The Darker Exterior

Chapter 19

"He pays me $35 dollars an hour, and more for overtime, of course. I have multiple titles, assistant to the CEO, social media coordinator, secretary, and apprentice," I list off. Atticus wrote them down with a frown.

"Are those your official titles? All of them?"

"Yeah, he makes sure I write them on all of my legal documents," I respond, sitting in his office chair, my legs crossed like a child, my hands in the center of my lap.

"There has to be something in here about titles," he says, scrolling through the fifty-four-page contract Ford and I had both signed when I started working there. 

"Why are titles important?" I ask, confused.

"Well, sometimes, if you have multiple roles or titles in a business, they are required to pay you for all of them since it adds work to your workload," he says, pushing his glasses up on his nose. I love when he wears his glasses. It does age him a bit, but he looks so smart with them on.

"Is that common?" I ask.

"I do it, I'm not sure what other companies do. I know Ford's mother's parents used to do something similar, so if he copied their business model he must have done something..." he said, trailing off into thought.

I began to spin my chair into slow circles. When Atticus said we were going to look through the contract tonight, I thought he meant together for real but it seemed like he was determined to do it for me.

Listen, I don't want to look through that mumbo jumbo. I probably couldn't make heads or tails of it if I tried, but something in me was upset he didn't want to do it with me.

Couples goals I guess, pop off. 

"I might have found something..." he says, turning the laptop to me.

"For each position acquired by each employee, including double or triple positions, the employee must receive a minimum of forty percent of the minimum payment for each supplementary role..." I read, scrunching my nose, "Does that mean he's supposed to pay me 40% of the pay for each additional title?"

"I think so. Can you go ahead and calculate that for me, Ms. Vidal?"

I nod and bring up the page with minimum hiring wages, "35 is my raised amount so I'll just add that to the end of the others...let's see, the other starting pays are; $25, $25, and $27. Forty percent of each of those added up is around $30. Closer to $31 technically, but we can go with thirty. That, plus my other pay is $65 or $66..." I say, my eyes widening. That is an insane amount per hour.

"I think we got him..." Atticus said, snapping a picture of my math, "Let me email this to my lawyer. How much more time do we have before you have to make your 'decision' to Ford?"

"Four more days. Can he draw up a clause to sue in that time?"

"If I give him a bonus, he definitely will," he says, typing away on his laptop, "but I have faith in him anyways."

"I'm really nervous," I say, rubbing at my wrists.

Atticus stops abruptly and looks at me from over his glasses, "why are you nervous, darling?" 

I give him a look and he removes his glasses, setting them down on his desk before walking over to me, "You have nothing to be worried about. Do you want me to go with you when you tell him?"

"You'd go with me?" I ask.

"Of course, Aurelia. I care about you too much to let you go by yourself and overthink that pretty head of yours," he said, crouching down in front of me.