I suspect that this hiring will be the final nail in our relationship's coffin, although that's not what I want.
Let me comment about this. Part of the script is for the relationship to be destroyed in this process. You can not stop it or control it. You are responsible for 100% of your half of the relationship, no more.
That being said it is my honest belief that the LBS is the one that gets to decide in the end what the relationship is going to be. For those of us who have not yet gotten to decide my guess is that it is not yet the end.
I know that this also sounds very counter intuitive but hey thats what DB is, right?