I’ll admit it: that hurts. I mean, it twinges. It doesn’t feel anything like what I feel when I let myself dwell on what will happen to me when Cam is gone and I’m forced to admit my life is a giant stinking poop emoji without him.

I know I’ll eventually find another job. But there’s not a chance in hell I’ll ever find someone else like Cameron McGregor. I just hope it’s a few years before I pick up the paper and see a smiling picture of him and his beautiful wife and their perfect babies, because I need a little time between now and then to convince myself I’m not really in love with him.

Like, ten, twenty years.

A few moments after the phone stops ringing, the flashing red light on the machine tells me I have a voice mail. With nothing better to do, I decide to find out who it is.

“Joellen, this is Portia.” A delicate throat clearing, then she begins anew. “From Maddox Publishing. I wanted to wait until after Christmas to call. As you know, ah, the staff will all be returning to work tomorrow.” Long, ominous pause. “Please meet us in the boardroom as soon as you come in.”

Us? The boardroom? Well, I suppose that’s as good a place as any to get canned after ten years of dogged loyalty. It has the best view. Though I’m righteously furious I’ll be getting fired for something I didn’t do, I’ve been around long enough to know how these things go.

Men are never punished as severely as women for breaking the rules, because men made all the rules in the first place.

I do have one ace in the hole, though. If I don’t get a decent severance package and a reference letter, I’ll sue for wrongful termination. Sure, no one will believe me and I’ll still be out of a job, but a lawsuit might make Michael Maddox think twice about shoving his hand up some other poor sap’s holiday dress that she couldn’t really afford.

I don’t understand why Portia didn’t just fire me over voice mail, but I’ve got personal things at my desk I want to pick up, so I’ve got to go back in anyway.

But then things take a turn toward the unthinkable when I unlock Cam’s door later that night and he’s already gone. I know this because he left an envelope for me on the kitchen counter marked with my name. Inside is a note:

I’m shit with good-byes and we’re not talking anyway, so I’m skipping that part and staying at a hotel tonight.

My offer was serious. It still is. My door will always be open for you.

Yours until the sun flames out and all life on earth is extinguished,

Prancer

Included with the note is a first-class ticket to Scotland.

I sit right down on the kitchen floor and cry until I’m sobbing like a baby, curled up into a ball with the note clenched in my sweaty fist.

In the morning, I’m a zombie. Or might as well be, for all intents and purposes. My insides are all mush. My brain has rotted. I can’t think, I can’t eat anything, and I certainly won’t be able to string a coherent sentence together in my defense when I get into work.

Cam’s gone. He’s really gone. I feel dead but also like I’ve been hollowed out by knives, lit on fire, and tossed into a vat of acid. How do people survive this?

I share the elevator up to the thirty-third floor with Denny, who must be spooked by my appearance because he’s quiet as a kitchen mouse. All I get is a tepid, “Morning.” Which suits me fine, because in my current state of mind, I’m liable to commit murder if confronted with a fart joke.

The cubicle field is exactly the same yet looks completely different. How did I sit at that desk for ten years of my life? How did I look at those fuzzy gray walls? How did I waste so much time pedaling as fast as I could on a bike that didn’t have wheels?

I head to the boardroom straight off the bat because there’s no sense in delaying the inevitable. When I push open the heavy oak door, I’m surprised to find the room full of people.

Everyone stops what they’re doing and turns to look at me.

Ruth from HR is here, of course. So is Portia, looking unfairly pretty in a kelly-green dress. Witches shouldn’t have such a lovely glow. Also in attendance are Michael’s father, the COO, a few other board members I recognize, and a few guys with thick glasses and faces like slabs of meat who look suspiciously like attorneys.

“Joellen.” Portia steps forward and gestures toward the chair nearest me. “Thank you for coming. Please, have a seat.”

This is when I start to get nervous. All these eyeballs, everyone so serious . . . am I about to be accused of a crime?

I don’t sit so much as collapse into the chair. Then I wait.

It’s Ruth who speaks first. “These gentlemen are the firm’s attorneys.”

I assumed I’d be scared to hear it confirmed, but instead I’m filled with a sudden, blistering fury, so hot I’m momentarily struck dumb. Then I find my tongue and let them have it.

“So it’s going to be strong-arm tactics and intimidation right off the bat, huh? Nobody even wants to hear my side of the story? Nobody’s interested in what really happened—you’re just going to pin this all on me and throw me out like garbage after ten years of dedicated service?” My voice rises as my anger picks up steam. “After I’ve busted my ass and played by the rules and given you everything I’ve got, I’m the one getting punished?”

I stand abruptly, knocking the chair back, my cheeks blazing. Around the board table, people begin to look alarmed.

But I don’t care. Today is the worst day of my life. Cam is gone, and I do not feel like being messed with.

“I’ve missed one day of work in the past decade. One! And that was only because I had to get some of my lady parts chopped up and taken out, which isn’t a walk in the park, I’ll have you know! I cramped like a mofo and bled out clots the size of important organs for three weeks after that, sitting right out there in that chair!”

One of the attorneys turns faintly green, and the other coughs into his hand.

Ruth says gently, “Joellen.”

“No, I’m not finished! I never did anything with Michael except be dazzled by all his sparkly bullshit”—I make frantic, sarcastic jazz hands in the air—“gobble up all his phony-baloney lines, and share a few stupid phone conversations that lasted all of about five minutes! I never even kissed him! In spite of what you think you saw, Portia”—I swing around and glare at her, causing her to lift her perfectly sculpted brows—“I was trying to fight him off at the holiday party!”

I huff out a breath, flustered and sweaty, taking no small satisfaction in all the looks of horror I’m getting. That’s right, assholes. I am woman, hear me roar!

“We know,” says Ruth.

I blink at her, convinced I’m hearing her wrong. In the following silence, you could hear a pin drop. “Uh . . . what?”

“I was in one of the stalls in the ladies’ room that night, Joellen. I heard everything.”

For some reason, the room is rising. Then I realize, no, that’s not the room rising, that’s me sinking back into the chair because my legs are no longer interested in the work of holding my gobsmacked self up.

Portia takes charge. “We had an emergency board meeting after Ruth disclosed what she overheard in the restroom that evening, Joellen. Obviously I can’t disclose the specifics of that meeting, but what I can tell you is that Michael has been removed as chief executive officer of this firm. He will not be returning.”