Melted: A MaxTul AU story

Chapter Forty-Two: Battle Lines

Things Michelle Bagnet had figured out from what Max said and from Max didn't say: Max had fallen deeply in love with Tul Pakorn. She had this confirmed by the conversation she had with Sinjai Hongtai who had called her barely thirty minutes after Max and Tul had left the farm. Sinjai wanted to get more background about the Pakorn Group from Michelle, and though Sinjai was the last person in Max's sphere to gossip, she still felt guilty about her scent experiment, so she had talked to Michelle Bagnet about what had happened.

Michelle also knew, without anyone telling her, how Max was going to respond to this love; he was going to double down into protective mode. She had not met Tul, so she wasn't sure if he was really aware what Max going into protective mode was going to mean, but she knew.

Max was going to put Tul first. Tul's life, dreams, and future were all going to come before anything Max might want or need. It was the kind of person Max grew up to be from his mother's love, and if she were honest, what he had learned from her. But such a life almost nearly required people like Max to hurt and to sacrifice. She hoped that the love Max had for Tul and Tul's love for him—yes, Sinjai had told her that, too—would be enough to help Max through the pain and the loneliness that were probably in store for at least part of the journey.

This also meant that Michelle Bagnet was going to help Max in any way she could, too. Max was not just like one of her kids—she had two daughters around Max's age—he was her favorite of all the interns she had ever had. Yes, she had a soft spot for Chalida and complicatedly deep connection to Itty (which she tried not to think about much), but if she really had to choose, the person she probably loved most in the world after own daughters was Max.

There had been a time when she'd hoped he would join Thailand's National Intelligence Agency, but she learned that though he would be very good at it, it was not the kind of life that would make him happy. She had always thought him a good writer. When he was an intern, he was the best writer she had seen in all her years with the program, writing better than the people on her staff even then. But when she had read the final draft of his second book, the one on the chaebols, she knew that it was going to make waves.

Max had always sent her his longer pieces to review at the same time he sent manuscripts to his editor, and she had made contacts with publishers in Korea and the United States for the chaebol book to be translated and published in both of those countries at the same time it was published in Thailand. She knew that those would be the best markets for the topic, and she was right.

The new book situation was going to be a greater challenge. Max had kept her updated on the goings on with the Pakorns, including his early concerns about security breaches and the spying. He had even tried out drafts of his questions for his interview with Metinee Pakorn with her several times before meeting with "that woman" as Michelle called her.

Michelle Bagnet knew that in any other situation, Max would be the kind of person Metinee would try to cultivate to be on her side, but she also knew that Metinee would quickly dislike him because he would not be charmed by her or overwhelmed by her power and beauty. Michelle thought that Metinee was probably already suspicious of him because Max was friends with the people on Tul's team. Metinee would also dislike anyone who seemed to be friends with Tul,so Max would be quickly be on her enemy list if any deeper connection besides colleagues was detected.

Thus, Kuhn Bagnet decided she would strike first with a subtle warning. She didn't know that Itty had basically given Tul the same speech that she had in her head right now about the Pakorn Group and Max. She really didn't care about the Pakorn Group as long as they worked in a relatively clean way and did no harm to the projects on which she worked personally or the embassy sponsored politically.