Right. I'd done it willingly. Who was there to blame.

I gave a bitter little laugh and lowered my head, eating in silence.

The six of them lost interest, boxed up their food, and wandered off, shoving and teasing each other.

The rice in my mouth tasted bitter and dry, but I still had the auto-show proposal to finish that afternoon, so I choked the meal down through my tears, hurrying.

The lunch break had barely ended when Bruno Nash started pushing Max in the group chat to send out the model cards.

He had reason to be anxious. This wasn't some local auto show. As a dealership, this was our first time exhibiting at a B-level show.

If Bruno botched it, the manufacturer wouldn't let him off the hook.

Max, though, didn't seem to feel any of Bruno's urgency. He answered at his own pace with a hand-over-mouth giggling emoji: "You can't rush a good thing. Our friend is still shooting the photos."

Bruno shot back, irritated: "Fine!"

Then the big group went quiet.

A long while later, Max started spamming stickers into the chat.

"Ready? I promise none of you will be disappointed!"

"3!"

"2!"

"1…"

The second he sent that last "1," the chat exploded with photos.

One after another, half-covered, "sexy" glamour shots came pouring in.

There was nothing artful about the framing. The lens went straight for chests and backsides and the insides of thighs.

The sheer, see-through fabric barely covered skin as pale and smooth as porcelain.

As Max kept posting, the office filled with a rolling wave of sharp intakes of breath.

"That is way too hot."

"My God, look at those bodies. Only sixty bucks a day? They're every bit as good as pro models!"

Patsy Chavez seemed to spot her chance to knock me down again. She dropped a message into the group: "Which just goes to show, on those two- or three-thousand quotes, imagine how big a kickback got skimmed off the middle."

But her message got ignored by every male boss and male coworker in the company.

In a blink it was buried under drooling, leering emojis.

Max kept going: "My friend says this batch of models is exhibiting for the first time, so the price is pretty fair. And after the show, if you want them to join you for dinner, no problem, but…"

Like a man dangling bait, he trailed off on purpose, and everyone pressed him to finish.

Only then did he smugly post a screenshot of his chat with the models' agent.

Max: "Sixty a day, seriously? Can we take them out after the show?"

Agent: "Take them out for what?"

Max sent a raised-eyebrow sticker: "You know. Dinner with the bosses."

"Sure."

"Then we can do a little more than that."

"Sixty a day. I don't care how you use them. But if you play, that's two hundred."

That exchange dragged every man in the group to a fever pitch.

"Two hundred! I've paid more than that just to have someone sing karaoke with me. Max is basically my patron saint."

Some of the bosses even started picking their favorites off the photos, calling out which one they wanted.

Reading the chat made my stomach turn. The whole office felt like it reeked.

I flipped through the girls' photos one by one, and then my hand froze.

Holding my breath, I zoomed in on the pictures, one after another, my fingers trembling.

A thought surfaced in my mind, and after I'd checked it three times over.

I nearly cried out. Every grudge, every score to settle, all of it fell away.

There was only one thought left: Run. Quit right now.

And at that moment, Bruno posted in the group: "Wait. Why do I feel like something's off?"

I thought he'd noticed the same thing I had.

Instead all he asked was: "How come there's not a single photo of anyone's face?"

Max explained, "My friend's terrible with a camera. He was worried he'd make the girls look ugly."

He blew up a few of the images one by one and screenshotted them.

One showed messy hair falling against a sharp jawline; another was a veiled face, lashes lowered.

"That jawline, those eyes, that skin, plus a body like this. How ugly could she possibly be?"

The others started chiming in too. Nash didn't commit to anything, just dropped a flat "Mm."

But at the same time he messaged me privately, telling me to come to his office for a talk.

I forced down the storm inside me, screen off, still turning it over in my head, still wondering whether I should tell Nash what I'd found.

Then he handed me a "surprise" of his own.

"I keep getting the feeling something's off with Max's side..."

I was still debating whether to lay out what I'd discovered.

Nash went on, slow and deliberate: "I think we're better off going with proper, professional auto-show models. Go touch base with them again. My best offer, in good faith, is two hundred."

I was so stunned I nearly lost my voice. It was a while before I managed to get out, "Two hundred?"

Nash tapped the desk, watching me with a loaded look. "That's right. Take a little less on your cut. Pull this auto show off, and I'll still hold that supervisor promotion open for you."

I laughed. The kind of laugh anger squeezes out of you.

It hit me all at once: to Nash, I was a donkey.

The promotion was the carrot. Dangle it in front of me and I'd just keep walking.

"No need. Go find Max."

Nash sneered at me, one sneer after another. "Ramona, don't wreck your own reputation over pocket change."

"My conscience is clear. If you want to hire sixty-dollar-a-day models, I won't stand in your way."

The smile never reached Nash's eyes. "Ramona, don't be a snake trying to swallow an elephant. Take this job and do it beautifully, and I'll still think about promoting you. But if you won't cooperate like this, I've got plenty of ways to throw you out and make sure you can't get work anywhere in this industry."

Then, half threat and half favor: "I've seen everything you've put in. I'd hate to be known as the kind of boss who treats his veterans badly."

I gave a small shake of my head. "No need, Mr. Nash. I actually came in today to talk about resigning."

The moment the word left my mouth, the confident, sure-of-himself look on Nash's face set like cold lard.

He stared at me in disbelief. "What?"

I said it plainly. "I'm resigning."

The flesh on Nash's face twitched. It was a long moment before he found his footing, all bluster over an empty core. "Ramona, this company keeps turning no matter who leaves. Pack up your things and get out today."

He approved my resignation without a second's hesitation. And inside, I let out a breath of relief.

My clenched fist quietly loosened. Thank God.

At least none of it would land on me now.

I had to start at the new company before this thing blew up.

Otherwise it would follow me for the rest of my career.

As I started clearing out my desk, every coworker kept their head down, pretending to work, none of them daring to meet my eyes.

Patsy came drifting over, all fake sweetness. "So Ramona's really leaving, huh? Come back and visit us when you've got the time!"

"I mean, the job market's brutal right now. With you quitting like this, you're probably looking at a good six months off."

I didn't bother answering her. I just gave her a look that said good luck to you, and left her standing there, baffled.

They had no idea. I was looking forward to the auto show more than any of them.

Because after that show, this company was going down in flames.

Bad enough that everyone still on the payroll would get dragged down with it.

I didn't waste a second. The moment I walked out of that company, I started sending out my résumé and job hunting.

The offer came faster than I'd expected.

And this time it wasn't a dealership. It was an actual automaker.

I was run off my feet at the new job when the auto show opened.

I'd gone out of my way that day to get someone to hook me up with an all-access pass, just to go watch the show.

At Gate 3 of the exhibition hall, I spotted Max from a distance, on the phone, frantic.

I edged closer and caught him pressing the other end: "Where are you? The show's already started. You are seriously unreliable, you know that?"

"Traffic wouldn't hold you up this long. Are you really almost here?"

"Okay, okay, okay, then get over here now. We've been waiting forever."

Max hung up and kept bouncing on his toes, scanning every direction.

Two grating honks cut through the noise.

To Max it might as well have been a choir of angels. He spun around instantly to look.

He was expecting fresh-faced, gorgeous women to step out of a luxury car.

He was expecting these models to carry the whole show, to pull it off flawlessly, and to send him sailing up the ranks at the company from that day on.

His eyes were full of joy and excitement, and then, the instant he saw what was behind him, the smile dropped clean off his face.

The scene in front of him left him rooted where he stood, gaping.