Chapter 22
Mina spent the rest of the weekend preparing for Monday morning.
She knew that she was about to go into her mother’s— no, her uncles’ law office one last time.
She was wound up all day Sunday and was still tossing and turning at three in the morning when Hem decided to help her sleep by tiring her out.
He pulled her out of bed, pressed against her shoulders until her breasts were flush against the cool glass wall overlooking the city lights, and fucked her from behind.
His long, tapered fingers dug into the softness of her hips, and she felt the rough smattering of hair on his chest against her back, the powerful flex of muscles in his thighs.
For a blissful period of time, her mind went completely blank and all she could focus on was riding out the pleasure Hem gave her as he gripped her hips with powerful control and pushed into her until she was full.
The sound of her breathy moans and her gasps of pleasure mingled with his soothing words as he praised her for being so good, and taking him so deep.
She came twice before he emptied inside of her, and dawn lightened the sky.
When her knees gave out, Hem swept her up in his arms, limp limbs, and content sighs.
“I’m not done with you yet,” he said as he carried her to the bathroom.
She was still basking in the afterglow of pleasure when he soaked with her in the bathtub.
They faced each other, her legs wrapped around his hips, and his rough muscles and thick chest hair against the soft curves of her body.
The water was deliciously warm as he lowered her onto his cock.
She was so sore, aching from how many times he took her, oversensitive from use, but Hem was still able to bring her to the edge of ecstasy again.
She screamed with release loud enough for both of their ears to ring with it.
She practically crawled to the shower at sunrise. Her head was fuzzy, her skin hummed with pleasure and felt deliciously sore in all the right places as she put on her burgundy power suit and matching sky- high heels.
When she walked into the kitchen to get coffee while Hem got dressed, she saw that his cook had left two plates of avocado toast with poached eggs and mixed greens at the breakfast bar on hot marble slabs.
There were two cups of steaming coffee, one to her satisfaction and one to Hem’s that were covered with mug discs.
She could really get used to this, she thought as she picked up the trey on the counter, loaded it with their breakfast and brought it back to the bedroom.
“I don’t think my trip to the office will take long,” Mina said as she bit into her toast. “I wouldn’t see Sanjeev at all until the Bharat quarterly meeting, but I need to put distance between myself and the firm now.”
Hem was still fixing the diamond cuff links in his French cuff custom fit shirt. “I still don’t have to like it.”
“Sanjeev is already onto me,” she said. “When I messaged him for a meeting, he kept pushing for an agenda.”
“I wonder if the mole realized we were finally searching for them and let Sanjeev know.”
Mina shook her head. “I’m not sure.”
Her phone buzzed and she picked it up to read the text.
CINDY- PARALEGAL: Hi, I got a strange message from your uncle.
MINA: What was it?
CINDY- PARALEGAL: I was told to file notices to all your clients that you’ll be transferring your cases immediately to other members of the law firm.
Mina closed her eyes and felt a pang of hurt in her heart. Hem’s hand on her back was warm and reassuring.
MINA: Cindy, were you supposed to tell me?
CINDY- PARALEGAL: No, I was told that I’d be fired if I warned you.
MINA: Thank you for warning me anyway. Go ahead and do what you’re told, but if you could add a line and let the client know they can reach me on my personal cell if they have any questions, I’d be forever grateful.
If anyone questions it after the letters are sent out, just say that you always added that information in my previous letters.
CINDY- PARALEGAL: Mina, what’s going on????
MINA: I promise I’ll explain everything to you later.
CINDY- PARALEGAL: Okay. I’m worried for you.
“What did she say?” Hem asked.
She was about to answer when Mina’s phone buzzed again.
BECCA- ASSISTANT: your uncle just emailed me and told me I had to put your stuff in boxes bc you’ll be picking them up today. WTF??!!!???
MINA: If you could also back up the folder labeled Personal on the desktop and put the data on a drive, I’d appreciate it. No other requirements.
BECCA- ASSISTANT: *cry face emoji* You got it. Dammit, Mina, I want to know what’s happening!
MINA: I’ll tell you soon.
Mina put her phone away and quickly turned to Hem, who wrapped her in his arms. “I’m so sorry, hirye,” he said.
She kissed him with an edge of desperation and then spent her last twenty minutes in the penthouse reassuring him that she’d be fine on her own.
This goodbye was bound to happen, and she was content with that, even if saying goodbye was like letting go of a goal she’d always imagined she’d achieve one day.
Mina took an Uber to the office; her mind filled with possibilities for how this meeting was going to go.
Twenty minutes later, she stepped out of the car just as she received an email to go straight to the largest conference room on the floor.
With a deep breath and the clear knowledge that she had the memory of her mother, her father, and her lover with her, she made her last trip into Kohli & Associates.
When she entered through the glass double doors, an audible hush spread across the floor. Heads popped up behind cubicle walls, and her coworkers and peers stared openly at her.
Everyone knew.
That killed some of her misery. There was no way she would look like a sad, kicked puppy that was being escorted out of a place that had once been built on dreams and hopes for her future. Mina’s chin went up and she strode toward the conference room, waving at gawking faces as she passed.
Sanjeev, Nakul, and Human Resources staff sat at the table when she entered. Vibha, Sanjeev’s executive assistant, sat at the end of the table, avoiding eye contact. Mina feigned surprise in the doorway.
“This was definitely not the welcome I expected to receive when I requested a meeting in the first place,” she said.
Nakul motioned for her to sit. “Would you like to tell us why you’re here before we get onto business?” he asked. He knew that Mina had already read the room. She knew she was going to be fired.
She dropped her tote bag on the table and collapsed in one of the chairs, as if she owned the place. “I think I’ll let you go first.”
The Kohli brothers laughed as if she’d told the funniest joke they’d ever heard. When they got their humor under control, Cheryl from HR slid a piece of paper in front of her. “You are being terminated from Kohli & Associates effective immediately.”
Sanjeev and Nakul turned to each other and smiled.
For the first time, she didn’t feel like she was fighting a losing battle.
Despite her current predicament, her uncles thought they’d one- upped her, but they didn’t realize her father would take her side.
She felt another wave of gratitude for her surviving parent.
“Due to a series of missteps on your part as an employee, including your intimate relationship with a client’s son and your failure to make sound decisions and facilitate a profitable merger, I’m sorry to say we are letting you go,” Cheryl continued.
“Do you have proof?”
“E-excuse me?” Cheryl said. Her eyes went wide as she quickly glanced to her uncles.
“No, don’t look at them, look at me,” Mina said. “Do you have proof or are you just their lackey after all?”
“I beg your pardon, but I?—”
“So you have no proof.”
“Rumor is enough, Mina,” Nakul said. “We can’t have that kind of information tarnish our reputation.”
“Seriously? That’s the excuse you’re going to use after I called Sanjeev out last week?” Mina saw Sanjeev redden and felt a moment of satisfaction. “I think the firm’s reputation is already tarnished with you two at the helm.”
“We’re trying to do this in a civil fashion, Mina,” Cheryl said.
“Yeah, I can see that,” she said.
“Now it’s time to turn in your key card,” Nakul said.
“But don’t you want to know why I called this meeting? Why I wanted to come in today and see both of you?”
“Let me guess,” Sanjeev said, snidely. “You can’t in good conscious continue to work on the Bharat case for us, so you’re leaving.”
“I’m leaving because I can’t be associated with someone who is committing crimes.”
Cheryl gasped and Sanjeev slammed a fist against the desk. “Don’t even think about spreading those lies!”
“They aren’t lies, and you know it.”
“Your accusations are empty and meaningless,” Sanjeev continued. “No one will believe you over me. We all know you’ve wanted this firm. They’ll view your words as a desperate attempt to get it. I wonder what your mother would think of you now? Getting fired from the very business that she started.”
There was a stretch of silence, and Sanjeev stared at her, as if expecting her to argue.
Mina sat relaxed in her chair, with one raised brow.
“Say what you want to, Sanjeev. But she loved you, and out of two of us, you’re the one who let her down because of your petty jealousy.
She was still, and will always be, better than you ever could be. ”
“You bitch?—”
Cheryl cleared her throat and pushed a piece of paper in front of her.
“This is a nondisclosure form. We will not share your termination with other law firms that you choose to work for if you agree not to disclose office information. This is outside of your client files, of course, as that’s covered by ethics laws. ”
Mina glanced at the NDA and laughed. She picked it up and tore it in half.
The stormy expressions on her uncles’ faces were priceless.
“Tell all of New York that you fired me, and I’ll make sure I tell all of New York your secrets.
And don’t worry, I’ve made enough friends to back me up.
I wonder what your colleagues will think when they find out that you wanted me to marry for the sake of a business merger? ”
“Your career is over,” Sanjeev said quietly even as sweat beaded against his forehead. Even as Nakul sat by his side harumphing and gaping at her.
Mina stood and looped her shoulder strap over her shoulder. “No, your career is over,” she said in Punjabi. It was the truth, too. She believed her father’s words that he’d spoken to her with a thread of steel in his voice. Mina was her mother’s legacy. She no longer needed the firm to honor that.
“Cheryl? It’s been a pleasure. I’ll expect my last check in the mail within two weeks, otherwise I’ll start spreading the word that HR here is just as bad as the managing partners.”
She turned to go and heard Vibha’s soft voice from behind her. “I’ll walk her out.”
The older Indian woman hustled to keep up with Mina’s long strides.
When they reached the reception desk at the front of the office, Cindy and Becca stood holding file boxes in their hands.
For the first time in days, Mina didn’t feel the need to cry.
She was content with what had just happened, relieved that it was quick and painless. She felt freed, even.
The weightlessness was shocking, and she almost giggled as she took the boxes out of both Cindy’s and Becca’s hands and stacked them on the floor so she could give them proper hugs.
She turned to Vibha who wore an anxious expression on her face.
“Don’t let him treat you like shit,” Mina said. “You’re too good for him.”
Vibha held out a hand to shake, which Mina found odd, but she accepted the gesture.
When she felt the slim cool metal against her palm, her eyes widened.
Oh my god. Mina palmed the flash drive and then grabbed the boxes.
Her former staff called out to text them and that she’d be missed as she slipped into the elevator with a security detail.
She ignored the guard while she tried to think what possibly could be on the drive as the elevator car descended to the lobby.
“Do you have transportation?” he said when they crossed towards the exit.
“What? No.”
“You’ll have to arrange it outside,” he said gruffly. “You’re not allowed in the building at this time.”
“Yeah, I got that,” she said.
He followed her through the turnstile and out to the curb.
A swarm of employees who were coming into the building to start their day watched her.
She would’ve been horrified normally to endure such a humiliating experience, but her mind was elsewhere.
She needed to log onto her computer to find out what Vibha had given her.
Just as she stepped onto the sidewalk, she saw the familiar face leaning against the town car at the curb. Her heart swelled with love. Hem’s frame was expertly covered in a slate gray suit. The one she’d picked out for him that morning. He must’ve followed her.
The driver got out of the front seat and rounded the car to take Mina’s boxes from her and loaded it into the trunk while Hem helped Mina into the back seat. She kept the drive fisted in her palm and waited for Hem to join her.
“I’m so sorry, baby. Are you okay?”
“Hem? I’m better than okay.” She turned to him and held up the flash drive that Vibha had given her. “Our recorded conversation isn’t the only thing we have on Sanjeev anymore. I think I got the information I need to put my uncles away for good.”