Page 79 of Sexting My Best Friend's Brothers
Ethan stops typing. He looks up.
For a second, just a fraction of a second, I see a crack in the mask. His eyes widen. His gaze drops to my neck, searching for the mark he left.
Then the wall slams back down.
“Ms. Hartley,” he says. His voice is cool, detached. “You’re late.”
“I took a detour,” I say, closing the door behind me. I stand in front of his desk, clutching my purse. “We need to talk.”
“I’m busy,” he says, but his voice sounds brittle. “The feedback is rolling in. We have bugs to fix.”
“I don’t care about the bugs,” I snap. “I care about the fact that on Friday night, you had me on this desk.”
Ethan flinches violently, squeezing his eyes shut for a second as if I shouted. He hits a key on his keyboard a little too hard.
He stands up slowly. He walks around the desk. He stops a few feet away from me, crossing his arms.
“I thought I made myself clear that night,” he says. “It was a mistake. It won’t happen again.”
“You’re right,” I say. “It won’t happen again. Because I quit.”
I reach into my bag and pull out the letter I printed this morning. I slam it onto the desk, right over the spot where he…
I push the thought away.
“My resignation,” I say. “Effective immediately.”
Ethan looks at the paper but doesn’t pick it up. He just stares at it, his jaw tightening.
“Accepted,” he says.
The word is so quiet, so devoid of emotion, that it stops me cold. I blink, thrown off balance. I expected a fight. I expected him to beg.
“You can leave,” he continues, walking to his desk and tapping a key on his laptop without even looking at me. “But per Section 9, Clause C, the signing bonus is contingent on a twelve-month tenure. You leave early, the clawback is immediate.”
He looks up then. His eyes are dead. “The repayment for the fifty thousand dollars is due in twenty-four hours. Or I file a lien against your accounts.”
“That’s…” I stammer, the blood draining from my face. “That’s extortion.”
“It’s a contract,” he corrects me, his voice dropping, becoming dangerous. “And I know you spent the bonus.”
My breath catches in my throat.
“Excuse me?”
“The signing bonus,” Ethan says, stepping closer. “Fifty thousand dollars. You took the check on day one. You wired forty-eight thousand of it to Sallie Mae to kill the principal on your private loan. You have less than two thousand dollars in your checking account.”
My blood runs cold. “How do you know that?”
“I checked your onboarding file and credit report this morning,” he says simply. “I saw the bonus clear and your debt vanish. You don’t have the cash to leave, Tessa.”
He leans in, invading my space.
“If you walk out now,” he says softly, “you’re in breach of contract. The clawback clause activates immediately. And since we both know you don’t have the liquidity, my legal team will freeze your assets by morning to recover the debt.”
I stare at him, horror dawning on me.
He isn’t just threatening a lawsuit; he’s threatening bankruptcy. A lien on my accounts. A credit score destroyed before I’m twenty-six.
