The Divorced Heiress Is Entering a New Marriage

Chapter 0176

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Maria tried to assure me that the supervisor’s flirtation wasn’t that big of a deal, but I didn’t believe her. So throughout the next day, I made many excuses to leave my desk to swing by Maria’s.

Just after lunchtime, I finally caught him.

I had just left my desk to head to the bathroom, when I spotted Craig, one of the supervisors in Maria’s section, leaning into Maria’s personal space. She was sitting at her chair with him behind her, his hand resting on the back of her chair.

He was staring straight down the top of her shirt.

Maria hunched into herself, clearly uncomfortable.

Anger lighting a fire in me, I changed course and headed directly to her desk.

“You don’t have to pretend with me, Maria. Shy girls don’t wear tops like that,” Craig said, his voice sickeningly low. “You want me to look. Admit it.”

“No,” Maria said, crossing her arms over her chest in an obvious attempt to hide her cleavage.

“Come on. Do you want me to tell the CEO how uncooperative you’ve been?”

“Maria!” I called, when I was close enough. “There you are. Did you forget we have that meeting? Oh, Craig. I didn’t notice you were here.”

“Oh, right. Sorry,” Maria said and started to try to stand up.

Craig put his hand on Maria’s shoulder and forcibly kept her down in her chair.

“I wasn’t informed of any meeting,” he said.

I narrowed my eyes at him. “Maria is assisting the CEO and me with a vital project. Perhaps you would like to direct your complaint to Logan himself? He is a busy man, but I’m sure I can squeeze in a meeting for you…”

“N–no!” Craig said at once. “No, that won’t be Upstodatee from Novel(D)ra/m/a.O(r)g

his hand. “Maria, do not forget

necessary.” He squeezed Maria’s shoulder before removing your other… obligations…”

Maria paled slightly. “I won’t.”

Craig, seemingly satisfied, took one last leering view down her shirt before turning and returning toward his own desk.

Maria immediately hopped out of her chair and followed me down the hallway.

“Thanks,” she whispered once we were clear of our coworkers‘ cubicles. “But where are we going? I know rs‘ cubicles. “But where are we going? I know

I don’t have any meetings planned, and you never told me about any special project.”

All of that had been lies to get her away from Craig.

“We going to HR,” I said. “I’m going to help you file a complaint against Craig.”

Maria stopped at once. “You can’t do that!” she whisper–yelled at me.

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I stopped too, to face her. “Why not? We need to get that asshole fired.”

“They aren’t going to fire him,” Maria said.

“Excuse me?”

Maria wrapped her arms around herself. “How many times has this happened? Remember Shelly? She complained about her supervisor and she was the one who ended up getting transferred. Her old supervisor got promoted last year. I can’t be transferred, Hazel. I can’t afford to move.”

I wanted to dispute Maria’s words; but I couldn’t. “Shelly was definitely screwed over, but that doesn’t mean that would happen to you.”

“What about Felicia? Selena? Debra?” Maria counted on her fingers, one after the next, as she named employees from the past.

“I don’t remember Debra…” I was beginning to see Maria’s point.

“Because she was transferred before you started,” Maria said, “Shelly wasn’t an outlier, Hazel. The company policy has always been to transfer anyone who complains.”

God, she was right, and that made my blood boil any more.

I was feeling bold, maybe because of my relationship with Logan. I felt invincible in a way, like I was riding a high of something finally going right in my life.

“I’ll go to HR on my own,” I said. “I’m going to give them a piece of my mind about that policy.”

“Be careful, Hazel.”

“Don’t worry. Logan won’t let me be transferred.”

Maria’s face twisted with growing worry. “Don’t use my name, okay? Not all of us are married to the boss.”

Heart leaping into my throat, I shushed her as I looked around. Fortunately no one was within earshot.

Maria blushed slightly, embarrassed. “Sorry.”

“Please be careful,” I told her. “If that got out…”

“It slipped out,” Maria said. “It won’t happen again.”

–

I marched down to the HR office. Seeing that Dawn was the only one working, I thought critically about walking the other direction. But no. For Maria, and every other mistreated woman in the office, I needed to see this through.

1 knocked on doorframe to Dawn’s office.

Looking up, she waved me forward. “Hazel. How can I help you?”

“You can explain to me why sexual harassment is allowed in this company,” I said.

Dawn gestured for me to sit. I didn’t, too amped up to be that stationary.

“We do not allow sexual harassment,” Dawn said.

“The punishments are too lenient for the perpetrators, and too heavy for the victims. Do you really need

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me to bring up Shelly?”

“That case was last year.” Dawn’s mouth went tight. “Things have changed since then. And we haven’t had many complaints…”

“Oh, I wonder why the complaints went down, when anyone who makes one gets relocated on their own dime.” I tried to keep my voice level, but it was exceedingly difficult to restrain myself when I was this fired up.

Dawn looked at me a moment in silence. Then, wordlessly, she stood and walked to the door to her office. Closing it, she faced me once more.

“I have been trying for years to harden the punishments on sexual harassment at this company,” Dawn `said. “I even drafted an entire new set of rules.”

“Then what’s the problem?” I asked. “Why not implement them?”

“They require the CEO to sign off on them. And I’ve only ever been stonewalled every time I approach

him.”

She had to mean the previous CEO. Logan would never reject a proposal that would benefit the women in this office.

“Show me your proposal,” I said.

Dawn gave me a tight–lipped smile as she walked to her desk. From the bottom drawer, she retrieved a thick stack of papers.

“Mr. Hatfield seems to trust you,” she said, handing me the papers. “Maybe you’ll have better luck convincing him.”

I paused, realizing the implication in her words. Had she approached Logan with this before? And he turned it down.

“I’ll speak with him,” I said.

“It’s up to you.”

1 skimmed through the proposal during my break. It proposed much harsher punishments, as well as protections for those who made complaints. It all seemed well enough, from what I could tell.

Not wanting to bother Logan while he was busy with his work, I waited until the end of the day before I brought the proposal into his office.

“I have something for you to review,” I said. “I’m hoping you’ll consider approving it.”

“What is it?” Logan asked. His attention was on something else on his desk. He didn’t look up as ! approached:

I placed Dawn’s stack of paperwork on the edge of his desk, then slid it into his view.

Slowly, he leaned back. Then, he looked up at me.

“Is this from HR?” he asked.

“The rules are too lenient on sexual harassment around here,” I said. “Something needs to be done.”

“Something, maybe,” he said. “But not this.” He slid th

1 blinked once, twice, confused.

“The answer is no, Hazel.”

–