Page 25 of Tempt Me

“Seriously,” I said. “You can’t go off on someone during a press conference.”

She dipped her chin and her eyebrows. “I can if they’re out of line.”

“That may be okay in your boardroom or in your office, but it’s not okay at a press conference.” I wished I could add, “we talked through this,” but I couldn’t. Foolishly, I hadn’t dreamed anyone would ask such an off-base question. Even more foolishly, I’d never expected Jamila to jump down their throat.

“I want her banned from the premises,” Jamila added.

“Okay, but next time, take a beat. Try one of those breathing techniques we talked about. Then, when you feel calm, answer the question or say, ‘no comment.’”

“‘No comment?’” She jumped out of the chair and tried to pace, but the small space boxed her in. She cursed as she bumped a shin on the side of my desk. “Is that what Mark Zuckerberg would say? Oh, no, never mind, he’s aman.No one would ever toss a question like that at him!”

Winslow looked up at that. “They do ask men who they’re seeing.”

“Not at a fuckingapology press conference!”

“How bad is it?” I asked Hannah.

She winced. “Not great. They’re using the P-word again.”

“The P-word?” Jamila demanded, hands on her hips.

“Paranoid,” Hannah said, almost too low to hear.

“It’ll be fine,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “We’ll try another few tactics, and we’ll practice our breathing techniques.” I shot Jamila a pointed look. “It will go away eventually.”

“You said it’d go away if I did this press conference.”

I stood so fast my chair spun and thumped into the wall behind me. “That was before you threatened a reporter for the second time in two days.”

“Maybe we need a distraction,” Winslow said.

“Great idea.” I leaned on my desk. “Something positive for the media to focus on.”

“You could go do something with that charity you run in Austin,” Winslow said.

“I can’t just turn the camp on and off,” Jamila said testily. “They have a schedule.”

Ignoring her protest, I said, “That’s an excellent idea, Winslow. Jamila, tell me more about the camp.”

I could almost see the spines rising on her like Quill.i.am’s. “I don’t want to involve the camp. I don’t have time for this. I need to focus on our launch.”

As if on cue, there was a knock at the door, and Rhiannon marched in clutching a laptop. Today, she was back to another golf shirt. This one was greenish-blue like Jamila’s mermaid fingernails. “There you are, standing around like we don’t have a crisis.”

Heat bubbled in my chest. She paraded around like her work was so much more important than mine. I straightened. “That’s exactly what we’re doing. We’re dealing with a crisis.”

Rhiannon snorted. “Some song and dance in the conference room? You think that’s a crisis? We’ve got an actual problem right here.” She tapped her laptop.

“What kind of problem?” Jamila spun around to stare at her employee.

“Security flaw.”

Jamila threw up her hands. “But InfoSec reviewed everything. They documented the security acceptance criteria!”

“Which we failed in their review. Someone used some open-source code, and it introduced a vulnerability.”

Jamila rubbed between her eyebrows. “What’s the damage?”

“This sets us back at least a week,” Rhiannon said. “Maybe two.”

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