Page 7 of See You at the Sunset

“I don’t know.” They were all fair questions and ones he’d asked himself. But his job wasn’t to question thewhys. It was to question thehows. “I looked over all the paperwork. And it seems to check out. Wainwright discovered an error on an expense report. He believed it was foul play, but I couldn’t find enough evidence of that. Still it does seem she made some costly mistakes. And then there’s the anonymous complaint. All in all, it’s an easy break.” Was it the cleanest termination Henry had ever signed off on? Probably not. But it was enough to stand up in court.

“That hardly feels like a big enough mistake to, one, fire her and, two, do it first thing on a Monday morning. She must have pissed someone off.Anonymous complaint, my ass. I just can’t imagine anyone having a beef with Jia. She’s so nice.”

Henry wished Genevieve would just stop talking so they both could sign the separation agreement and be done with it. The only question Henry concerned himself with was whether the company had cause for termination. Whether it was the right thing to do or not? Not his problem. Fact was Jia Chung did not fulfill the duties of her job. Since when did being nice have anything to do with it? Being nice was not a skill needed in the corporate workplace. Henry was proof of that.

In just two years, Henry J. Shin, Esq., had already been promoted to the senior legal counsel, reporting directly to the general counsel, at Bakerson’s Group, a financial powerhouse based out of New York and currently squarely in the top fifty on Nasdaq and the S&P 500. He worked long hours and did everything asked of him, most of it their own work otherswere too lazy to do themselves. They trusted him with all the hard stuff. Which included, at this point, working with human resources on employment issues.

Henry had become a lawyer because, well, as cheesy as it sounded, he believed in the letter of the law. He believed in rules and following them. And being held accountable to them. He’d grown up in chaos. His whole life no one had had to atone for their failures. He didn’t like that one bit.

Following rules scratched an itch in his head that felt satisfying. So as cruel as it was, an employee termination felt like a win. Someone wasn’t doing their job, they faced the consequences. And Jia Chung had not been doing her job.

HR could worry about the other stuff.

“Gen, let’s not question this one. They wanted it done, it’s done,” he said.

“Yeah, but Jia was harmless. She was a genuinely sweet person.” Regret was written all over Genevieve’s face.

“That’s neither here nor there. And not our concern.” Henry meant it. This was too much thought to be put toward someone at work. And he wanted it to stop.

Because he didn’t know Jia Chung. And he didn’t want to. But yesterday, when reviewing her case, Henry had spent more time going over the details of her employment than he had on anything other than his own concerns in a long time. And that rabbit hole had led him to notice the list of the past three assistants to Edison Wainwright. All of them terminated within short tenure at Bakerson’s. Henry had never worked with or met any of them, but he now knew their names: Stephanie Novak, Taylor Ann Graff, and Jia Chung. All women. All young. And considering the man they worked for, likely all attractive.

And for some reason or another, they were either all bad attheir jobs, making mistakes along the way, or they had pissed someone off enough to get them fired. And if the latter, knowing Wainwright’s ego, it probably hadn’t taken much.

All of this was what niggled at the back of his brain. And he didn’t need the distraction.

So he tucked it away, where it would stay if Genevieve Gordon would stop asking all the right questions.

Instead...

“What I don’t understand is this is the third assistant that he’s fired in less than a year. It’s not a great pattern.”

“That sounds like an HR thing, not a legal thing. As far as I’m concerned, I have to look out for the best interest of the company. And in New York, we are an at-will state, so we have grounds for termination.”

“God. You’re such a prick sometimes. Always by the book.” Genevieve wasn’t wrong. “I’m just curious why he goes through all the effort to hire them if he’s just gonna turn around and fire them.”

“Again, Genevieve, that sounds like an HR thing,” Henry replied. If he didn’t engage with her, the quicker he could get this over with.

“Fine. It’s not even worth it, digging deeper. This company would likely find a way to bury it if there were something there.”

If Henry had a heart, he’d actually feel bad for how discouraged Genevieve sounded.

“He’s a creep, though. You have to agree,” she said. She narrowed her eyes at Henry daring him to disagree.

Henry lifted his hands in surrender. He did not want to get further involved in this conversation. He agreed with Gen on all of the above. And something didn’t feel right with these assistants being let go. But he also was right when he told her that there was an error in her performance, grounds for termination in an at-will state. That’s all they needed. “Let’s just sign the papers, Gen. I have a ton of work to do.”

“Okay, fine. Sucks, though. I really liked Jia,” she grumbled, as she put pen to paper.

She’d said that already.

That was the problem. People wanted to work with people they liked more than with people that got the job done. Henry couldn’t say he actually liked a single one of his coworkers. Though, he’d have to hang out with them and actually speak to them to figure out if there was anything to like in the first place. And that was not something Henry was comfortable with.

He was more of a stick-to-himself-and-just-do-the-job kind of guy.

Henry quickly signed on the line next to Genevieve’s signature and walked out of her office.

3

“Not again, Jia.”