A strand of hair blew across her face, and I reached out and tucked it back for her. Man, I didn’t want to do this. Which was exactly why I had to. Now.
“I need to tell you what happened to Chandler Howard,” I blurted out.
Her dumbfounded expression only had me hurrying to follow it up.
“He needed to go. He was being super inappropriate with you, and Britta, and some of the other women in your department.”
Jenny put her hand on my arm. “Did you report him? Like, based on things I’d told you?”
“I didn’t have to. H.R. already knew. And they decided to do something about it rather than waiting to get a written complaint about him.”
“Wait, slow down. What did they decide to do? And why do you know all of this when I don’t?”
We were almost to the park, and the last of the sunset was filtering through the trees to the west. I watched Jenny’s face carefully, not wanting to rush this, but also not wanting to frustrate her with too many unanswered questions.
“They asked me if I would try to get him to do something unprofessional. Like threaten my job. And then I would put in the formal complaint, and they could have grounds to fire him.”
We stopped at a park bench, but Jenny didn’t sit. She stared me down. “That doesn’t make any sense. Why wouldn’t they just ask me? Or Britta? Why you?”
In all my pondering, I hadn’t really let the truth of it hit me until that moment. And it filled me with disgust for my former company. All this time, I’d thought of Connecting Hearts as being proactive. But that wasn’t it at all, was it?
“Because if they asked you about it, then that was admitting they knew. There are actionable things if a company knows about harassment and doesn’t handle it right. There are procedures they have to follow. I think they wanted to skip all that. I should have realized that at the time, but I was so eager to help. I figured they knew what they were doing.”
Jenny sat down abruptly, and I sat next to her, leaving the space I knew she’d want from me. Because she hadn’t put all the details together yet.
“How were you supposed to get him to threaten your job?”
I squeezed the back of my neck, wishing I could take this next part and seal it in a vault and then drop that vault in the ocean. “By flirting with the women in his office. By asking one of them out in front of him.”
Jenny’s heartbroken expression was like a knife straight to my chest. “Me.”
“Yes. H.R. said it would work best if I chose someone who would obviously prefer my attention to his. It would look more natural. I wouldn’t be bothering anyone who wasn’t interested in me already. Britta just sort of happened to show up whenever I was around, so I made that work, too. The hot air balloon date was an attempt to really tick him off. I knew he’d gotten tickets to an art show and invited her earlier that week, but she turned him down.” I hung my head in shame.
Jenny didn’t say anything, and I didn’t raise my head to look. I’d never felt so low. I couldn’t even feel relief over getting it out. Not when my relief was causing her pain.
“Who asked you to do these things?” she finally asked, her voice sounding strained. “Elena?”
“Yes. She and Curt Holloway planned it, and they kept the company president, Tim Bedford informed.”
“Oh.” She leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees and cradling her head. “So many things are making sense. Why are you telling me all this now? I still work there.” A look of horror crossed her face. “How do I go in there like everything’s fine?”
“You were never supposed to know. After I filed the complaint and they fired your boss, they sent me off to California with a promotion, and that was supposed to be the end of it. But I wanted to fix it.”
She jumped up from the bench and stared down at me. “How is telling me going to fix it? Are you wanting me to sue them or something? I can’t do that. I’m not—”
I held my hands out. “That’s up to you. I don’t want anything. I don’t expect anything.”
“Then why come back? Why are you in carpool? Why did you help me move? Why are you looking at me like that?” Her voice broke, and when the tears started coming it was harder and harder to keep my emotions in check.
Not that a guy couldn’t ever cry, but it would have felt emotionally manipulative to let myself. I didn’t deserve her forgiveness, and I wouldn’t beg for it. “I came back because I love you.”
She shook her head. “No. Don’t say that. You left and you never called me. You were just… gone. You can’t upend everything again and expect...” She shook her head. “I don’t believe you. I have to go.” She retreated from me with her arms wrapped around her middle, and I didn’t dare follow. I watched until she reached Denver’s house, and then I walked quickly to my car and left.
Had I done it wrong? Maybe there was no right way. I wiped angrily at a tear that escaped and drove straight to the grocery store. I had promised Clark I’d buy milk, and I needed to come home with something in my hands or I’d go mad.
Chapter 22 – Jenny
Sadie was in the room we shared, but she took one look at my face when I walked in and jumped up from her bed.
