Chapter 24
Laurel
I miss Sin so much it hurts. Not in a pretty, poetic way or in a wistful staring-out-the-window-while-rain-falls way.
In a raw, embarrassing, physically inconvenient way.
I miss him when I brush my teeth. I miss him when I make coffee.
I miss him when I pass the aisle at the grocery store where they keep the soup because I know it’s his favorite kind.
But, as Opal is constantly reminding me, life must go on. Bills must be paid. Emails must be answered. Plants must be watered, though honestly mine has given up and I respect its boundaries.
The online backlash against me has settled.
Mostly. The internet has the attention span of a drunk raccoon, so some newer scandal eventually came along and distracted the masses.
I don’t know what it was. I refuse to look.
I’m sure it involved a celebrity on a yacht.
The in-person threats and texts have also stopped since I moved into a secure building and changed my phone number.
New apartment. New locks. New phone number.
Same stomach-drop every time someone knocks.
Right now, Mara and I are in the midst of settling everything with the board at SINsual Adult Toys. It’s pathetic how each day I go to meetings and secretly pray I’ll see him.
Tate said Sin has been told to stay away. But the Sin I know wouldn’t listen. He’d find a way to reach out to me.
Something.
Anything.
Except he hasn’t.
And that’s starting to hurt in a way I don’t want to examine too closely.
Because maybe he is finally doing the right thing.
Maybe he loves me enough to stay away. Or maybe, now that the divorce is real and the consequences are expensive and public, he has realized loving me cost more than wanting me ever promised.
That thought sits in my chest like a stone.
“Stop doing that,” Mara says.
I blink and look at her. “Doing what?”
Mara sets her pen down and gives me a look over the top of her glasses.
I’ve learned many things over the past few weeks. One of them is that Mara Ellison can communicate an entire cease-and-desist letter with her eyebrows.
I sit up straighter. “Sorry.”
“We’re almost done.”
That gets my attention.
Across the table, Owen Sinclair sits beside an outside HR attorney, looking like he has personally aged eleven years since this whole thing started.
Tate is beside him, quiet but kind-eyed, which is unfair because kind eyes are legally dangerous to women trying not to cry in conference rooms. There are two shareholders on the video screen, Mara at my right, and a formal agreement in front of me thick enough to qualify as light reading for an insomniac lawyer.
Owen clears his throat. “The board has completed its internal review.”
My fingers tighten around my pen.
Owen continues, “Based on the evidence reviewed, including communications, travel documentation, reporting structures, and interviews, SINsual Adult Toys will not be taking disciplinary action against you.”
For a second, I don’t understand the words. They reach me out of order. Will not. Disciplinary action. Against you. My breath catches.
Mara glances at me. “Breathe.”
I do.
Owen’s expression softens by the smallest fraction. “Your job is secure, Laurel.”
A strange, shaky relief moves through me, but it is tangled with exhaustion and anger and grief and something that feels too close to humiliation to name. Because I shouldn’t have needed a room full of people to decide whether I still deserved the career I built.
Tate leans forward. “You’re free to return when you’re ready.”
“When I’m ready?” I repeat.
“Yes,” Owen says.
I look at Mara. She nods once. This is good. This is what we wanted. Why does it make me want to curl under the table and sleep for nine years?
Owen slides a document toward Mara. “There will be a formal anti-retaliation agreement. Continued legal support related to harassment connected to the disclosure. Additional building security if needed. Your reporting structure has been modified. You’ll report directly to Tate for product matters, with HR oversight from an outside consultant. ”
“Not Sin,” I say before I can stop myself.
The room goes quiet. Wonderful. Love that for me.
Owen’s eyes remain steady. “No. Not Sin.”
Tate’s expression flickers with sympathy. I hate sympathy almost as much as I hate this.
“Sin has recused himself from all employment decisions involving you,” Owen says. “Compensation. Advancement. Project assignment. Disciplinary issues. Anything related to Sex Activity Pro.”
At the word Sex Activity Pro, my stomach tightens. Of course they know. Everyone knows everything now.
Owen continues, “He will remain physically separate from any meeting involving your employment status. If you return to the office, there will be protocols.”
Protocols. Such a cold word for please do not let the CEO and lead designer make another catastrophic decision near office furniture.
I nod. “Okay.”
Mara cuts in. “We’ll need the final language on the non-retaliation provision before Laurel signs.”
“Of course,” Owen says.
“And confirmation in writing that her consideration of outside employment will not affect any severance, bonus eligibility, launch credit, intellectual property attribution, or future reference.”
Tate nods. “Agreed.”
One of the shareholders on-screen says, “We also want to be clear that Ms. Cross’s work on the Sins line remains highly valued.”
Highly valued. That almost makes me laugh. For weeks, strangers called me every filthy name they could type with sticky fingers and a persecution complex while they did nothing to protect me, but sure. Highly valued.
Mara’s shoe nudges mine under the table. Not now, it says.
Fine. I keep my mouth shut.
The meeting ends twenty minutes later with handshakes, legal follow-ups, and the eerie corporate politeness of people discussing a personal disaster with numbered bullet points.
When the board members disappear from the screen, Owen stays seated. Tate does too.
Mara notices and gathers her papers slowly.
“Was there anything else?” she asks.
Owen looks at me. “I owe you an apology.”
That surprises me and I sit very still.
“For how this was handled at the beginning,” he says. “Some of the distance was necessary. Some of it may have felt like exile. That wasn’t our intent.”
“It did,” I say quietly.
His jaw tightens and Tate looks down at the table.
“It felt like exile,” I say, because apparently my mouth has chosen honesty as today’s coping mechanism. “I know why it happened. I understand the legal reasons. I understand the optics. But it felt like everyone was trying to make me disappear until the mess was easier to manage.”
Owen takes that. He doesn’t defend it and I appreciate that more than I want to.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
Tate’s voice is softer. “Me too.”
My throat burns.
“Thank you.”
Then Tate adds, “For what it’s worth, the launch team wants you back.”
I blink.
He gives me a small smile. “And Opal has threatened three people with bodily harm in your absence.”
“Only three?”
“She’s losing steam.”
“Impossible.”
“She also labeled your chair a historical landmark and told marketing no one was allowed to touch it.”
A laugh slips out. Tate smiles like he knows exactly how much that cost me.
Owen stands. “Take a few days. Talk to Mara. Decide what you want.”
What I want. What a terrifying phrase. People keep using it like I should know.
The problem is, I know too many things I want.
I want my job. I want peace. I want my name scrubbed from every hateful corner of the internet.
I want Sex Activity Pro and its shiny title and clean escape.
I want SINsual and the product line I poured myself into.
I want Sin. I want to not want Sin. I want a version of love that doesn’t require attorneys. No one offers me that one.
After the meeting, Mara and I walk to the elevators together.
“You did well,” she says.
“I didn’t cry,” I agree.
“That’s not a measure of success.”
“It’s one of mine.”
Her mouth curves faintly.
The elevator arrives. We step in. For the first time in weeks, I allow myself to look down the executive hallway before the doors close. His office is at the far end. Door shut. Of course he is here.
The elevator doors begin to slide closed. For one ridiculous second, I imagine him stepping into the hall. Seeing me. Saying my name. But the doors shut. No Sin and no last-second movie moment.
Outside, Mara waits with me for my car.
“You have decisions to make,” she says. “The SINsual offer is stability. Familiarity. Credit for your work. But it comes with history.”
“That’s a gentle word.”
“I charge extra for brutal ones.”
“What’s the brutal one?”
She looks at me. “Wounds.”
I swallow.
She continues, “Sex Activity Pro is opportunity. Money. Distance. A clean reporting structure. But it may also be running.”
I look at the traffic moving along the curb.
“And if I want to run?”
“Then run toward something, not just away.”
Annoyingly good advice.
“Do lawyers take a class on saying things that sound simple but ruin your whole afternoon?”
“Yes. It’s called billing.”
My car pulls up.
Before I get in, Mara touches my arm briefly. “Read the revised Sex Activity Pro offer again when you’re calm. And Laurel?”
I look back.
“You’re not in trouble,” she says.
For some reason, that is the thing that nearly breaks me. Not the agreement, the board, or even the return-to-work clearance. That.
You are not in trouble.
It sounds like something I needed to hear when I was nine. Or sixteen. Or twenty-five. Or every day since Jenna’s mother said my name online like I was something dirty stuck to the bottom of her shoe. I nod because I can’t speak. Then I get into the car.