Page 21 of Letting Go

“Yes, you,” he says. “Come work here. HQ. Help me fix this place. Foster an actual fair work environment. Burn the old boys’ club to the ground with me. Help me fire these retards, legally.”

I blink harder. “You want me to help you overthrow the patriarchy from within?”

Caden grins. “Exactly. Think of it as a hostile corporate takeover, but ethical.”

Leonard adds, “With dental.”

I lean back. “This is a lot.”

“You’d report directly to me,” Caden says, too casually. “As my legal advisor. Help me untangle the knots, push for new hiring policies, and maybe stop me from saying dumb things in meetings.”

I narrow my eyes. “You mean like ‘Surprise, I’m your new boss’?”

“Exactly,” he says. “See? Already doing the job.”

I stare at both of them. “Let me get this straight. I came here to file a complaint and quit. And now you’re offering me a promotion?”

Leonard nods. “With a raise.”

Caden shrugs. “And a coffee machine that doesn’t taste like burnt mud.”

I purse my lips. “Do I get an assistant?”

Caden smirks. “Only if you don’t fire them in the first week.”

I cross my arms. “Give me twenty-four hours.”

“Take twenty-five,” Caden says.

Leonard pats the desk, beaming like he just solved feminism. “Wonderful. We’ll see you Monday.”

I leave the office confused and muttering, “What the hell just happened?”

Chapter 9

I spend the rest of the day doing something I haven’t let myself do in a long time: shop like I can afford to.

Clothes. Shoes. Lunch sandwiched between boutiques like I’m someone who has a lifestyle and not just a job. For so long it was thrift stores, clearance racks, coupon codes. Now? Now I swipe my card without looking. I’ve earned this. Apparently, what I’ve really earned is shoes, because that’s all I seem to be buying.

Still, even while browsing heels longer than my husband’s dick, my mind flickers, stupid, persistent, to Michael.

I met him during the last year of my bachelor’s. I was interning for Judge Miller, yes, that Miller, and Mike, full name Michael Ren Miller, was the golden boy the judge wouldn’t stop talking about. His son. His legacy.

So of course, one day he introduced us. Like he was handing me a gift.

At first, I thought maybe Mike was just dating me to score points with his emotionally unavailable father. But then he looked at me the way no one ever had. Like I wasn’t just someone to admire, I was someoneto believe in. That attention, that overwhelming affection, it made me feel like, ‘the one’.

But somewhere along the way, that belief faded. Or maybe it curdled into something worse.

The higher I climbed, the more he seemed to shrink. He’d tell his friends I was “killing it” at work, but at home? At home he’d shut down every time I mentioned a new deal, a win, a long night. I was the top legal counsel for an entire division, and he was still at a job he swore was temporary.

I think the real break happened at Judge Miller’s retirement party.

The judge introduced me as his daughter. Gushed about my career. My credentials. Meanwhile, Mike, his actual son, stood two feet away, invisible.

I tried to talk to him about it later. I could see the way it gutted him. But he brushed me off, said I was reading too much into it. After that, every time I brought up work, he half-listened, nodded in the wrong places, changed the subject. Eventually, I just stopped bringing it up.

Then ‘the Leonard’ situation started. The harassment. The fear. The gaslighting. For the first time in months, Mike actually listened. Really listened. And at the end of it, all he said was, “Quit.”

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