Power Play: A Novel Read Free Page B

been frightened and alone at school in Cambridge, and many of her male classmates had been aggressive and hostile to her. And her professors had been indifferent to her.
    Harding had taken a sabbatical from his career that year, and had been talked into teaching at the business school by a classmate of his from Princeton, and Harding had given Fiona a nearly failing grade. Her only reassurance had come from Harding’s old friend Jed Ivory, who had a reputation for doing all he could to help and mentor his students. And he had been incredibly kind to her, and had become her only friend.
    Jed had been separated from his wife then, in a stormy marriage. She had originally been one of his students, and both had been cheating and having affairs for years. He had been quietly negotiating a divorce with her, while separated, when he began helping Fiona, and within a month, they were sleeping with each other, and Fiona fell madly in love with him. She wasn’t aware of it, but it wasn’t unfamiliar ground to him. But it caused talk around the business school nonetheless. And Fiona was remotely aware thatHarding strongly disapproved. Later, he blamed her for the end of Jed’s marriage, which she had very little if anything to do with. And her affair with Jed ended abruptly at the end of her first year when he was forced to admit to her that he had been involved with another graduate student, in another field, had gotten her pregnant, and had agreed to marry her in June. Fiona was devastated, and spent the summer crying over him.
    In September, when she went back to school, she met David, the man she would eventually marry. And somewhat on the rebound, they got engaged at Christmas, and married when they graduated, and she moved to San Francisco with him, where he was from. It seemed like the right thing to do at the time. But the affair with Jed Ivory had left her bruised.
    It had been awkward running into Jed during her second year at Harvard. He tried to rekindle their relationship several times, although he was married and had an infant son by then, and Fiona managed to avoid him, and never took a class from him again. By then, she knew that his affairs with his students were business school legend, and he had taken advantage of her youth and vulnerability. She had never seen or heard from him again after she graduated, but she knew from others that he had married twice since, always to much younger women. In spite of that, Harding seemed to think he walked on water, and chose to disregard his reputation for having affairs with his students. Harding’s view of Fiona as seductress had never wavered, although she had been the victim and not the culprit. In his old boy mentality, always partial to men, he still believed that she had broken up Jed’s marriage, and had treated her like a slut ever since. He never hesitated to hint darkly at her previously“racy” reputation while at Harvard, and Fiona offered no explanation. She didn’t feel she owed anyone that, and had long since come to view her affair with Jed Ivory as an unfortunate accident that happened during her student days, in the ghastly year after her parents died, which he had taken full advantage of as well.
    Fiona had nothing to apologize for, but Harding was still blaming her for the affair twenty-five years later, despite her astounding career, seventeen-year marriage and consummately respectable life. If anything, it seemed ridiculous to her, and she couldn’t be bothered explaining it or defending it to him. She had been dismayed to find that Harding was the chairman of the board when she took the job as CEO of NTA in Palo Alto, and he hadn’t been pleased either, but there was no denying her remarkable skills, impressive work history, and sheer talent, so he voted her in. He would have looked like a fool if he didn’t. The entire board said they were lucky to get her, and he didn’t want to admit to his personal grudge against her. And Fiona had felt she