Ah, yeah, that'll do it, definitely no wonder that Hiroko is so scared of anything related to workplace romances or her sexuality being revealed.
And I wonder how Hiroko feels about being Saruta's go-to project manager to this day - it's likely been more than a decade at this point, but because of Ayaka's slip-up as a trainee we know that Hiroko still is responsible for handling their projects. It's a client that she pretty much directly inherited from Chinatsu, and also was directly involved in the circumstances of everything that went down back then. It's like having a constant reminder around how fast this workplace could turn on her if she gave anyone even as much as a reason to suspect that she could be having any workplace-related relationship, that she could be gay, or worst of all, that she could have a gay workplace-related relationship.
Her own personal Sword of Damocles, forever dangling over her head.