Page 64 of Breaking All The Rules

“Well, speaking of lawyers,” she said cheerfully, “I’ve spoken to ours about the sexual harassment claims against Ethan.” Sheclosed the door and sat down after Ethan scooted off the desk and stood behind me.

“What’s the news?” Ethan asked, folding his arms over his chest. I could smell the intoxicating scent of his cologne behind me.

“After some digging on Friday, our IT department was able to get some more information about the printed chat messages.” Regina paused for a minute and shuffled through the stack of papers in her hand. “It turns out that Kate wasn’t lying about the network glitch, and some of her reports had been printed in Eva’s office. However, it’s such a weird coincidence that it would happen at the same time Eva stepped away and left her computer unlocked. It feels as though Kate planned it, and that’s what we’re looking into now. I have no idea how she knew that you guys were chatting about that. But it was the perfect setup, to say the least.”

She stopped to grab a piece of paper out of the pile and laid it on the desk in front of us. It was a printout of the sexual harassment claim Cora had filed at Hyde and Wilson before she filed the actual lawsuit.

“After Ethan sent me the video and pictures of Kate and Cora together, I forwarded them to our legal department. Combined with the information that Ethan had given us about the other lawsuit she filed with Hyde and Wilson, we are trying to find a motive behind it. It seems as though she narrowed it down to two very successful lawyers from whom she felt she could get the biggest payout, but we don’t have proof of that just yet. Our IT department is going through Kate’s emails now, and they’re recovering Cora’s from when she was employed here. I’ll keep you updated on what we find,” Regina said as she gathered the paper from the desk and stood up.

“Thank you,” Ethan said with a nod as Regina opened the door and left.

I felt some relief after she left, knowing that they were looking into finding the same missing piece that I had been stressing over before everything had happened with Lucy. Was that all on the same day? At this point, it felt like the days were blending.

“How are you doing?” Ethan asked as he moved behind me and gently rubbed my shoulders.

“It’s been a long week, but I’m hoping that things will be resolved soon. It would be nice to be able to go back to some sort of normal.”

I had my eyes closed while I enjoyed the feel of his hands on my skin as the stress melted away.

“Am I interrupting?” Lucy asked as she knocked lightly on the door. She looked happy, which I prayed was a good sign that things had gone well in her meeting with Art.

“Not at all,” I said happily. “How did it go?”

She smiled as she walked in and sat down gently in front of me. I saw her wince and immediately felt concerned that she was already pushing herself too hard.

“I’m fine—” she interrupted before I could speak. “Just a little sore. That’s all.”

I let out a heavy breath and tried to force myself to relax.

“So...” I coaxed.

“Art brought me the new paperwork that was sent over to him early this morning from Jeremy’s office. Lance has agreed to allow me full custody, and he’s not fighting me on the items we were supposed to go to mediation over. I’m also going to file a restraining order for Jackson and me.”

She stopped for a moment, and a peaceful smile spread across her face.

“I’m getting everything that I asked for.”

I could feel my heart pounding as I was overjoyed by the news. The happiness on her face was contagious as my smile spread across my face.

“Lucy, I’m so happy to hear that,” I said softly. “I knew everything would work out perfectly for you.”

“Just like how things are working out perfectly for you, too,” Lucy offered, looking between us before she got up and walked out, closing the door behind her.

I blushed, wondering what Ethan must be thinking. While Ethan and I had said we loved each other, we hadn’t talked about when we would start telling people we were together. Aside from Regina, we hadn’t talked much about our new relationship, especially with everything else that had happened.

When I looked up to try to explain, I found him staring at me with a devilish grin.

“What’s that grin about?” I asked curiously.

“Stop overthinking it,” he said smugly.

“Overthinking what?”

“Whether I think your sister thinks we’re in a relationship.”

“How did you know?” I whispered.

“I can read you like a book,” he joked.

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