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"No Fuck him"

"I think we should counter"

"Fuck hiry What do you hope to gain froure you would accept"

"I hat I&039;ll get when they take the company public," Sanders said "And that&039;s somewhere between five and twelve million"

"You think It&039;s a speculative estimate for a future event"

"That&039;s what it&039;ll be, believe me" Fernandez looked at him

"Would you take five million now?" "Yes" "Alternatively, would you take the coe he outlined, plus the stock options you would get at the ti?"

Sanders considered that "Yes" "All right I&039;ll tell him"

She walked back across the courtyard to Heller The two spoke briefly After a moment, Heller turned on his heel and stalked away

Fernandez cao for it" They headed back inside "But I&039;ll tell you one thing: this is a good sign"

"It is?"

"Yes If they want to settle before Johnson gives her testin"

In view of the acquisition," Meredith Johnson said, "I felt it was important that I meet with all the division heads on Monday" She spoke cal at everyone seated around the table in turn Sanders had the sense of an executive giving a presentation "Ithe afternoon But Tom Sanders said he had a very busy schedule, and asked if we could meet at the end of the day At his request, I scheduled thewith Tom at six o&039;clock"

He was amazed at the cool way that she lied He had expected her to be effective, but he was still astonished to see her in action

"Too over old tireed I was especially concerned to establish good relations with Tootten the job, and because we had a past history I wanted our working relationship to be cordial For me to refuse a drink with him seemedI don&039;t know-standoffish, or stiff So I said yes

"Tolass of wine, and talked about the problems with the Twinkle drive However, fro comments of a personal nature that I considered inappropriate for example, coht about our past relationship Reference to sexual incidents in the past, and so on"

Son of a bitch Sanders&039;s whole body was tense His hands were clenched His jaas tight

Fernandez leaned over and put her hand on his wrist

Meredith Johnson was saying, "had some calls from Garvin and others I took them at my desk Then my assistant came in and asked if she could leave early, to deal with some personal matters I said she could She left the rooaround the rooaze

"I was taken aback by his sudden and unexpected overture," she said, staring evenly at him "At first, I tried to protest, and to defuse the situation But Toer He pulled me over onto the couch and started to disrobe, and to take ine, I was horrified and frightened The situation was out of control, and the fact that it was happeningrelationship very difficult To say nothing of how I felt personally, as a woman I mean, to be assaulted in this way"

Sanders stared at her, trying desperately to control his anger He heard Fernandez, at his ear &039;Breathe "He took a deep breath and let it out slowly He had not been aware until then that he was holding his breath

"I kept trying to et free I was trying to say to him, Oh, come on Tom, let&039;s not do this But he was determined And when he tore , I realized that I could not get out of this situation in any diplo ry When he moved away from me on the couch, to free his penis froroin He rolled off the couch, onto the floor Then he got to his feet, and I got to ry that I had refused his advances He started shouting atry; too I re, `You can&039;t do this toat hi that he said or that I said He came back at me one more time, but by then I had h heels, trying to drive him away I think I tore his shirt I&039;ry by then, I wanted to kill him I&039;m sure I scratched hiry Here it was my first day in this new job, I was under so ood job and thisthis thing had happened that ruined our relationship and was going to cause a lot of trouble for everybody in the coe After he left, the question forher head, apparently lost in the eently, "How did you decide to handle it?"

"Well, it&039;s a problem Tom&039;s an important employee, and he is not an easy person to replace Furtherment it would not be wise to make a replacement in the middle of the acquisition My first i After all, we&039;re both adults I was personally eht that Tom would probably be embarrassed, too, when he sobered up and had a chance to think it over And I thought that s happen so tied, I called his house to tell him He wasn&039;t there, but I had a very pleasant conversation with his wife It was clear from our conversation that she did not know that To me, or that Toave his wife the newti, things did not go well Toed his story about the Twinkle drive,and I could not permit that I went directly to Phil Blackburn and told hi that had happened I said I did not want to press fores, but I e would have to be made Phil said he would talk to Tom And eventually it was decided that ould try to mediate a resolution"

She sat back, and placed her hands flat on the table "That&039;s all, I think That&039;s everything" She looked around at everyone,their eyes in turn Very cool, very controlled

It was a spectacular performance, and in Sanders it produced a quite unexpected effect: he felt guilty He felt as if he had done the things that she said he had done He felt sudden sha his head

Fernandez kicked hi She was frowning at hie Murphy cleared her throat "Evidently," she said, "we are presented with two entirely incompatible reports Ms Johnson, I have only a few questions before we go on"

"Yes, Your Honor?"

"You&039;re an attractive woman I&039;m sure you&039;ve had to fend off your share of unwanted approaches in the course of your business career"

Meredith smiled "Yes, Your Honor"

"And I&039;m sure you have developed some skill at it"

"Yes, Your Honor"

"You&039;ve said you were aware of tensions fro those tensions, I would have thought that aheld in the middle of the day, without wine, would have been more professional-would have set a better tone"

"I&039;ht," Meredith said "But at the tis Everybody was busy I was just trying to fit thewith Mr Sanders in before the Conley-White sessions the next day That&039;s all I was thinking about Schedules"

"I see And after Mr Sanders left your office, why didn&039;t you call Mr Blackburn, or someone else in the company, to report what had happened?"

"As I said, I was hoping it could all be overlooked"

"Yet the episode you describe," Murphy said, "is a serious breach of norer, yourelationship with Mr Sanders was nil I would have thought you&039;d feel obliged to report what happened to a superior at once And froht you&039;d want to go on record as soon as possible"

"As I said, I was still hoping" She frowned, thinking "You know, I guessI felt responsible for Tom As an old friend, I didn&039;t want to be the reason why he lost his job"

"On the other hand, you are the reason why he lost his job"

"Yes Again, in hindsight"

"I see All right Ms Fernandez?"

"Thank you, Your Honor" Fernandez turned in her chair to face Johnson "Ms Johnson, in a situation like this, when private behavior occurs behind closed doors, we need to look at surrounding events where we can So I&039;ll ask you a few questions about surrounding events"

"Fine"

"You&039;ve said that when you made the appointment with Mr Sanders, he requested wine"

"Yes" "Where did the wine coht?" "I asked et it" "This is Ms Ross?" "Yes" "She&039;s been with you a long time?" "Yes" "She came up with you from Cupertino?" "Yes"

"She is a trusted employee?" "Yes"

"How many bottles did you ask Ms Ross to buy?" "I don&039;t reht How et?" "Three, I think" "Three And did you ask your assistant to buy anything else?" "Like what?" "Did you ask her to buy condoht condoht condoht condoms," Johnson said, "it must have been for herself"

"Do you know of any reason why your assistant would say she bought the condo slowly She was thinking it over "I can&039;t iine she would do that"

"Just a"Ms Fernandez, are you alleging that the assistant did say that she bought the condoms for Ms Johnson?"

"Yes, Your Honor We are"

"You have a witness to that effect?" Yes, we do"

Sitting beside Johnson, Heller rubbed the bottoer Johnson showed no reaction at all She didn&039;t even blink She just continued to gaze cal for the next question

"Ms Johnson, did you instruct your assistant to lock the door to your office when Mr Sanders ith you?" "I most certainly did not" "Do you know if she locked the door?" "No, I don&039;t" "Do you knohy she would tell someone that you ordered her to lock the door?"

"No"

"Ms Johnson Yourwith Mr Sanders was at six o&039;clock Did you have any appointments later that day?"

"No His was the last"

"Isn&039;t it true that you had a seven o&039;clock appointment that you canceled?"

"Oh Yes, that&039;s true I had one with Stephanie Kaplan But I canceled it because I wasn&039;t going to have the figures ready for her to go over There wasn&039;t time to prepare"

"Are you aware that your assistant told Ms Kaplan that you were canceling because you had anotherto run late?"

"I don&039;t knohatireat deal abouther these questions"

"Perhaps we should I&039;ht Let&039;s turn to so woman when he left your office Did you also see her?"

"No I stayed inwoument prior to Mr Sanders&039;s departure She says she heard a ood idea, I don&039;t want to do this,&039; and she heard a wo bastard, you can&039;t leavelike that?"

"No I recall saying, `You can&039;t do this to , `You can&039;t leave me like this&039; "

"No, I do not"

"Ms Walden is quite clear that hat you said"

"I don&039;t knohat Ms Walden thought she heard," Johnson said "The doors were closed the entire ti quite loudly?"

"I don&039;t know Possibly"

"Ms Walden said you were shouting And Mr Sanders has said you were shouting"

"I don&039;t know"

"All right Now, Ms Johnson, you said that you informed Mr Blackburn that you could not ith Mr Sanders after the unfortunate Tuesday ht"

Sanders sat forward He suddenly realized that he had overlooked that, while Meredith was inal statement He had been so upset, he hadn&039;t realized that she had lied about when she saw Blackburn Because Sanders had gone to Blackburn&039;s office right after the -and Blackburn already knew

"Ms Johnson, what time would you say you went to see Mr Blackburn?"

"I don&039;t know After the "

"About what time?"

"Ten o&039;clock"

"Not earlier?"

"No"

Sanders glanced over at Blackburn, who sat rigidly at the end of the table He looked tense, and bit his lip

Fernandez said, "Shall I ask Mr Blackburn to confir, if he has difficulty with exact memory"

There was a short silence She looked over at Blackburn "No," Meredith said "No I was confused What I , and before the secondthe one at which Sanders was absent? The eight o&039;clock "