Just One Night, Part 2: Exposed (13 page)

He thrusts again and I cry out. He overwhelms me, pounding into me as I thrash beneath him.

Yes, this is a dangerous man. Dangerous because his power comes from my own desire and his power over me is increasing with time and familiarity. I can fight Dave, I can fight Asha.

But Robert Dade?

I stare up into his eyes. Can he read my thoughts? That quiet but knowing smile suggests it. I wrap my legs around his waist; his mouth moves down to my ear. “Kasie,” he gasps.

He pulls out, flips me over, and enters me again. Again I cry out, my breasts crushed against the firm mattress. I grab on to the wooden bars of the headrest like a convict railing for release.

Again his mouth is by my ear as he pushes inside me again and again. “No one but me,” he says again, his voice rasping as he struggles for a last moment of control. But as I push my hips back against him I know that his control is almost gone.

“Now,” he groans and in that moment we come together. The sensation is so forceful and primal, it feels almost perilous.

I feel the weight of his chest on top of me as he finally collapses; I close my eyes and try to bring myself back to earth.

I might have been safer at Dave’s.

CHAPTER
16

I
’M ALMOST AN
hour late for work. Barbara looks at me, surprised as I stride past her. I had forgotten to call to warn her of my delayed arrival, not something I’ve ever done before. But it’s all right. I’m composed now. The hypnotic events of the morning have passed. By the time we had parted ways, Robert’s voice has adopted his normal low and casually confident tone.

But as I sit at my desk, mulling through the contents of my inbox, a nagging sensation of worry distracts me. I lost myself earlier, I gave myself to him, my body, my will. . . . The angel on my shoulder, long neglected and ignored, raises her voice, urges me to run. Prays that I’ll listen just this once.

But I can’t run from Robert. Not now, not yet. Tom was right: it’s not what I want. Obviously my relationship benefits the firm, my career, and so on, but as far as I’m concerned that’s all beside the point. I can’t run from Robert because I don’t want to. I just don’t have the necessary will to make my legs move.

Tom bursts into my office with his characteristic inconsideration. Barbara stands behind him with a shrug and a smile before closing the door behind him, giving us privacy.

“Tom, I’m sorry I didn’t call to say I would be late; I—” but something stops me. The sheen of sweat that dots his brow, the flush of his cheeks and the rigidness of his jaw, it all adds up to no good. “Did something happen?” I ask.

“My apology wasn’t good enough?” he croaks. I’ve never heard his voice take this tenor. It’s thin, artless; it hints at an ocean of rage that threatens to submerge the entire building. “Was I not sincere enough?”

I shake my head, not understanding.

“I went too far Friday night, I know that. I apologized for that!”

“You did,” I agree, then turn up my palms as a sign of confusion. “I’m sorry, Tom, I’m still not following. What is going on? What’s upset you?”

“He took it away.”

“Took what away?”

“
EVERYTHING!
”

The cry is so loud that Barbara hurries back in as if expecting to break up a fight. But when she sees Tom’s face, sees the pain, she steps back out, closes the door again.

I wish she had stayed. Before me is a man so wrecked, it wouldn’t be implausible if he told me someone had just broken into his home and killed his children, raped his wife, stolen all of his possessions.

But Tom has no children, no wife, and all of his possessions are insured.

As far as I know, the only thing Tom has, the only thing he actually
cares
about, is his job.

I fall back in my seat. The air seems to have taken on the sulfurous scent of foreboding.

“What happened?” I ask again. But I know. I know Tom will be leaving today with the remnants of his career here packed up into a small box. I know his heart has been crunched with the same callousness we use to analyze the numbers of a division that is slated for liquidation.

And I know who’s responsible.

As Tom lets the silence do his talking for him, I shift positions; Tom has always been able to elicit in me a strange mix of derision and respect. And he didn’t just step over the line on Friday. He obliterated it. If I wasn’t afraid of damaging my own reputation, I could sue.

But that’s the thing. I never wanted to sue. I was ready to accept his apology, as self-serving as it might have been. I was willing to take this on a day-by-day basis. I wanted to see if we could make it all work. Not doing so wasn’t just bad for Tom. It was bad for me.

“On what grounds?” I ask weakly. “They have to have grounds, right?”

“The complaint of a client,” he hisses. “Apparently I’ve made some disparaging remarks to some of the women who work for Maned Wolf, Inc. . . . women I’m pretty sure I’ve never spoken a word to in my life—but they’re all willing to sign affidavits saying I have. And then there are other companies who have brought their business here, smaller companies who have suddenly remembered that I was inappropriate with the women at their firms, too.”

He stares at me, waiting for a response. My mouth opens but nothing comes out.

“It’s a joke, of course,” he says, then tears his eyes from me, turns to face the wall, raises his fist. “It’s. A.
JOKE!
” With each word he pounds his fist into the wall. I can practically see Barbara on the other side of the door wondering if she should come in again.

He continues to stare at the wall. “It’s a joke,” he says again, softer this time. “I’ve never harassed a woman in my entire professional career.”

“Wellll . . .”

Tom pivots slowly, sneers at me. “You?” He takes a step closer. “I said a few brash remarks the day after you flashed me your pussy.”

I grow cold, my nails scrape against my desk. “I didn’t flash you—”

“Tell me, if I hadn’t locked Dave out of the house, if I had accepted his invitation to dinner, would you have served me? Would you have poured my wine while wearing a dress made out of the same amount of material as a washcloth? Would you have sat next to me, wearing no underwear, knowing how high your hemline was going to rise as soon as you hit the chair, knowing that I would be looking at you while you were
literally
half naked for the entire night? Would you have let Dave debase you in front of me, let him indulge his little revenge fantasy?”

Now it’s me who turns red. The humiliation of that night shoots through me like the pain of a damaged muscle that’s been reinjured. “There is no need—”

“Because that’s how it seemed to me,” Tom continues, cutting me off. “You felt cornered. You felt like you didn’t have a choice. But I
gave
you a choice. That ass your fiancé was so eager to show off? I saved it! I left! I called Mr. Dade! I am not the bad guy here, so why the hell did you sic your fucking dog on me? Because I told you what you didn’t want to hear?”

“I didn’t
sic
anyone on you,” I hiss. Slowly I rise to my feet. “I am grateful that you didn’t act like an asshole when Dave tried to use you as a weapon against me. I’m grateful that you called Mr. Dade. None of that gives you the right to treat me the way that you did on Friday. But despite all that, I did not get you fired.”

“You expect me—”

“I don’t care what you believe!” I snap, not allowing him to finish his thought. “I told my lover about my day at work. That’s it. Period. I have the right to do that! Everything I’ve done since I’ve last seen you I’ve had the right to do!”

“And can the same be said for him? Do you honestly believe he had the right to do this?” Tom blurts out the question with vehemence, but after it’s spoken it hangs in the air like a sword above my head.

Tom seems to see the sword, too, and it calms him. He’s apparently satisfied that he’s shaken me. But with the calm comes a new melancholy. I watch as his shoulders drop, the red color drains away, and suddenly Tom just looks old. At least ten years older than how he looked on Friday when he laughingly and unknowingly sealed his fate.

He exhales loudly. It’s a despairing and mournful sound.

When he turns from me he seems empty. After so many unexpected theatrics he leaves my office with the silence and weight of a ghost.

Tom has always been more of a troublesome ally than an enemy. Like China or Saudi Arabia. Not governments I love, but countries whose value I recognize. As Tom would say, I recognize the symbiotic relationship.

And if this is a war . . . if it ever was, then Robert’s a mercenary. He fights by his own rules, not those of a more honorable soldier, but he fights for me. I’ve paid him in . . . in what? Sex? Affection? Have I paid by giving him control of my own life?

I stand up again; my legs are wobbly but I manage to gather my purse and leave the office. “I’m taking the rest of the day off,” I say to Barbara.

“Oh I know,” Barbara says, smiling up at me. “Mr. Dade already called to say that you would be. He said he’d meet you at his place. I would have rung him through but you seemed . . . busy.”

I stare at her, sure I’ve misheard. She takes a moment to lean forward, whispers conspiratorially, “I had no idea! He’s so hot, Kasie!”

I stiffen; my throat constricts, so I answer only with a stiff nod before turning and walking away.

On my way to the elevator I run into Asha. She stops, offers me a thin smile that hangs in that no-man’s-land between admiration and resentment. “I heard you’re getting promoted to Tom’s position,” she says.

I freeze. Everything takes on a surreal quality. The shadows cast by the light take on the shape of specters and shadow people.

“I’m impressed,” she continues. “You did it. You won.” She gives me a reluctant nod of deference. “To the victor goes the spoils.”

To the victor goes the rules.

“I have to go.” I push past her before she can say more. The elevator ride makes me nauseous. I know I’m not fit to drive but I get in my car anyway. I stay below the speed limit, hoping to give myself time to think. But it doesn’t help. The only things in my head are anger, confusion, fear . . . fear of what?

But the answer to that is easy. I fear my protector.

When I get to Robert’s the gate is open. I move into the driveway, pull my keys from the ignition, and carefully make my way through the gated front yard and into the house. Nothing is locked against me. Everything opens with a touch.

I find him sitting in the living room, reading some report. He looks up at me and smiles. “You’re welcome,” he says before turning his attention back to the papers in his hand.

I shake my head. “You think I’m here to thank you?”

“Why not? I’ve taken care of Tom for you. If Dave’s a problem—”

“He won’t be.”

“But if he is,” Robert continues, “I’ll take care of him, too.”

Behind him is a painting. I’ve admired it before. A picture of abstract lovers surrounded by a chaotic swirl of nonfigurative and colorful shapes that seem impotent in their efforts to pull them apart. When I had first seen it I had thought the painting was a testament to the power of love.

Now I wonder if it’s just a testament to power.

“This is not how I do things,” I say. “I don’t live in a world where it’s okay to destroy those who cross me.”

“Trust me, you’ll get used to it.”

“I’m leaving you.”

He finally puts down the papers, gets to his feet, moves to me. We’re a foot apart now. I don’t want to respond to him but my body won’t cooperate. It’s almost Pavlovian. He comes near me and my heart speeds up, my breathing becomes more shallow, and then there’s the gentle throbbing between my legs.

I turn my head away, shamed by my body’s betrayal, knowing that he can see it.

“You have told me it’s over a thousand times,” he says quietly. “It never is, Kasie. You’ve tried, but you can’t walk away. At times you think you should but you don’t. I told you I wanted to be with you when you were truly mine. Now you are.”

“No,” I say feebly, trying to find strength in repetition, “it’s not how I do things.”

With his hand he guides my chin back to him, just like this morning. He stares down into my eyes. “It’s okay,” he says. “I’ve reshaped our world.”

A small cry escapes my lips. I turn around and run to the door.

But even as I get outside, even as I climb back into my car and peel out of the driveway, I know I can’t get away from him.

Even when I’m not with you, I’m inside of you. I can touch you with a thought.

I’m in trouble.

Where will Kasie’s choice lead her?

Keep reading and order JUST ONE NIGHT, PART 3:
Binding Agreement
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