If he gets dropped by Hamilton, that gives Carrie an out. She can use the excuse that that was the wake up call and once her perspective was shifted she could see all the warning signs for what they were.
Having been in a really awful situation myself it is amazing the amount of stuff you rationalise away until something happens that you can’t get past (and then, at least in my case, you spend the next two years asking yourself how you could’ve let someone do that to you and why you didn’t walk away sooner). Like it wasn’t even the worst thing to happen in the relationship, objectively speaking, but it was something I couldn’t make an excuse for in any universe and once I looked at everything he was doing and had done through the lens of “you are capable of awful things” then I was in a place to step back and start moving away.
If something happens, like Hamilton drop him for breach of contract over poor behaviour, that could wake Carrie up.
Also it’s perfect for the next book, poor Stardust Bling has just been fired from her job as a reporter at the Big City Newspaper where she wrote hard hitting serious journalism about the evil overlords of Working Town who fired people by tweet. Big City Newspaper editor Oppenheimer Offal of course kept on Asparagus Montreal who writes the weekly weight loss column and probably definitely slept her way into the job. When she’s outside the office crying on the kerb with her cardboard box of awards for integrity a mysterious figure shows up and asks what’s wrong “I just wish I could only see the good. I’ve been in this line of work too long and I’ve lost all Hope!” The next day a strange parcel shows up at her front door, a ring with a green emerald. When she puts it on Stardust can *only* see the good, clouds have literal silver linings the bus being late gives her more time to sit and listen to the birds singing. The longer she wears the ring the more it affects those around her, her friends talk about the upside of their house burning down. A gentleman turns up, Rocky Capulet, and everything he does is wonderful. He tells her that they’re going to rob a bank, the one where Prince Lord Webster keeps his money and give it to the people who were fired via twitter. Stardust starts to worry this is wrong, rich people just work harder than poor people, they can’t help their success! But Rocky convinces her to trust him “I hope you’re right about this!” She follows him into the bank and uses her investigative powers of deduction to work out the code to the safe. When Rocky sees all the gold piled up inside the vault he pushes Stardust aside and rushes in. Oh no! Her ring, when she fell it flew off her hand and wouldn’t you know it turns out the ring was enchanted but now the spell is broken, she can see Rocky Capulet for the swamp monster he was all along. Quick thinking Stardust slams the safe door shut and traps the wicked creature inside until the police arrive. At the parade thrown in her honour the mayor tells Stardust she needs to be careful not to trust people so easily and this makes Stardust sad, she goes on to write a best seller that wins the Nobel peace prize about however awful your past experiences have been it’s important to never learn from them. The title- Carry Hope Forever
