyes dart between Kim’s and that adorable little crease in her brow deepens just the tiniest margin. “I think… you’re a lot smarter and capable than people think you are. You spend so much time going shopping while you’re on the clock and buying frivolous things and saying borderline inappropriate stuff… I think you’re hiding behind this because it’s easier than being known.”Kim blinks at her. That right there? Sounds a lot like a call out.“You want me to be more earnest?” she asks quietly.Trini scrutinizes her for a heartbeat or three longer and then nods once, sharply. “I think your business persona is a joke. Relax.”Kim spends the rest of their twenty minute ‘meeting’ thinking about those words, and when she packs up to go home that afternoon (after clocking out at the proper end of business hours for the first time in a year) she doesn’t even drop a witty-but-vaguely-inappropriate comment off at Billy’s door. -- She starts the next Monday with an admission.“You’re right.”Trini is so startled by her words she knocks her cup of pens off her desk, drops the file she’s currently reading and very nearly spills coffee on her office-issued laptop.She recovers quite well with an eye-roll and a, “Usually,” that sounds almost droll enough to cover up the waver in her voice.Kim beams at her. “Come with me.”“Should it concern me how many of our interactions start like that?” Trini asks her. But she’s stacking her files on her laptop and nursing her coffee out of the room without really hesitating.It speaks to the progress their working relationship has made over the last few months that Trini doesn’t even say something snide when Kim takes her up to the roof. Her helicopter is waiting on the pad, rotors spinning slowly in anticipation.“You said to me,” Kim finally thinks to say as the cross the pad, “that my work persona is a joke, that I should be less what people want to see and more myself. You’re right.”“And a helicopter ride is going to prove this how?” Trini asks even as she climbs in before Kim.“Field trip.”Kim helps Trini settle the headphones – big clunky things that look way too oversized on Trini – around her ears and taps the microphone to test it.“You agreed to work with me,” Kim tells her, voice static through the speakers, “on the condition that my business not demolish any of the old buildings during the Riverside reconstruction. I thought maybe you’d like to see the fruits of all the paperwork we’ve been doing.”She tries really hard not to look at Trini then, not to gauge her reaction, her thoughts, the fun little ways her face crinkles up when she’s pleased but trying not to show it.Kim fails.Spectacularly.Luckily, it’s Jason’s voice in the back of her head saying ‘you cannot date your chief counsel’ and that pulls her up short of doing something monumentally stupid.Like maybe lean across and kiss Trini’s adorable frown.Instead, she stares out the window and watches Angel Grove roll past beneath them, much larger now than it was when she was in primary school. It’s no longer got that ‘outer suburb’ look to it, there are more high rises and apartment buildings and the centre of town is dressed up much more like a metropolis than a quaint country town. There are two train stations; buses crawl past below them, trapped in midday traffic jams; people jaywalk on their way to lunch. It’s bigger, but from up here, it doesn’t seem as overwhelming as it can on occasion.It's a ten minute flight from the centre of town to the Riverside. Here, things are dirtier, less polished. Boats crouch looking sullen at the docks where the river has been widened to allow shipping freighters and the odd cruise liner up the river to make port. Along the Riverside, one of the oldest parts of Angel Grove, are the buildings that Kim’s company signed contracts to demolish and rebuild.One of the buildings is now an empty lot (not because it was demolished by her, but because of some unfortunate incidents the previous year, incidents that kicked all this into gear, in fact). The plot of land is mostly ash from where an electrical fault had burned the building to the ground. The fault itself stemmed from some poor drainage in the area such that when it had stormed and the river burst its banks, this particular building had suffered significant flood damage.Regardless of its unfortunate lot, it’s gone now, and that’s where the pilot sets the helicopter down.Jason, bless him, braved the horrible traffic out of the city a few hours earlier and is parked on the curb waiting for them.“Ladies,” he says by way of greeting, opening the door so they can both slide in. “Where to first, K?”“Take us from the community centre out around the school and along the factory road.”Trini gives her a look that speaks volumes but when she actually verbalizes one of those volumes it’s to say, “How much was on this contract?”“Three buildings,” Kim tells her. “The community centre, the school and the library. The school itself wasn’t much of an issue, you found the files for that?”“The school isn’t a historic landmark, no,” Trini agrees. “The library is though.”“Yep, so I’ll show you the model we’ve been working on. I just got the finalized plans from the architectural department last week.”“Community centre coming up on your right, ladies,” Jason says, turning across the traffic into the parking lot.Already, great big fences have been erected around the centre to block off most public access. Several huge machines have been rolled in, ready to start on whatever and a truck sits down the side of the building with stacks and stacks of scaffolding on its tray. There is still access for foot traffic in the centre, but there’s a sign nailed onto one of the fences with closure dates and projected work times.Trini is out of the car before Kim and staring at the signage. She must sense when Kim stops beside her. “This says demolition schedule. I thought we agreed no demolishing.”Kim waves her away. “We had that printed off ready to go before your predecessor left us. Didn’t see the point in printing a new one. Jason,” she calls over her shoulder. “Have you got a marker?”His head disappears into the car while he rummages around and when he comes up with a thick pen he lobs it gently at Kim’s head. She catches it and flips him off. Then she scribbles over the word ‘demolition’ and writes above it: ‘refurbishment’.Trini wears this adorable little smile when Kim looks at her and that same sensation from before goes pinging through her ribs. That feels dangerous, if she’s honest.Then they’re off to the library. Jason drives them past the school where a foreman is already getting ready to knock some of the buildings down and start over. They stop only long enough for Trini to learn which areas are off limits and what the plan is. She listens to him speak with the kind of rapt attention that Kim wishes she’d get.More of those tall fences have been set up around the library, but there’s nothing stopping anyone from heading in. Trini leads Kim across the wide courtyard and squints at the work permits stuck up on the inside of the glass windows.“They’re adding another wing?”“Well. I decided that since you didn’t want us knocking down historic buildings, that instead of expanding up the way we’d planned, we’ll have to be a little more creative,” Kim explains. “The construction will go here in the courtyard, the bottom will still be open in a garden,” she says, waving her hands around in the hopes she can do it justice. “But there will be floors above to provide the space needed.”Trini stops beside her, so close their shoulders brush (or, well, Trini’s shoulder brushes against Kim’s upper arm).Eventually, she says, “Thank you,” in the softest, most fragile voice Kim’s ever heard from her.“Hey.” She sways into Trini gently. “I made a promise.”“Isn’t this more expensive?”“Oh yeah, loads. I have board meeting this week to argue the case, but it should be fine.”As they walk back to the car, Trini asks, “Why did you agree to this?”“To what?”“This.” She gestures around her at the courtyard. “You agreed to take a costly project and make it more complicated for your company. Why?”“Well, at first I just wanted a new chief counsel,” Kim tells her with a wink for which she earns an eye-roll. “But you said something when we first met about the centre being the heart of the community, about how important it is to the people here, and the more you talked about this stuff, the more I realized maybe we – we as a corporate business as a whole – need to think more about what the people in an area want from the buildings we give them. Instead of just…” she shrugs. “Handing them something they may not need.”The look Trini gives her then knocks the wind clear from her lungs.“Alright,” Trini says softly as she slides into the car.“Alright?”“Alright.” -- “We will not approve this, Hart.”“I don’t need your approval,” she tells the assortment of cranky old men at her board table. “The plans are in motion.”“It’s a simple enough thing to put a stop to,” Peter Mellar says, ignoring her. “We have the numbers to stop this nonsense and return to the original plan.”He gets a collection of assenting grumbles from around the table. Even Irene Herston, the only other woman in this meeting, makes some distinctly agreeable hums.Kim slaps her hands onto the table. “No. The contract I signed stipulated there would be no demolition.”Tony Wright gives her a withering look. “The contract you signed – the one that we all co-signed – with the commissioner was for the reconstruction of the buildings. You cannot reconstruct without first demolishing.”“It’s more cost effective,” Irene tells her. She at least has the decency to sound apologetic.“You cannot just reverse six months of work,” she snaps.“It’s work that was already sorted before your change of heart. And we can overturn your decisions,” says Peter. “All in favour of the demolition?”Every hand at the table goes up except Kim’s.“Demolition it is.” -- Kim doesn’t speak to Trini for six days.As if she can maybe avoid having to tell her about the board’s decision.It doesn’t work out. -- “You’re going back on your word, Kim!”The use of her first name is like a damn slap to the face.“It’s out of my hands,” she whines. “The board overturned my proposal.”Trini throws a sheaf of papers onto the table between them. “I found out in an office memo.”“I’m sorry, Trini,” she says for the nth time. “There’s nothing I can do.”“Bullshit. You’re the CEO.”“I’m bound by the board.”“You’re the majority of the company. I’ve seen the ownership documents. They can’t do squat without your consent.”“They have the power to veto me, Trini.”Trini slams her hand against the table so hard the pen cup shakes. “No. They don’t. You just don’t want to be seen to be trying too hard as the CEO. And you know what? I’m done trying too. Consider this my two weeks. I’ll help you find a new chief counsel, then I’m out.”The door makes such a bang when it closes behind Trini that Kim’s sure the whole building must have heard it. -- And that, as they say, is that. -- “There’s no need to be like this, K,” Billy tells her, pottering around her office with paperwork. “She’s not leaving you in the lurch like Miles did, at least. She’s also not dragging your name through the mud.”“Yeah,” Kim sighs. “But she’s leaving, Billy. She barely speaks to me.”“You did go back on your word.”“The board – ”“Has to defer to you, Kim,” he says and then bobs his head back and forth before correcting himself. “Or, well, us. She’s right about that. You’re the CEO and the board doesn’t own enough shares to be able to out you like that. They can’t even stop me from doing something if I want to.”She slumps down lower in her chair, feeling distinctly un-CEO-like. “They’re scary.”“So go around them. They can’t be scary if you take the chance away from them.”“Can I do that?”He stops and leans against the edge of the desk beside her, just long enough to pat her knee and say, “Of course. You’re brilliant, you’ll think of something.” -- Every year H&C runs a fundraising benefit for some assorted cause. Ironically, this year’s is for the Riverside region’s child welfare fund. To support the local school while it’s under construction, to keep library activities open while it’s being refurbished, to ensure that all events are held as scheduled despite the work in the area. It’s to make sure the local children have clothes and food and, if all goes well, to provide greater access to technology for those living below the poverty line.Trini is a big fan of saying that everyone should have access to information.But Trini is gone now.Tommy, Kim’s new chief counsel, is a leggy blonde woman who annoys the board even more than Trini did. For better or worse, she’s the new Trini. But every time Kim turns around ready to ask a question, the words fail on her tongue when it’s Tommy’s face she sees instead of Trini.That’s not to say Tommy’s a bad replacement. She’s a graduate of Harvard law, has a background in corporate practice, isn’t afraid of any of the scary board members and she has a solid set of principles to guide her. She’s good at her job.(The fact that both Trini and Jason seemed to find her grating is a problem, but not an insurmountable one.)No, the real issue is just that Kim misses Trini. Misses her scathing comments, biting wit, absolute zero tolerance policy for bullshittery. (Tommy lets her be weird, let’s her hide behind her work persona, as Trini called it.)And this gala was to fundraise for Trini’s pet foundation. Without her there it feels somehow less worthy.“Hey, boss.”Tommy is wearing a stunning green dress, the kind that makes her look like a glittering mermaid; an effect that’s compounded by the seaweed ribbons pulling her hair up.“You’re looking a little dour,” she goes on. “This is party.”“Yeah. A party.”Kim would be lying if she said she hasn’t spent the last half hour wondering if Trini would show. She also has lied to Tommy and Billy, both, about that very thing at least four times now.Tommy keeps talking but Kim is barely listening. She silently thanks Billy for finding them and guiding Tommy away, but she’s not paying a lot of attention, so that’s why she doesn’t notice Jason until he speaks.“You’re brooding.”She hums.“Can I help?”“Did I fuck this up too badly to fix it, Jay?” she asks him softly, leaning into his shoulder in a way that is decidedly not professional and probably contributed to those rumours Trini mentioned about them.“I don’t think so.”“Then tell me how to fix it.”“I can’t, I’m sorry. You and Billy are the brains, I’m just the wheels. But I know you, Kim. I’ve seen you stand in front of public audiences with no plan whatsoever and still manage to talk them into seeing your way. All you have to do is find the right way to get what you want.”“Yeah. Maybe.”“Hey, Kim?” He waits until she steps away from him to look him in the eyes. “I told you not to date your chief counsel. That stands. But she’s not your chief counsel anymore.”“She also hates me.”He squeezes her shoulder. “For now.” And when he nods over her shoulder, her heart actually goes into shock.Trini is standing at the entrance. She’s in a stunning yellow dress with her hair curled and hanging loose about her shoulders. Kim has to work moisture back into her mouth while she tentatively walks towards her.“Didn’t think you’d show.”Trini shrugs. “Neither did I. But I was invited and your last paycheck bought me the dress so…”“Might as well go somewhere if you’re dressing up?”“Right.”They lapse into silence. Trini’s gaze cuts to where Tommy is talking to Billy and someone else and her jaw tenses sharply.“She settled in nicely.”“She’s very polite. No sharp comments, no brutal honesty.”“Getting closer to the worship then, are you?”Kim chances a smile. “Not too close, I hope.”Trini holds up a hand. “I’m only here to see the fundraiser go off and say goodbye to Billy. He missed the farewell party.”“He doesn’t like emotionally charged events,” Kim explains quietly. “I guess that’s… I’ll see you around.”Trini’s expression is completely devoid of emotion as she steps past. “Unlikely.” -- Peter Mellar turns up to the demolition of the Riverside community centre because of course he does. He’s the only board member to make it, though.The rest of the crowd is made up of reporters and protestors. They’re quiet, now, the overcast morning has dampened their enthusiasm for rebelling.Billy and Jason stand solemnly with her to one side as the commissioner makes his address but Tommy is shuffling at the cards she’s prepared for Kim to read from. Honestly, she looks more uneasy than Kim does, and Kim wants to throw up.Eventually, the commissioner introduces Kim to the podium to a smattering of reluctant applause and Tommy hands her the prompt cards.Kim takes a deep breath and steps up to the podium, tapping the bottoms of the cards against the wood. In front of her dangles a great black ball ready to be swung at the centre behind her and forever change the community around them. Later, it will leave here to knock down a library that’s stood where it is for the last hundred and sixteen years.The image puts a sour taste in Kim’s mouth.She looks down at the cards, up at the audience, over to Peter Mellar, and finally at Jason. He nods.Kim tosses the cards over her shoulder.“I signed a contract a few months ago with the intention of bringing some vibrancy back into this community,” she begins. Tommy is frowning at her but she ignores it. “The contract was a simple enough affair for reconstruction. Until it wasn’t.“A young woman from this area took issue with the idea of knocking down buildings that have stood the test of time so well. They mean something to the people here. She told me that these buildings aren’t just stone and pipes, they are the heart of a region, they give people a place to go, to socialize, to get more from life. She asked me where my heart was that I’d be willing to rip this away from people.”She pauses, throat tightening. Billy smiles at her.“For better or worse, probably better if I’m honest, that woman has become the voice in the back of my head. She asks me now who benefits from actions, is there a purpose to it or is this simply to line someone’s pockets. And you know? She’s right.“Today, we will not be knocking down this building, nor the library that has been here since before Angel Grove was a city. Instead, we will be building around them, incorporating them into expansions that will allow the people of this community to have access to the activities and resources they know so well. We will be giving these buildings a new lease on life, but they will remain standing.”Peter Mellar shakes his head and walks away. The protestors lower their signs. Billy claps his hands. Kim, understanding that to defeat the board’s insistence on demolition, all she had to do was go public with her intentions, steps down from the podium.She gives Billy a high five and follows Jason who has already started towards the car. Bless him. He knows what she wants. -- Employment Plus is usually quite a busy place, but today there is just a single overworked assistant sitting in the bullpen surrounded by flurries of paperwork. She is consulting with a young man in a beanie who looks like this is his last hope and isn’t sure it’s going to pan out. The lack of bustle doesn’t lend a great deal of confidence to the space.When Kim steps into the office, Trini isn’t there.“You don’t need a job,” says the woman at the front, peering around the shoulder of the man she’s with. She looks vaguely familiar but Kim’s never claimed to be good at names or whatever.“I’m looking for Trini Kwan.”The woman arches an eyebrow and points to where a door is open at the back. As Kim moves towards the door through the cramped space (every inch of floor seems to be covered in boxes), Trini backs out of the store directly into her. The only reason they don’t both go sprawling to the floor is probably because of all the boxes.“What? Oh. What do you want?” Trini keeps her eyes on her paper once she’s identified Kim.She takes a deep breath. “You were right. About all of it. About me. I was so focused on doing what the board expected of me, of trying to prove that I’m a good CEO, that I didn’t stop to even question what was going on. I just let the board do whatever. And I’m sorry for that.”“And?”“And. H&C won’t be demolishing anything. You got into my head, Kwan, and now there’s this little voice telling me to be a better person, to do the right thing because I’m in a position where I can and that matters. Billy and I are going to restructure the whole company. So that we can do good things for people.”Trini stares at her paper so hard it’s a wonder she doesn’t put holes in it.“Well. I just wanted you to know that. You tried to show me how to be better and I thought you should know that I’ve figured it out. Thank you for everything.”She waits a moment longer but Trini doesn’t so much as blink. Kim leaves.When she’s on the footpath outside she exhales so deeply it makes her cough. Then she starts walking. Jason had parked a little way from the tiny office so she’d have a chance to psych herself up to talk to Trini. Turns out she hadn’t really needed it; not when there was no talking.There’s a bang behind her but it doesn’t register until someone has barreled fully into her.“You’re an idiot.”Trini.Kim just about melts in relief. “You’ve told me that before,” she says, turning.“At least you know it now.”“I’m sorry,” Kim reiterates. “I was a fool. I should’ve stood up for you, for the Riverside centre. I… I’m sorry.”“Did you really not demolish it?”“We really didn’t. The board is going to have conniptions, but that’s whatever. You’re right. Billy and I still own majority shares. They can’t do anything except whine about it.”Trini arches an eyebrow. “Please tell me you don’t want me to come work for you again?”Kim waves her away. “Psh, no. Tommy’s doing just fine where she is.”The other eyebrow joins the first. “Oh really.”“Jason told me not to date my chief counsel,” she confesses. “But you quit. So I think he’d be okay if I asked you out.”“And who would I be dating? Kimberly Hart, eccentric CEO?”She shakes her head. “Kimberly Hart, hopeless girl who caught feelings for you.”Trini goes red but she’s smiling and that’s probably the important part. In fact, Kim knows that’s the important part because Trini grabs her by the lapels and pulls her in to kiss her.“You’re infuriating,” she whispers into Kim’s mouth.“Says you.”