You ensure the downfall of your asshole boss

The rest of your lunch break with Natalie is enjoyable, despite the fact that it's entirely platonic. Natalie directs you a small diner that none of her coworkers know about, and you sit down and order yourself a sandwich with fries. Natalie orders herself a reasonable salad, and you spend a half hour talking to each other about everything from recent television shows, the weather, to a local politician's ineptitude. You try to keep a tight muzzle on both your flirting as well as your wandering gaze, though even your best efforts can't stop your eyes from darting down and devouring her delectable cleavage. You finish up, pay (going dutch), and return Natalie to her workplace. She kisses you on the lips in thanks, a kiss that, like before, is neither lustful nor friendly.

You make your way back to your job, and while Ted does give you a look as you return from your lunch break, you can't be assed to care. After all, you do occasionally go out for lunch, though it certainly isn't a regular occurrence. You get back to work, intent on making some progress before the end of the workday and your talk with Marissa, but you're interrupted.

"Mr. Doe?" a shy voice asks from the entrance of your cubicle. "Can I talk to you for a minute?" You turn to see the intern Summer peering at you, holding a stack of papers in her hands. You beckon the busty latina to enter, and she pulls over Mary's chair to sit close to you.

"Of course, Summer. But please, call me John. What do you need?"

"Well," Summer states, adjusting her length of black hair out of her face. "For my current project, I've been working with Mary, and now I need her approval to continue. But she hasn't been here the past couple of days, so I was wondering if you could sign off for me."

"Sure thing," you reply, taking the papers from her and skimming through them. Wanting to keep the small talk going, you ask, "So. How has was your first week at Simmons?"

"Good," Summer answers, her eyes drifting to the side as she recalls her first week. "Busy, of course, trying to learn everything that I need to know. But I think this is going to be a very illuminating summer for me."

"Wonderful," you say, as you continue to read the document. You don't know a ton about Summer, so you stick to a topic that she's mentioned before, asking, "How is Jose doing?"

"Good," Summer responds. "His boss has been working him to the bone so when he gets back in the evenings, all he wants to do is lay down, so he can't come over and spend any time with me."

"I know that feeling. I'm certainly glad I don't have to do manual labor anymore. Got enough of that the one year I worked a warehouse for my dad."

"Yes, I hope Jose acclimates to his increased workload and begins to feel better soon. I'm a social person, so I enjoy spending time with other people. I'd just prefer it to be Jose over strangers."

"Making friends with strangers isn't the worst thing," you suggest. "I mean, you don't have to bring Jose when you go out. You can go out when you want to, on weeknights, and meet new people."

"You don't think that Jose will be mad if I go out without him?"

"Of course he won't. He cares for you deeply, I'm sure he'd prefer for you to enjoy yourself, even if he can't be there to enjoy it with you." You finish reading what you needed to, and you sign off for Summer. You hand the papers back to her.

"Thanks, Mr. Doe. Sorry, John. For both the work and the advice." She gives you a bright smile and departs, off to continue her intern duties. You take a extended look at her, a longstanding habit of yours that Carrie has brought back to the forefront of your mind. "Even though she covers up like a nun," you bemoan, quietly to yourself. "You can tell she's still a bombshell."

You get back to work, though for the rest of the day you focus on refining your presentation that you plan to give to Marissa. While you don't think Marissa is overly fond of Ted, she is still predisposed to thinking that her company doesn't have anyone embezzling from it.

Finally, the end of the day approaches. Ted leaves at 5:00 p.m. sharp, and you know that Helen has successfully lured him from the office and giving you unfettered access to Marissa. You wait a moment for people to slowly filter out, trusting that Marissa, who tends to stay late, will stick to her schedule. Once the office is nigh-abandoned, you stand up, and head over to Marissa's office. Her secretary left already, so you stand unimpeded as you knock twice on Marissa's door. You hear a muffled, 'Come in,' and you open the door, walking into her office.

Marissa, the beautiful and refined brunette, looks up from her computer and gives you a small smile as she sees you enter her domain. Her hair is done up in a tight bun, certainly playing into your hot librarian fetish. "John, you're working late, I see. Do you need anything?"

"No," you say, curt as you go and sit down at the comfortable chair across her desk. "I'm afraid that I have some bad news for you."

"Are you okay?" she asks, instantly concerned for you. "Is it a health issue? I have a ton of contacts in the healthcare industry, I can get you an appointment with the best doctors in the city." It seems to you like Marissa is worried about the status of your health. You're touched, but you quickly move to correct her.

"No, sorry, there's nothing wrong with my health. After a conversation with Karen last week, she told me that she wasn't put on maternity leave, but that she was fired. This struck me as odd, so I looked into the company's financial policy for each of those situations, and found out that-"

"That our maternity pay is higher than our severance pay." Marissa finishes, nodding in understanding.

"Exactly," you answer. "And I suspect that Ted is behind this. He was the one who told Karen that she was fired, so at the very least he had to have known about this." You hand the papers that detail your findings to Marissa, and she begins to peruse them for a moment, asking, "When did you find this out?"

"I talked to Karen last Friday, where she told me that she'd been fired and not put on maternity leave. I figured Ted was at fault, but I didn't want him to catch on, so I had to operate surreptitiously while I looked into the situation further."

Marissa finishes reading the documents, then she nods and looks at her computer. She types for a moment, then mentions, "It looks like there's still an accountant working late today for some reason, and it appears to be Beth. I'll call her over to review this, then contact Karen and legal. And I should probably contact IT as well, to suspend Ted from accessing anything related to the company. You're sure that it's Ted?"

"I'm sure," you assure, knowing everything that you know about Ted.

"Alright. I'll bring in those people, and hopefully we'll have something to give to the police so that they can freeze his assets so that he can't dispose of his ill-gotten gains."

"How likely is that?" you ask.

"Fairly likely, especially when your family has donated money to the city's police department for longer than either of us have been alive."

You sit in silence as Marissa makes her calls, first to her secretary to help organize everything. The second call is through the intercom to Beth, the accountant who helped you Monday morning. To be honest, you can't believe that was only two days ago. It feels more like five months.

Eventually, Marissa finishes talking on the phone, but she hasn't dismissed you yet, so you sit there in silence. There is a question burning in your mind, and seeing the opportunity, you ask it.

"Marissa, if I may ask, you didn't seem to take much convincing that Ted was embezzling from the company. What made you believe me so readily?"

Marissa sighs, as if debating how she wants to answer this question. After a moment, she speaks, saying, "Well, if it was just embezzling, that would be one thing. But by stealing money promised to our employees through their contracts, he's opening the company up to tremendous legal ramifications. Any company that is worth its salt would, upon hearing such an accusation, lock down the accused employee until an investigation can be completed.

"Secondly, I don't exactly...trust Ted. To me, he's always come across as very 'new money,' doing whatever it took to personally increase his wealth. In fact, he's slimmed down your department every year to earn a yearly bonus, even as the department becomes more and more strained." Of course, in your investigation you discovered this yourself, but you stay silent. "So what can I say, it doesn't surprise me that Ted would be greedy enough to steal from people.

"And lastly, I trust you, John. I've known you for several years now, ever since I saw the recommendation from HR to hire you. I met you on your first day, and since then, I've seen you grow from a green employee to a seasoned and mature man, all while remaining a model employee who gets along with everyone. "

"Thanks Marissa," you finally say, touched by the shear faith that Marissa had in you. You do feel a minor ping of guilt for not bringing your findings to Marissa immediately and instead blackmailing Ted, but then you remember last night, feel a shudder of arousal go through you, and resolve that you made the best decision for both you and Carrie. "I won't let your trust go to waste."

"I know you won't. Now get out of here and spend some time with your girlfriend."

"Don't worry, I will," you reply, smiling for the first time this conversation. "I'm meeting her family this weekend, and I hope they like me."

"I guarantee that they'll approve of you, John."

"Thanks. And don't stay too late yourself, your family misses you."

She replies, too quiet for you to hear, "I wish that were true."