“It doesn’t matter who the story was about,” I snap. “I told you it was dead. I told you to trust me. And you didn’t. You sent a man who has stolen from me before, who’s made a career off the scraps I left behind. And you enabled it. Again.”
His mouth opens, defensively. “There’s no need for theatrics?—”
I snort. “Says the man who fired me over email.”
He flinches.
“Let me make something very clear,” I say, rising from my chair. “I used to blame Kurt for stepping on me to climb the ladder. But now I see he wasn’t climbing. You were holding the ladder for him.”
Frederick stiffens, but I don’t give him the chance to answer.
“I’ll be filing a complaint with HR. And I’ll make sure they know exactly how you handled this. Including the trespassing. The harassment. And the firing. All of it.”
“You no longer work here,” he mutters.
I flash a smile so icy it should frost the windows. “Then I’m sure HR will be fascinated to learn that I was fired via email while stranded during a natural disaster.”
And I walk.
I don’t storm. I glide. Out of his office. Past the cluster of cubicles where my name used to matter. I don’t even glance toward Kurt’s office. He’s not worth the effort.
Instead, I go straight to HR.
They usher me into the manager’s office, a woman with square glasses and a calm demeanor.
She offers me a seat and says, “What can I do for you, Charlotte?”
I meet her eyes.
And I tell her everything.
24
Two hours later, I step out of HR with a significant severance check in my bag, a weight lifted off my shoulders, and a sense of satisfaction so deep it might actually heal something in me. Both Kurt and Frederick are gone. Escorted out of the building with nothing but their egos and their poor decisions trailing behind them.
HR offered me my position back. A fresh start. A promotion even, if I wanted it.
But I don’t.
Not because I’m bitter but because I’m done settling. I deserve better than this place. I deserve respect, and I’m not going to spend another minute working somewhere that only remembers my worth after they’ve burned through it.
So I turned them down, head high and peace intact.
The check they handed me? More than enough to keep me afloat for months. Maybe even a year, if I’m careful. It’s not just money. It’s freedom.
I find Tish waiting for me at my old cubicle, arms crossed, lips twitching like she’s dying for an update.
“Well?” she asks the second she sees me.
“Better than I thought,” I say, trying and failing to hide the smug satisfaction in my voice.
She leans in, eyes wide. “I saw them escorting Kurt out. He looked pissed.”
I laugh before I can stop myself. “Yeah. That tracks.”
Her jaw drops. “So Frederick believed you?”
“Oh, girl,” I say, unable to keep the grin from spreading across my face. “Frederick was fired too.”
