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“Everyone’s talking about it,” Michelle gasped. “Charles. God, I don’t

have any idea what he was thinking. Porn. On his work computer. It’s

wrecked. Totally. Wrecked. His laptop too. All that expensive equipment.

Our software. Months and months of accounting. It’s bad. He’s in real

trouble. Obviously, he’s been fired, but the damage is done. We can’t

control the fire here. Everyone’s talking. I can’t stop thinking about how

word is going to get out. It’s only going to be a matter of time before

everyone is saying that our company is founded on creeps and abusers. Our

company’s name is going to be worth nothing. Nothing! Who’s going to

invest with a company that condones that kind of behaviour? It doesn’t

matter that we don’t approve of it, obviously. People won’t see that. They’ll

just see the story about the massive porn scandal and the perverted

accountant.”

“Wow.” Christina shifted in her chair. “That is bad.”

Michelle moaned. Christina bit down on her tongue. She probably

should have softened the blow instead of blurting out the first honest thing

that came to her mind.

“This could ruin the entire branch. All of us. Everyone who has worked

so hard putting this place together. It could ruin every single one of our

branches.”

“I’m sure it’s not that bad. Everything will die down—”

“It’s bad!” Michelle cried, cutting Christina off in her attempted

platitude. “It’s so, so, SO bad. We are seriously pooched if we can’t figure

out how to get some good press and fast. Think beyond benefit nights and

dinners. Beyond kid’s camps. Beyond any of that!”

It must be bad if she’s using words like pooched.

Christina could see how stressed Michelle was. She thought about the

branch going down because of one creepy dude’s selfish actions. Charles.

Of course it was Charles. Christina always felt so uncomfortable around the

guy. It was probably bad porn. The really nasty kind too. Michelle didn’t