Happy Saturday!
As usual, BIG huge thanks to Team Momo, who keep my grammar clean and my head sane: Alice's White Rabbit and Midnight Cougar wield the red pens. Deh and Yummy pre-read. Emma is the shoulder I cry on and my purveyor of Robp0rn. Ausha Pasha provided some vital information and some of her own personal experience for the story. Pearly Fox made a gorgeous banner for this story - check it out on FB in my group (LaMomo's Lair - just type it in the search bar).
Thank you for all the reviews and alerts. Y'all propelled CtN 530 reviews! WOW! Thank you, thank you, thank you.
The consensus is that Liam is slimy (no argument there) and James may or may not be slimy. But we still don't know what happened with Bella and where she ended up. We're back with her today. So, without further ado ...
Chapter 10
I walled myself in my apartment for the entire weekend after the Christmas party. Thank goodness we'd scheduled it on a Friday night.
I slept. I drank gallons of tea. I watched Pride & Prejudice on repeat. And debated my options.
I knew what the firm's sexual harassment policy dictated. I should report the fucker. But he creeped me out and terrified me at the same time. Bamford was a sleaze, but he was also a bankruptcy law rainmaker, which gave him clout and a network that spanned the Atlanta metro area. A few well-placed whispers on his part and I'd be blackballed from every law firm in town. I'd have to move. And I couldn't move until I was done with my MBA.
I'd dumped my fake gin and tonic on him, kneed him in the balls, and gotten some satisfaction out of it, but I still dreaded going into work on Monday. I still didn't know what to do. I couldn't talk it out with Rosalie. She'd put on her HR cap and urge me to report it. And she'd be right.
I wanted to report it. Dammit, I wanted the fucker to suffer the consequences of his own actions. But could I go through the ordeal of reporting it? Internal investigations on sexual harassment claims were supposed to be confidential. Then again, I knew better. Radio Water Cooler usually captured those murmurs anyway. Would I be the one who ended up on trial instead? Would they even believe me? It was all he said/she said. No hard evidence. I'd worked in the law long enough to be fully cognizant of these pitfalls. Justice wasn't always fair. Especially to victims.
When Monday dawned, I felt like I'd really had the migraine from hell. I took a deep breath. Did my morning stretches. Saluted the sun in the Surya Namaskar sequence. Drank my morning coffee. And still debated my options.
Another thing I'd absorbed by osmosis from the lawyers around me—know your enemy. Know the playing field. Never play a move in the dark, not knowing where they stand. Never ask a question you don't already know the answer to.
So I'd bide my time. I'd walk into my office as I did every week. And I'd watch and keep my ears to the ground.
If the sleaze kept his mouth shut, so would I. But I'd watch him. And act accordingly.
Then, in six months, with an MBA under my belt, I'd turn in my resignation.
The East Coast was full of glitzy law firms. Away from Atlanta.
Away from him. The other him. The one who'd remain a mystery to me.
I know, I know, I know ... this is reeeaaaaaaaally short. Now we know what happened and whose cocktail Liam happened to bathe in.
I'm going to be on a plane to Italy for most of Monday and will land in Milan bright and early on Tuesday morning, local time. So there will be an update on Tuesday, I'm just not sure when.
See you on Tuesday?