Page 35 of One Little Favor

“I will take care of this, Avery. It’s unfair that you had that clause in your contract in the first place. I don’t think anyone else has anything like that, and I have some theories on why Mitzi put it inmyexecutive assistant’s contract specifically.”

I can’t even hold in the acerbic laugh that bubbles up at that. Maybe it wouldn’t have been necessary if he didn’t keep fucking his assistants. Perhaps they should have put it inhiscontract instead and stopped the issue at its source.

“Oh, Ibetyou do. Goodbye, Tom.”

I hang up and turn my ringer off, then throw some warm clothes in my partially unpacked suitcase and head out the door before he can show up at my apartment. Then I go to the one place that might actually make me feel better—my childhood bedroom at my parents’ place. They’ll be home tomorrow, so I have about twenty-four hours to figure out how to explain how this all went so spectacularly wrong.

CHAPTER12

TOM

The one good thing about not sleeping in the last thirty-six hours is that at least I’ve gotten a shit-ton accomplished. Avery telling me that Mitzi texted her the pictures was apparently the key to me figuring out exactly what the hell happened. Mitzi was smart enough to send the texts from her personal phone, not her company one, and probably didn’t realize that Avery’s cell is actually a company phone too. It didn’t take IT long to recover the messages, and it confirmed my worst suspicions: this is revenge, pure and simple.

I sit at the table in our largest conference room, with the three other partners at our firm. We’re silent as we wait for Mitzi’s arrival. We’ve already said all we needed to say. When the door at the end of the room opens and Mitzi breezes in, we all glance over at her. And that’s when the victorious smile on her face fades and the worry lines at the corners of her eyes appear.

She looks straight at me. “When you asked to meet with me, Tom, I didn’t know you meant it was a group meeting.”

She tugs at her V-neck sweater where it’s fallen down one shoulder, revealing a lacy bra strap beneath it. I assume that she would have meant that to happen if it was just us, but it seems entirely unprofessional in front of our leadership team.

“Have a seat. I’d like to show you something.”

She sits opposite me, and I pick up the remote sitting on the table next to my laptop. When I click the large flat panel TV on, her head snaps toward the wall now filled with grainy footage of an elevator. There are only two people in it. Us.

She gasps, and I can imagine what’s running through her head. She knows exactly what night this was. “Why do you have that photo?”

In it, we are on opposite sides of the narrow elevator as we both leave our company’s holiday party, which we’d held in the office last year.

I hit play on my laptop and the video streams on the TV screen. We all watch as Mitzi crosses the elevator to me. Because it would be a violation of federal law, there’s no sound on this video, but it’s obvious she’s talking to me. I step to the side, and she steps with me. Then she launches herself at me, pressing her arms to the elevator walls on either side of my shoulders, her lips colliding into mine. You can clearly see me put both my hands on her hips and push her off me.

But then she comes back again, one hand wrapping around my neck as she tries to pull me closer. This time I put my hands on her shoulders and hold her at a distance. You can see me talking to her, but can’t hear me telling her that I’m not interested, that I don’t get involved with colleagues, and that I’m going to do her a favor and pretend like this never happened.Thatwas my mistake.

When the video stops, her face is bright red.

“To answer your question, I asked security for the footage the night this happened. You were drunk and I was willing to give you grace and forget it happened, but I didn’t want to risk you trying to turn this around and say thatIcame on toyouin that elevator.” I’d held on to that video for over a year, and had pretty much forgotten that I had it until this weekend.

“It’s not what it looks like,” Mitzi says, turning to my three partners.

“I think that, perhaps, it’s precisely what it looks like,” Leo Reardon says dryly. He’s in his early forties and known around the office for his cut-and-dried approach to the law. Whereas most lawyers are known for looking at the gray areas, Leo almost always approaches things as if they are black and white. “Let’s look at the other photos, just to make sure, though.”

They’ve all seen what I’ve put together already, but we need to show it to Mitzi too.

I click to a photo of the clause in Avery’s contract prohibiting any personal relationships with colleagues.

“We’ve analyzed every single contract for every employee at our firm, whether lawyers or other staff members. Not a single other employee has a clause like this. And it’s not the standard contract we approved for executive assistants,” Marissa MacDonald, another partner, says. I thought it would be harder to get her on board with firing a female head of HR, but she was appropriately sickened by the way in which Mitzi had targeted someone with less power and less standing at the firm, manipulating her position for her own personal reasons. “Which makes it look like you were targeting Tom’s executive assistant.”

“I was trying to protect her,” Mitzi says.

“From what, exactly?” I ask, careful not to let it show how my blood is boiling at her sitting here lying to us. But I’m trained on cross-examining witnesses, and I know that as long as I can keep my cool, I’ll get her to admit the truth.

“From you, obviously.” She shrugs her shoulders.

I click to the next photo, a screenshot of several harassing texts Mitzi has sent Avery over the past year, critiquing her clothing, her body, and even at one point, her laugh.

“Is this how you were protecting her?” I ask.

“Yes,” Mitzi says, raising her chin. “I knew she was just your type, and I wanted to make sure she didn’t distract you from your work.”

“That sounds like you were trying to protectmefromher.”

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