She Had to Say Yes

Tommy blocks Flo from volunteering because as her fiancé, he doesn't want her working as a "customer girl" entertaining buyers. He sees the role as inappropriate for his fiancée, despite needing the money. However, when Glass promises a bonus that could help them financially, Tommy changes his mind and allows her to participate.

Flo agrees to help Danny secure the merger because she cares about him and wants to support his career, even though she's disappointed that he's asking her to use her charms on Haines. The merger represents the biggest deal of Danny's life, and despite her reservations about the request, she decides to assist him.

After Flo's clever ruse successfully gets Haines to sign the contract, Haines complains to Danny about her methods and implies that she's been intimate with Tommy. This causes Danny to become suspicious of Flo's innocence, wondering if she really is the virtuous woman he believed her to be.

Driven by Haines' insinuations and his own doubts about Flo's virtue, Danny drives her to an isolated mansion intending to test her fidelity or potentially force himself on her. Despite his earlier professions of love, his suspicion and anger override his respect for her, leading to the attempted assault.

When Flo clearly refuses and asks Danny if that's all he cares about, something in her words and her resistance breaks through his rage and suspicion. He stops short of assaulting her, showing that his love for her still exists beneath his jealous anger. This moment marks his moral redemption in the story.

The exact words Flo whispers remain undisclosed in the film, but the gesture suggests she's either revealed her love for him, expressed forgiveness for his behavior, or accepted his proposal. Her decision to stay with him despite his earlier assault indicates she believes his apologized sincerity and sees a future together.

Tommy calls Flo a "loose woman" after seeing her with Danny at the country mansion. Without knowing the full context of what actually happened, Tommy assumes the worst, that Flo has been sexually intimate with other men, reflecting his hypocrisy given his own affair with Birdie and his general judgmental attitude toward women.

Flo ends her engagement after her friend Maizee reveals that Tommy has been cheating on her with Birdie. Discovering Tommy's infidelity, and realizing he had been protecting Flo from the dating scheme while secretly involved with another woman, makes her choose self-respect over the engagement.

Flo orchestrates a clever ruse by having Maizee arrange for Haines' wife and daughter to suddenly appear at the restaurant. This forces Haines to pretend he's conducting legitimate business rather than on a date, and he signs the contract to maintain his cover in front of his family.

After overhearing the confrontation between Flo and Tommy, Danny realizes Flo was innocent all along, Tommy was the one spreading false rumors about her character. Feeling guilty for his own suspicion and attempted assault, Danny compels Tommy to apologize to validate Flo's integrity and make amends for wronging her.

The customer girls were essentially female employees used to entertain out-of-town buyers through dates and companionship, a common practice in the fashion industry during the Great Depression to secure sales. Glass decides to replace these professional "courtesans" with the company's stenographers like Flo, believing a more wholesome approach would win back clients who had grown tired of the blunt, money-minded approach.