Things are getting inappropriate with a work client [50ishm] that's responsible for 100% of my law firm's business. Want to bow out without putting the firm at risk. I'm 27F.

Background

I work at a really small law firm which was started when my boss [50m] came over to the US but kept his big name client from overseas. Literally the entire firm is funded by the client, who has tons of business in the US. They don't speak English very well, and my boss basically translates everything.

We went on a business trip with just me and my Boss (founding Partner) and I met the client, who is also in his 50s and has known my boss for 20 years. This is a still developing country where women aren't seen in the office as much and I was worried I wouldn't be taken seriously. Based on how this is playing out, I think my initial worries were warranted.

Our first meeting over there, we found out the client and I played the same phone game (think like Pokemon Go or Clash of Clans), and my boss was thrilled and encouraged us to add each other. It was awesome because I had something to bond with the client over other than just work - and the client was a great host while we were there. At one point on the business trip, this guy was supposed to meet up with me and my boss for a fancy dinner but had to cancel last minute because his wife had a medical emergency. He messaged me after the dinner asking how dinner went and I said something like "It was fun! Boss and I missed you though. Hope everything is ok!" and he messaged back "I miss you too. Not Boss though HAHA" and that's when I thought maybe he had a crush on me but I basically ignored it, especially since there was a running joke that he hated my boss. But throughout the rest of the business trip when he messaged he would say something like "I miss you!" when greeting me and I continued to ignore it We went back to the states, I finished the project, and no issues until about a month ago.

Issues

About a month ago, he told my Boss that he should put me on all of his projects with him (as opposed to just with his company generally - specialized projects overseen by him specifically I guess), because I was a hard worker. We both thought it was because he liked my work on the projects. He also kept asking my Boss to pay me more and pay for my LLM tuition (I go part-time). Lo and behold my boss gives me a crazy raise and says he will pay the rest of my LLM tuition. Pretty sure this is all being financed by the increase in projects we are getting from the client - so basically the client is indirectly paying for my raise/tuition.

Last week, the client messaged me and asked that, if he had a business trip to our country, would he be able to see me. I said he is always welcome at our office and I would be happy to work with him on more projects if he had any. He scheduled a business trip for next week.

Leading up the past few days, he has been saying things like "I really miss you" I was sort of laughing it off like "haha yeah sorry I'm not on the game as much I have school, etc." and I was hoping he would just kind of get the hint. But then at one point he said "I miss you but I am sorry because I am old" and now that seems like kind of an unmistakeable "hey I really like you" message and I'm not sure what I should do about it. He asked me to meet up this weekend (back when I was in his country, he showed me and Boss around, and I offered to give him a tour when he came here) but I said I had a lot of school work. My Boss said earlier this week that if I'm free I should show the Client around this weekend but he obviously doesn't know that this guy likes me, and I'm not sure if I should tell my Boss or just try to handle it myself. When I told the client I had a ton of schoolwork this weekend, he said he understood.

But he just sent me this really long message about how he really misses me, how he hopes he can see me, but also that he understands if I have a lot of work. I just left it at "I have a lot of work."

I think I need to send him a message to the effect of "I think you like me and I don't like you back" but I don't want to make things difficult for my boss or risk losing business for the firm and I'm not sure what, if anything, I should tell my boss. I was honestly thinking of looking for new jobs or maybe just quitting and powering through the rest of the LLM program full time but I feel like that's running away from the problem. I would hope this sort of thing doesn't happen again but if it does I can't just change jobs again. I guess I'm also wondering at what point I should have shut this down. Clearly I need to do so now but I'm wondering if maybe I should have said something earlier.

Should I just keep trying to ignore his advances? Should I outright tell him he's being inappropriate? Would saying something like "I'm really sorry but I don't feel comfortable with your last message because you have a wife" be a good way to try and diffuse this, or does that open up hope because I'm using his wife as an excuse? I honestly feel like, in his country, adultery might be more common because women aren't as respected as much.

To be clear, if he wasn't our client, I wouldn't even be talking to him at this point. This would be a very easy "Leave me alone you're married"/block/de-friend situation. I'm also wondering if, by agreeing to the raise/promotion, that might have been indirectly signalling that I was OK with the client liking me. But I don't think my Boss thinks the client likes me. EDIT: Just in case the above two paragraphs are not clear, I am not asking whether I should sleep with him. I am wondering if if I should explicitly reject him in a message or take it to my boss, who I am scared might blame me for this. Thanks.

TL;DR: Client likes me, just gave us a ton of business and encouraged my boss to give me a huge raise, and I need to reject the client. I think I'll be ok if he decides to pull the plug on some projects/if my tuition deal needs to be cancelled but our firm will not be ok if our relationship with this client is ruined. His business funds jobs for roughly 10 attorneys and 10 staff, and they don't deserve to be out of work. Also wondering if my Boss secretly has the same views on women since he is from that country and also supports Trump but maybe I'm just being paranoid. Sort of scared that if I bring it to his attention, his reaction might be like "well have you said anything inappropriate? have you flirted with him on the game?" etc.

Submitted October 26, 2019 at 10:15AM by fP269mn_throwaway https://ift.tt/2MNL5su