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“I find it hard to believe that any woman who has genuinely been sexually harassed would accept money to shut up about it,” she says.
“And that shows just how little you know about swimming with the sharks,” I say. “In the corporate world, money talks. These women take the money and shut their mouth because they fear they’d never work again if they rock the boat.”
“You’re being paranoid, Falcon. Listen to yourself,” she snaps.
That does it.
“I’m not fucking paranoid, Elle. I’m just not naïve. You’re not taking that job. End of discussion,” I shout.
She shakes her head.
“I already took the job. I start on Monday. And if you don’t like it, then you can suck it up, because this is fucking happening. You think you can just sit there and tell me what to do? Well, you can’t. Not anymore.”
“I don’t get you, Elle,” I shout. “You wouldn’t come and work for me because it’s patronizing, and yet you have no issues taking a job you’ve been offered simply because your ass looks good in a skirt?”
Her face falls, and I know I went way too far. I don’t know how to make it right. My cell phone rings and I snatch it angrily out of my pocket, ready to cut the call off.
“Are you seriously taking a call now?” Elle snaps.
I nod. “Yes. It’s Keira.”
CHAPTER FIVE
ELLE
I hold my hand out for the cell phone, and Falcon hands it over. I press answer.
“Hi honey, is everything okay?” I ask.
“Everything’s great, Mom. I just wanted to check in,” she says.
Hearing her voice, her excitement feels like a stab in the heart. The twins are having the time of their lives, and our world is falling apart here. I hope there’s a world for them to come back to. I feel a lump in my throat, and I cough, trying to dislodge it. Tears sting my eyes, and I know Keira will hear them in my voice if I stay on the call.
“Listen, honey, I’m glad you’re okay. I’m right in the middle of cooking dinner. I’m going to hand you back over to your dad, okay?”
“Okay, Mom,” she says.
I hand the cell phone back to Falcon and move into the living room. I need a moment to clear my head.
I am angry that Falcon thinks I am so fucking useless that I can only get a job based on the way I look. It hurts me to know he thinks that. But at the same time, he’s just saying what I have been wondering about myself. I am hugely underqualified for the job, and I did get a weird vibe off Franklin.
I should be sensible and call the whole thing off, but I feel like I can’t do that now. If I do, it’ll look like I’m only doing it because Falcon said I have to. I have something to prove now.
To Falcon, to Franklin, and perhaps most importantly, to myself. I mean, is it so bad that Franklin thinks my ass looks good in a skirt? Even in the corporate world, sex sells. So maybe that’s why he took me on, but I’m going to take that job. And I’m going to make damn sure that’s not why he keeps me on. He’s going to keep me on because I’ll show him I’m good at the job, that I’m not useless.
Most of my tears remain unshed, and I swipe angrily at my cheeks, brushing away the few that escaped. I’m not going to sit here crying over this. I’m going to show Falcon I’m strong enough to do this.
He comes in, the call finished.
“Jody and your parents say hi,” he says.
He comes and sits beside me.
“I’m sorry for the way I handled that, Elle,” he says.
His tone is calm, collected, but I can hear that he’s fighting to keep it that way.
“I get that you want a job, and I’ll support you. But not with him. Promise me you’ll turn the offer down and find something else,” he says.
I feel deflated. All of my joy at a good salary, the respectable job at a big firm is gone, leaving behind bitterness and resentment. He’s giving me a way out, but I’m not ready to take it. He can dress it up any way he wants to, but the fact remains that he doesn’t think I can do this. I shake my head.
“And what happens when I find another job, and you have some invented issue with the boss there?” I say.
“It’s not like that, Elle. Look, think about it rationally for a moment. How are you qualified to sell tech solutions? You’ve never done sales, and you know nothing about tech. You don’t even have a fucking Twitter account because you say you don’t get it.”
“I don’t need to know tech. I need to memorize some sales scripts, that’s all,” I say. “I need to be the person that fixes problems, but someone else does the actual tech stuff.”
