After the final round ended, Aurelia's VP came to me first. He invited me into a private break room. The arrogance he had shown at the morning meeting was gone. "Madeline, the company did handle this poorly."
I looked at him. "Poorly?"
He gave an awkward smile. "Come back to Aurelia. The chief designer position is yours. We'll triple your salary, and you'll take the largest share of all future profits from Return to the Tide. But this ends here. Don't sue the company, and don't take any more media interviews."
I looked at the coffee on the table and suddenly remembered what he had said at the morning meeting.
"Do you still want to work in this industry?"
So it wasn't that I had no place in this industry. It was that they could no longer suppress me. Now they wanted me back so I could
