Hello, people!
Happy Wednesday!

Usual housekeeping:
- I still don't own any of it.
- Team Momo wouldn't exist without Midnight Cougar and Alice's White Rabbit with their red pens, or without AGoodWitch, Maplestyle, Mel, and Eternally Addicted who pre-read and tell me if I'm off my rocker or not.
- Holy cannoli! 1.7k reviews, people! THANK YOU!

Also, the Golden Onion Awards nominations are up and I want to take a minute to thank YOU all for the nominations for my work and for Team Momo at large.
I posted a voting link and details on nominees in my FB Group (LaMomo's Lair). Voting opened yesterday and you can vote daily until August 20.
Remember to go and leave some love to your faves!

Here we go. We're back with Bella today.

Chapter 43 – BPOV

After the impromptu meeting with Alistair, Edward and I managed to sneak out for a quick bite.

"I'm dreading the afternoon," he confessed.

We were sitting outside at a nice deli close to the office, munching on our salads under beach umbrellas on a glorious, sunny afternoon. The sunrays hit Edward at a weird angle, and his dark aviator sunglasses hid his eyes from me. I couldn't gauge his expression as well as I wanted.

"You can't go to war on an empty stomach," I replied, then stabbed a carrot with my fork.

"Darling, I meant to ask. Are you okay with everything going on with Rebecca?"

I stopped chewing and scrunched up my face in a frown. "What do you mean?"

"I still believe she targeted you," he countered. "From the start, her attitude toward you was horrid."

I shrugged. "The same could be said about you, Edward. She targeted me because she has an obsession with you. The rest is just icing on the cake of her incompetence."

Edward exhaled. "The things you must have seen in six years at the firm. The good, the bad, the outrageous, and the absurd—sometimes, I marvel at your resilience."

"You're acting as if something like this has never happened before. You have no idea how many idiots I've had to deal with over the years. I don't get what's so special about Rebecca."

He pushed his plate aside, then reached for my hand. "I had no idea about the other times you've had to deal with morons. I was barricaded up there in my ivory tower and pined for you from afar. I didn't dip my toes in the gossip pool of the office enough to know what happened around you. This time, it's different. It's happening on my watch, and I'm disgusted, angry, and offended. I can't even tell her to her face how much she irritates the fuck out of me because we have this whole plan to confront her and fire her."

"She really gets under your skin. Don't let her; she'll take it as a win." Rebecca was a typical narcissist—bad or good attention was all the same to her; it was still attention.

"I know I should ignore her. Normally, I would. But she's doing this to you, my love. That's something I can't take. It goes against the grain that you're being victimized, and I can't stand up for you."

At times like these, the depth of Edward's love and devotion struck me all over again and moved me to my core. This man—this gorgeous, loyal, protective, nurturing, fiery, affectionate man—loved me.

I pushed my chair closer to his and leaned my head on his shoulder. "I love you, Edward. You know that, right?"

He planted a sweet kiss on the crown of my head. "I do, darling. And I do love you. I just—"

I understood his frustration. "Then go to your meeting and take out the trash. That's how you're standing up for me this time. Get her out of our lives."

He leaned away from me, staring at me with a determined expression. "Yes, ma'am."

Today it's a shortish chapter, but we get LawyerWard taking out the trash on Saturday.

So, as to the Easter eggs in Saturday's chapter. Nobody got ALL three law firms right. Someone got one or two, but not all of them. Here the are:
- Fallin & Fallin is from "The Guardian" (or Simon Baker before he was The Mentalist, and fueled my fantasies of seeing Jasper as a lawyer, which I did in Business Class Girl);
- Davis & Main is from "Better Call Saul"
- Lockhart & Gardner is from "The Good Wife". The Good Wife also has the distinction of having cited an actual law firm in one of its episodes, aka now defunct Dewey & LeBoeuf (which is where I worked in Milan in 2009-2012, and which went SPECTACULARLY belly up in 2011).

Bella touches on a VERY important point about Rebitcha here: she's a NARCISSIST. Bear that in mind.
And share your thoughts, if you're so inclined!

Catch y'all on Saturday!