Page 83 of Sparks Fly
He’d spent the morning meeting with his legal team about his contract with Yellow Sparks and Miles, trying to determine if it could, in fact, be terminated. Thankfully, it could, although it would cost Max a pretty penny, but he could afford it. Miles and his team would be getting notification about the termination soon enough, and they’d have to pull the plug on Sparky within the next twenty-four hours.
“Have you seen this?” Rashid asked, waving his phone in the air.
“Why does no one know how to greet anyone anymore?” Max asked. “And can you stop waving your phone? I cannot see anything while you do that.”
“Sorry,” Rashid said, handing over the phone. “But look. Stella quit Yellow Sparks and told the world about it. Your brother’s getting dragged all over the internet.”
“She what?” Max asked, even as his eyes began skimming the article Rashid had pulled up.
“She talks about Sparky, the Sprint Week stuff, everything,” Rashid said. “Can she get sued for this? Is she allowed to talk about this?”
Max held up a hand as he kept reading. When he’d gotten to the end, he handed Rashid his phone back.
“I don’t think so,” he said, his mind already racing. “She didn’t say anything that wasn’t true, and she didn’t even name her boss. Anyone can look up Miles’ name. I think as long as she doesn’t have some kind of NDA with the company she should be fine, but if not, I can help her through this.”
“So what’re you going to do?” Rashid asked. “People are calling us out, too, by the way. It’s not as bad, but you know they’re saying Sparky writing articles is plagiarism and the fact that Yellow Sparks posted AI-written articles but hid it behind their human employees is unethical.”
Max sighed. He’d expected this, of course, but it still wasn’t great to hear. If he didn’t know that his brother was already in the middle of a shitstorm, he might have called him just to say, “I told you so.” Maybe he still would.
“I’ve already had the legal team terminate our contract with Yellow Sparks,” Max said, rubbing his eyes. “Can you talk to Sierra and have her draft some kind of statement making it clear that we are no longer working with Yellow Sparks? She should double-check with legal that we can say that now.”
Rashid nodded. “Will do. Have you talked to Stella yet?”
“No,” Max responded. “So much has happened in the past twenty-four hours, I don’t want to talk about this over the phone. I need to just go see her.”
“Worried she’ll dump you like she did your brother?”
“She didn’tdumpmy brother,” Max said. “That sounds like they dated, which I’d like to never imagine.”
“You know what I mean,” Rashid said. “I don’t know if I’d want to see someone who looks eerily similar to the guy who screwed me over right now, or ever. I think you should have a plan.”
“A plan?”
“Yeah, like bring her flowers or something, I don’t know,” Rashid said. “Something so the first thing she thinks when she sees you isn’t, ‘Oh God, I’m sleeping with the enemy.’ ”
“I’m not the—”
Max blew out an aggravated sigh.
“I cannot deal with you right now,” Max said, shaking his head. “Just go talk to Sierra, please.”
Rashid held up his hands in surrender.
“Alright, alright,” he said. “Consider me gone.”
He got up to go but then stopped short as Miles stepped into the doorway, a look of fury and betrayal etched across his face. Max didn’t have to ask how much he’d heard. It was clear he’d heard enough.
“Looks like I better be going,” Rashid said. He quickly exited the room, squeezing past Miles as he entered.
“Miles—”
“I don’t even know why I’m surprised,” Miles said. “The way you kept asking me all those questions and how pissed you got about everything. I should’ve known it was personal for you. Of course it was! Because there is nothing you love better than being someone’s knight in shining armor. I would fucking know.”
“Miles, this has nothing to do with Stella,” Max said, standing. “I would’ve reacted this way if it didn’t involve her.”
“Yeah, sure,” Miles said, moving farther into the office. “Except that you are involved with her and have been for how long, exactly?”
Max swallowed hard. “Since Valentine’s Day. We met at Red as Sin.”
