Chapter 9 Amara #2
“Not an answer,” I huff. “Why didn’t you fight? I wasn’t worth it?”
“You were worth everything.” The words come out fierce, almost angry.
“But I was bound by confidentiality agreements. Board discussions, internal memos, fiduciary duty to our fund’s limited partners and the client.
.. even a corrupt one. If I’d told you what really happened, I would have violated every professional obligation I had.
It would have ended my career and given you information you legally couldn’t act on without destroying your own. ”
I process this. Turn it over in my mind like I’m examining a contract clause for hidden conditions.
Wait.
“Without destroying my own,” I repeat slowly. “Why would knowing about your client’s scandal destroy my career?”
Unless.
Oh God.
“Because of my mentor,” I say quietly.
“Yes. Leena Chowdhury.” His voice is rough.
“The foundation scandal touched her charity, as you well know. When I first discovered the fraud Diana, our mutual client committed, I wrote memos arguing we should blow the whistle immediately. Cut ties, report to regulators, expose everything. But the board buried my objections. They wanted to exit quietly to protect the firm’s reputation.
That delay gave Diana time to cover her tracks and pre-emptively shift blame onto her legal partners. Leena.”
Diana.
Diana Castellane.
She ran one of the most respected humanitarian organizations in the world, Castellane Global Relief Fund.
She was brilliant, charismatic, the kind of nonprofit leader who could charm money out of anyone and actually used that money to build wells in sub-Saharan Africa.
She partnered with organizations like Leena’s legal clinic to provide pro bono services to the communities her fund served.
Except it turned out Diana wasn’t just building wells. She was also building a nice little nest egg for herself through shell companies, inflated administrative costs, and grants that got diverted to places that had nothing to do with humanitarian relief.
When the scandal broke five years ago, it didn’t just destroy Diana. It took down everyone connected with her. Including Leena, whose legal clinic had provided services to Diana’s fund.
The narrative became: how could Leena not have known? How could she have been so negligent? Was she complicit or just incompetent?
Neither was true. But the court of public opinion doesn’t care about truth when there’s a good scandal to feast on.
And Corin’s firm had been Diana’s financial advisors.
I always assumed he and his firm had helped Diana cover it all up. Or at least looked the other way while she did.
Basically setting my mentor up for a fall.
It’s why I broke up with him.
“I thought if I kept pushing internally,” he continues.
“I could force the board to act before it was too late. That we could contain it, minimize the damage to people like Leena who’d worked in good faith.
But I was wrong. By the time the scandal broke, Diana was already ahead of the narrative. Leena got destroyed anyway.”
The air feels like it’s been sucked out of the room.
All this time I thought he was complicit. Thought he chose protecting a rich client’s reputation over doing the right thing.
But he was trying to protect Leena the whole time.
The mentor who taught me everything I know about being precise and humane in a field that rewards the opposite.
“But you protected Diana, your client, too,” I argue.
“I tried to protect everyone.” His voice cracks just slightly, but I hear it.
“Diana, Leena, the other partners who’d been kept in the dark.
I actually thought I could thread the needle.
Force accountability without collateral damage.
But Diana had more moves than I anticipated.
And the board had more to lose than I realized. ”
“So why didn’t you tell me after?” I ask him. “Once it all blew up anyway. Once Leena was already implicated. Why let me think you were the villain who ruined Leena’s career?”
“Because it was too late by then. You would’ve never believed me.”
“You could have tried,” I say emphatically.
“You’d just watched your mentor’s reputation get destroyed,” he answers.
“You were grieving, furious. And I had no proof. The memos I’d written were confidential board documents.
If I’d shown them to you, I would have breached my fiduciary duty to our fund’s limited partners, as I mentioned.
They would have sued me into oblivion, possibly brought criminal charges for violating confidentiality agreements.
And even if I’d risked it, you were so angry, so hurt.
.. you would have thought I was making excuses. Lying to save my own ass.”
Shit.
He’s right.
I would have thought exactly that.
I was a wreck when Leena’s name hit the papers. I’d just watched the woman who taught me everything lose her reputation overnight. And Corin’s firm had been advising the client at the center of it all.
If he’d come to me then, told me “actually I tried to stop it but the board overruled me,” I would have laughed in his face. Would have assumed he was spinning a convenient narrative to absolve himself.
“And when it all came crashing down,” he continues quietly, “you looked at me like I was the villain. And I couldn’t defend myself without making everything worse.
So I let you go. Let you believe what you needed to believe.
Because at least that way you could move forward without being an accessory to my confidentiality breach. ”
I blink in the darkness, slowly understanding. “If you’d shown me those memos, I would have been in possession of documents you obtained illegally by violating your fiduciary duty. As a lawyer, I would have had an ethical obligation to report you.”
“Yes,” he agrees. “You’d be stuck with evidence that could help Leena, but couldn’t act on it without exposing how you got it.
The moment you used it, I’d face criminal charges.
You would’ve been in an impossible position.
Watch Leena suffer while sitting on information that could exonerate her, or destroy my career to save hers. I couldn’t do that to you.”
Shit.
He’s right.
“I figured that one day,” he continues, “after the legal proceedings had settled, after the regulatory inquiries were closed, after there was no active case where you could use that information, I’d tell you the truth and make everything right again.
But after the case closed, one day turned into one week.
Then one month. Then five years. I kept pushing it forward.
Kept finding an excuse not to call you. Kept telling myself you’d never answer a call from me in a million years anyway, so why try?
That’s why I didn’t fight. That’s why I didn’t try. That’s why I ruined what we had...”
I feel something hot behind my eyes.
This is not the time to cry. Crying is not a part of the plan.
Except I don’t have a plan anymore because the entire foundation of my anger just collapsed.
For five years I’ve carried this wound. This betrayal. The idea that Corin Saelinger was someone who chose money and power over integrity.
“I didn’t know,” I whisper.
“I know you didn’t.” He sounds exhausted. “And I couldn’t tell you.”
The rain sounds even more distant now. Like we’re in a bubble separate from the rest of the world.
I should stay on my end of the futon.
Should maintain that careful physical distance we’ve been clinging to for weeks.
But instead I reach out to him in the dim light. My hand fumbles slightly, finds his forearm first, then slides down until our fingers brush.
He freezes.
I lace my fingers through his and hold on.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “For not asking. For not giving you a chance to explain.”
“You had every right to walk away.” His hand tightens around mine. “I looked guilty as hell.”
“You looked complicit,” I correct. “There’s a difference. Legally speaking.”
His laugh is short and bitter. “Legally speaking, yes. I knew about the fraud and I didn’t report it immediately. That makes me liable regardless of intent.”
“Intent matters.”
He shakes his head. “Not in criminal court.”
“Good thing we’re not in criminal court, then.” I shift slightly closer. “This is more like arbitration. Messy facts, conflicting interests, no clear right answer.”
“And what’s the ruling?” he presses.
I think about this. About Leena and the scandal and the position he was in. About the fact that he’s spent five years building transparency programs and funding legal clinics as some kind of penance.
About the way he brings me coffee and stayed all day when I was sick.
“Judgment deferred,” I say finally. “Pending further evidence.”
“That’s very diplomatic of you, Counselor.”
“I’m a litigator. Diplomacy is ninety percent of the job.” I pause. “The other ten percent is controlled aggression.”
He laughs again. His thumb brushes across my knuckles. Once. Twice. A rhythm that feels like Morse code for something neither of us can say out loud.
“For what it’s worth,” he says quietly, “I’ve regretted it every day since.”
My throat feels tight. “Regretted what? The choice or the outcome?”
“Both. But mostly, I’ve regretted not calling you. Not telling you the truth. Until now.”
We sit there in the dark, hands clasped, listening to the storm rage outside.
I should pull away. Reinstate the boundaries. Remind myself of all the very good reasons why this is a terrible idea.
But his hand in mine feels like the first honest thing that’s happened between us in five years.
And maybe that’s worth more than all my careful defenses. “Corin?”
“Yeah?” he asks.
“Thank you. For telling me. Can we just... sit here... and hold each other?”
His fingers tighten around mine. “Yes. Thank you.”
The futon sags further in the middle... physics and exhaustion pull us closer together.
My head ends up against his shoulder.
His cheek rests against my hair.
Neither of us repositions.