Hello, people!
Happy Saturday!

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.
- thank you for all the reviews and alerts! I treasure each of them.

The nominations for the Golden Onion Awards are still underway and will be open until July 31. All the pertinent info and the link to the nomination and awards website is in their FB group, The Golden Onion Awards (type in the search bar to find it). Don't forget to go and show your favorites some love with the nominations :)

Let's hear what Bella has to say today.

Chapter 36 – BPOV

After we took out the trash, the rest of the party went on swimmingly. Food, friends, and booze—always a great combination.

My parents enjoyed the window into our corporate shenanigans and had a few choice words to say about Rebecca. My dad's mustache twitched, and he laughed in Carlisle's face when he learned just who Rebitch's father was.

"Oh, shit, Carlisle. Don't tell me y'all city slickers fell for the 'my daddy is a federal judge' shtick?"

Jamie and Carlisle looked duly chastised at Charlie's assessment, but rallied quickly. Carlisle gave my dad a wry smile when he replied. "She has an excellent poker face."

"And excellently massaged work references," Jamie added.

"Please don't utter the word massage and Rebecca's name in the same vicinity ever again. I might puke," Emmett commented.

Taken aback by that jab, Jamie sputtered. "Uhm. Well. Point taken, nephew. I'm not looking forward to the rest of the week, that's for sure."

"What is she working on at the moment?" Edward asked.

He was scheduled to return from his academic sabbatical later in the week, and wasn't yet up to speed with the state of things in the office—gossip only went so far.

"Nothing much. When we took her off my acquisition deal, I had to shift to someone else the review work she was supposed to do on it, and she can't be trusted to do anything client-facing," Emmett said, rolling his eyes. "Plus, my younger associates no longer wanted to work with her."

"I've had trouble staffing around her, too," Jamie added. "So, I had her review some of our standard bankruptcy documentation. Nothing critical, and nothing confidential."

"Well, at this point, the issue is systemic. It's not just a matter of not liking her."

"As HR manager, I can't disclose … let's just say, I can't disclose that kind of information in this setting, but—I have plenty of ammo to fire that someone, if need be."

Charlie kept sipping his beer and nibbling on finger food from a plate my mom was holding, and he observed the unfolding scene like one of the Mariners' ball games he loved so much. Mom was also fascinated, but the knowing look in her eyes was telling. Some of our drama at the office sounded perilously close to the kindergartners' tantrums she witnessed on a daily basis.

"Boy, does some of that sound familiar to me," she quipped, right on cue with my inner thoughts.

"How so, Renée?" Edward asked. Ever the attentive man, he gestured to her empty flute and refreshed it with a new one from a passing server's tray.

She thanked him with a nod and a smile, then chuckled to herself before answering. "The backstabbing, unsavory rumors, he said, she said, the cries of 'they're being mean to me' … I hear that in my classroom day in and day out."

Edward caught her drift and chuckled along. "We're not giving you a great display of maturity tonight, are we?"

She waved him off. "People always look better on paper, especially when you're trying to hire them for a high-profile job. You all look ready to go into battle, so I'm sure this meddlesome bitch will be dealt with accordingly."

Dad elbowed her. "Renée!"

"What?" Her mischievous smile said it all—she knew what his problem was but let him stew. He shook his head and laughed it off.

"I wouldn't gripe with Renée's terminology that much, Charlie," Rose explained. "You should hear what we call her in the office."

"Please, not in my presence. I still have to pretend I'm impartial," Alistair piped up. His words defused any residual unease, and when everyone erupted into a good-natured laugh, we momentarily forgot we'd have a huge pain in the ass to deal with the next day.

At length, we all sobered up, and while we munched on cubes of fragrant focaccia, Carlisle broke the lingering silence.

"Still, Alistair, I'll trust you to handle this and organize something tomorrow? We need to hit the ground running."

"Or we just need to hit someone," I grumbled, then covered my mouth with my hands. "Oh, crap. Did I say that out loud? Don't mind me."

Edward pulled me flush to his side and planted a soft kiss to my temple. "You have every right to dislike her, my love. Rebecca just tried to gatecrash your party, after all."

"And she stole my Valentine's Day flowers," I added.

I thought back to Edward's sheepish expression when he finally confessed he'd had to go hunt down the flower arrangement that should have been delivered to me on the morning of that fateful day. He'd had to bite back a combative growl when he disclosed where he'd found the flowers—in Rebitch's office.

Interrupting my thoughts, Jasper joined in with his own comment. "Don't forget she also tried to sabotage our league table submissions. With all the safeguards we have on our document storage system, that file still mysteriously disappeared. On the day she joined the firm. Coincidence?"

Jamie tsked. "There's no such thing as coincidence, only covert patterns of behavior."

Edward's expression darkened. His "don't piss me off" office frown appeared, and his eyes turned black as thunder. "I hate to say this, but Rebecca's actions strongly point to a pattern of behavior."

Em nodded with a scowl that matched his older brother's. "And it sounds like she's been targeting Bella."

"This isn't good."

Alistair's flair for understatement cast an immediate pall that showed on all of our faces: suddenly ashen.

"Targeted? Me? Why?"

"We're going to find out, love."

Before I forget - I'm going to post a pic of Rebitch's crochet dress in my FB group, LaMomo's Lair (just type the name in the search bar to find it).
Because my first story Business Class Girl turns 13 years old on July 22, I'll also be posting a special outtake in my group next week. We'll also be doing a group re-read of BCG with Q&A and comment threads. So be sure to join the Lair for all these goodies that I won't be posting anywhere else.

All your comments on Rebitch were right on the money, and as you saw, Rose has a few arrows to her quiver in that respect. Also-there is a probation period in Rebecca's contract, but because we're mainly hearing directly from Bella and Edward, there's been no direct discussion of it yet. Neither of them has first-hand information in that regard. The one to have that would be Rose, and we know how good she is at compartmentalizing that kind of sensitive HR-related info. As a partner, Edward might have known, but remember-Carlisle went over his head to hire Rebecca, and he was on sabbatical at Cornell, so Edward doesn't know the terms of the contract (yet).

I'll see y'all on Wednesday so we can hear from LawyerWard himself.