It’s all very civil, at first. It always is. There is the standard bullshit about the weather. They ask where we are staying and if we had a chance to go to dinner last night. One of them says we need to go to La Mar the next time we’re here. And then Aronson, the lead attorney, folds his hands on the table and shakes his head, signaling it’s time to get down to business. “Look, Miss Lawson does not have a leg to stand on.”
Right. That’s why you’ve got three partners in here.
Ben leans back in his seat, steepling his hands on his flat stomach. He’s so long that this movement should make him look gangly and awkward. Instead, he just looks more powerful, more confident. “I’m not sure how you arrived at that conclusion.”
“She had several negative reviews in a row and received countless warnings about her behavior,” Aronson says.
My foot begins to tap furiously under the table, and Ben gives me a warning glance.
Aronson sips his coffee before he concludes. “My client had no choice but to move her out of a management position.”
“It’s curious, isn’t it, that she didn’t have a single negative review until she asked for a promotion?” I ask. I’ve already ignored Ben’s request, but his request was stupid. “And that men in junior positions were earning more than her?”
Aronson glances at the guy beside him, who then slides a folder across the table. “This is what we’re prepared to offer: Fiducia will give her an additional six months of severance in addition to the amount in her contract, along with a letter of reference.”
It’s the most insulting offer I’ve ever heard. I’m gripping my pen like it’s a neck I’m trying to wring.
“Do you seriously think,” Ben replies, “that after a decade of employment discrimination and a wealth of hostile workplace complaints lodged against Fiducia, I’m going to advise my client to walk away with six extra months of severance? That’s less than the cost of this meeting.”
I’m glad he said it. If he hadn’t, it would have burst from my lips before I could stop myself.
“This is probably the best we can do,” Aronson replies. “We might be able to go up to a year, but that’s it.”
Ben rises. “My associate and I flew across the country for this bullshit? See you in court.”
Aronson looks at his colleagues and back to us. “Tate, be reasonable. You don’t have a case. She’ll get shredded on the stand.”
“We wouldn’t have taken it if we didn’t have a case,” Ben says, “and now that you’ve pissed me off, I’m going to devote every available resource to making sure you regret what’s occurred today. When I’m through with Fiducia, they’ll be groveling to the press and restructuring their entire company.”
It’s exactly the kind of threat my future husband, owner of a small-town bar or struggling ski lodge, won’t make. He’ll be the kind of guy who is philosophical in the face of adversity, rather than the sort—like Ben—who clearly wants to punch adversity in the face.
But I can’t help it. When we get out of the building, I’m smiling. I turn to look at him and I’m still smiling, even though I really wish I could stop.
He blinks at me for a moment, and then something in his face softens. “Liked that, did you?”
“Of course not,” I reply, climbing into the car.
“Sure you didn’t.” The corner of his mouth lifts just a bit.
“So…every available resource?” I ask, slightly too eager.
“I want every goddamn employee review they’ve ever written. And every single expense report. I can’t believe they pulled this shit, but I guaran-fucking-tee they won’t do it again.”
I’m sweating under my jacket and now need to change my shirt. Watching Ben get vindictive has my muscles tight, my breath coming too short. It’s just the kind of weirdness I’ll have to squash once I move to a small town and become someone who enjoys long walks at sunset and casual conversation with strangers.
“My secretary got us on an earlier flight,” says Ben, as we pull up to the hotel. “Can you be ready to go in thirty?”
“The sooner the better,” I reply, climbing out of the car and walking ahead. His vindictiveness has left me such an oversexed mess that I can barely walk a straight line, and I can’t walk one anyway, thanks to the lobby now stuffed full of women in purple hats. I’m not sure what’s up with the hats, but their tendency to block public spaces is something their leadership should address.
The elevator doors open. We climb in and are followed by approximately a hundred of the purple-hat brigade, talking so loudly I can barely hear myself think. They continue to pile in, surpassing the elevator’s maximum capacity, as I’m forced farther and farther back.
Their noise level and good cheer makes the fact I’m currently turned on that much worse, that much stranger. Also not helping matters: my back is pressed to Ben’s unusually firm chest, and I can’t stop imagining where this might go if we were two different people who didn’t hate each other and weren’t surrounded by old women in purple hats.
“Stacey! Fiona!” someone shouts. “We’ll make room for you!” Suddenly they are pushing us backward once more. Maybe the purple hats signify their inability to maintain reasonable personal space.
“For fuck’s sake,” groans Ben, as my ass presses into his thighs.
“It’s fun for me too,” I hiss. “We’d be farther apart if we were having sex.”
I meant it as a complaint, but I flush as soon as the words exit my mouth. It sounds like it’s something I’ve pictured repeatedly and am perhaps picturing now: Ben sliding my skirt up in this crowded elevator, pushing my panties aside.
Gross. I shudder. Stop.
And then…something registers. Pressure against the curve of my back.
His—apparently ample—penis is wedged there. And hard.
“Oh my God. Is that what I think it is?” I ask in a not-so-quiet voice, but there is no way the purple hats are going to hear me over their shouts to each other.
He gives the slightest sigh, as if disappointed in me for asking when he should actually be disappointed in his penis for acting like it’s thirteen.
“Don’t get too flattered,” he says under his breath. “There are a lot of women in here. It could be for any of them.”
I feel my mouth curving upward and promptly turn it back down. “Mommy issues. I should have known.”
I hear something that sounds suspiciously like laughter. “Don’t judge. My mother is a very attractive woman.”
I choke on a laugh of my own and try to disguise it as a cough, which only presses me closer to him.
God.
We arrive at our floor and maneuver out the elevator doors, Ben holding me against him the whole way, probably to make sure his penis doesn’t send anyone into cardiac arrest.
From the feel of it, that’s entirely possible.
When he finally releases me, I let my eyes drift back to him then down, but he’s now holding his briefcase in front of him.
“I knew you’d look,” he says. He’s flushed, but also the tiniest bit...pleased.
“I thought it might be best to get a visual,” I reply, fumbling with the keycard, “as it will be giving me nightmares for the next few weeks.”