Just One Night, Part 2: Exposed (8 page)

I stare up into his eyes and gasp the word, “Yes.”

We cling to each other for minutes that feel like seconds . . . or days. I listen to his breathing, feel his heartbeat, smell his cologne. . . .

“You’re coming with me,” he says. His voice isn’t demanding. He’s just stating a fact.

I run my fingers over the back of his neck and stare at the white walls of Dave dining room, silently saying good-bye to my prison.

CHAPTER
9

I
DRESS IN THE
CLOTHES
I wore to work but before Robert and I leave Dave’s house, I fold up the offensive dress neatly and place it in the middle of the dining room table. Robert nods his approval. He doesn’t know about the note I put inside the flimsy fabric. A small piece of white paper with some words written in cursive:

Do what you will but I can’t take this anymore.

You miss the woman who was loyal, I miss the man who was kind.

Good-bye,

Kasie

Robert expelled the fog from my mind. I felt it seep from my pores, mingle with the sweat of our lovemaking, and then it just evaporated. Robert thinks I’m going to trust him to save me. Dave will think I’m throwing caution to the wind.

They’re both wrong. I’m still at war. But now I’m ready to fight like a warrior.

But even wars have moments of quiet—moments when the gunfire’s so faint, it could be the popping of balloons. I feel that ephemeral peace as we drive away in Robert’s Alfa Romeo, a car that resembles art and smells of power. We don’t speak. Instead I enjoy the movement of his hand over the gearshift, cherish the way he caresses the leather-covered steering wheel. I’m almost jealous that the car should be the beneficiary of such firm and loving handling, but it’ll be my turn soon.

I’ve been to Robert’s home before but when we finally walk through that front gate . . . when I see the entire city sparkling back at me with excitement and anticipation, I can’t help but feel a little alarmed by the grandeur of the view. He leads me inside and I find that I feel awkward and a little shy. Last time I had been here we had made love in his massive bed over and over again, but afterward we had talked. It had been so comfortable. I had been at ease. I wonder if he expects that I’ll be able to go back to that place. I can’t of course. Not yet.

He seems to understand, or maybe he just sees the blush on my cheeks and senses that delicacy is needed. He almost formally ushers me to the deep brown leather sofa in the living room and then disappears to get me something to drink.

I sit rigidly, wondering if he’ll be bring me a scotch, the dangerous cocktail that had started it all.

But I need a clear head tonight. The battle is too close for that kind of indulgence.

When Robert comes back with a large green mug, I catch the sent of hot chocolate and I eagerly take the mug into my hands, sipping the bittersweet flavor with relish. It’s such an innocent drink, I wonder if I deserve it. But I hope I do. I hope to absorb some of the sweet, childlike qualities. I want to feel just a tiny bit of that innocence.

Robert sits by my side. “I’ll talk to Dave tomorrow.”

“No,” I say simply. “That’s my fight.”

“Love tells me that Dave might use our affair to get you fired.”

For a moment I’m puzzled, and then I realize he’s talking about Tom. That’s the only Love that can tell him anything practical.

“I’ll stop that from happening,” Robert goes on. “Even Freeland won’t throw away my business out of loyalty to his maggot of a godson.”

“Asha knows, too,” I say.

“Asha?”

“You’ve met her. She’s on my team.”

Robert shrugs, not understanding her significance. “It won’t matter what she knows. The world can know. It won’t effect your position. I’ll—”

“You’ll see to that?” I say, finishing his sentence, my tone harsher than I had intended it to be. It’s no use. I can’t internalize the sweetness of the chocolate, only the bitterness. I stare into the darkened fireplace. “She thinks I only got this job because I was sleeping with Dave, the maggot of a godson you’re so eager to confront.”

“So?” Robert says, still not grasping the problem.

“So now she’ll think that I’m only keeping my job because I’m sleeping with you.”

Fresh comprehension sparkles in his eyes. “Who the hell cares what people think, Kasie? They don’t matter. Only you and I do.”

“If that was true, the world would be other than it is. If that was true,” I say, each word growing a little more testy, “we’d be gods. Osiris and Isis. Zeus and Hera . . . but that’s not quite right, either, is it? After all, even they had to give the other deities some consideration.”

“Are you angry with me?”

I almost say yes but then realize it’s not true. Not exactly. “I’m angry because I want everything to be as simple as you say it is, and I’m angry because it can’t be. It’s my fault. I can’t be seen as the office slut. I need respect to do my job. I need respect to be able to breathe.”

“They’ll respect you when you excel. All anyone needs to do is watch you work to know that you deserve your position.”

“But they won’t see me. They’ll see what I’ve done and they’ll train their eyes to see the whore Dave and Asha believe me to be.”

“Tom Love knows you better than that.”

“And will Tom be in his job forever? Will I always report to him? Can you promise me that?”

Robert leans back into the couch, holds me with his gaze. “Yes, I can. I can make sure Tom never has any incentive to leave his position. I can shape the world to your liking. Money and power are the only currency you need if the goal is to pull the strings of industry. I have both. Let me buy you some piece of mind.”

I want to laugh. He’s going to make it rain and like a stripper Tom is supposed to get on his knees and scoop up the falling dollar bills. I suppose Robert would expect the same of almost anyone who he threw money at. Maybe someday he’ll expect it of me.

But he can’t buy my parents’ approval. And he can’t buy the respect of my colleagues. He can just give them incentive to hide their true feelings. I’ll always know what they’ll be saying behind closed doors. And I can’t allow Robert to force Tom into a stagnant career. Eventually I’ll be reporting to someone else, another man or woman who will wonder what I’ll do to earn my next promotion. I’ll be given clients who expect to be allowed to play with me during our meetings, to show me off to boardrooms of hungry men ready to fuck the woman who’s known for whoring her way through the business world, handing out sexual favors like they’re business cards.

Robert’s far from stupid. If he allowed himself to think, he’d see how impossible it all is. But he’s not thinking; he’s feeling. He says he wants to reshape the world, and in the late hours of the night, not long after making love to me on another man’s dining room table, he’s sure that he can do it.

Tomorrow reality will rise with the sun. But probably not tonight. So I swallow my pessimism with my chocolate and gently put my hand on his knee. “I’m tired,” I say. “Take me to bed.”

Perhaps the hot chocolate imparted some innocence to the night after all, because for the first time Robert and I slip into bed together without tapping into the ocean of sexual energy that always lies between us. Instead he gives me one of his shirts to change in to and under the sheets we curl up into each other. He’s asleep now and his breathing has a steady, soothing quality that quiets my anxiety. For a brief minute I can almost believe in his false promises. It feels like I really can be safe here, in his arms, inside his palace of capitalist riches. Isn’t this what I’ve always wanted? Security, wealth, success?

Yes, but I want those things to be real, not facades. I want the success to be mine. I can’t share in Robert’s dreams if I don’t pursue my own. Reluctantly my thoughts turn to Dave. I can see now that my relationship with Dave was never right but I also see why it had so much appeal. His dreams seemed to dovetail with mine. We seemed to complement each other. He was better connected but I was arguably better educated. Yes, he was a lawyer with a degree from Notre Dame but I have a master’s from Harvard Business School—and no Harvard graduate will ever accept the idea that there might be a better education available than the one he or she got, no matter what
US News & World Report
says about Yale.

But what held us together for so long were our common goals. We both want respect. He wants respect within the old-money world the men in his family have always traveled in and I simply want respect within my family and in the business world. Self-discipline is the attribute I’ve tried to nurture and refine while he has tried to exercise control over the external, his home, his social circle, me. I fear failure and rejection, even my own impulses. He fears helplessness, ridicule, the reckless wantonness of the city.

I smile in the dark. It’s that last part I’m focusing on now. In that knowledge is the key to everything. Getting respect from those who frequent Dave’s elite men’s club with its prohibitive membership fees and ingrained superiority complex requires a different set of rules. I picture the darkened rooms that make up those establishments that officially allow the admittance of women but never make them feel welcome. I see the cigars held by men with manicures and pedigrees. I hear their whispered interactions. In that world there would be no shame in demanding the subservience of a woman. These are stories Dave could tell with relish. But there is shame in losing a woman to another man. There’s shame in being abandoned. Dave is asking me to humiliate myself in exchange for his silence but I haven’t yet asked him to pay for mine.

I know what Dave wants, and what he’s afraid of. I know how to hurt him.

Carefully I slip out of Robert’s firm grasp. He stirs, waking enough to see that I’m getting up but not enough to ask where I’m going. I tiptoe to my purse, pull out my cell, and read the text I know will be there.

Where the hell are you?

That sent an hour ago. Then another sent after twenty minutes more had passed.

Kasie, really, where are you?

And then ten minutes after that:

I understand you’re upset. We just need to talk. Please respond.

I smile. My aim is getting better.

I hear Robert stir again but his breathing quickly falls back into the quiet pattern of slumber. I take my phone into his bathroom. I close the door and flip on the lights, blinking a few times to adjust to the illumination. The room is about the same size as my first apartment. There’s a sunken bathtub with water jets, a spacious shower with transparent glass walls, a mirror that lines the space of almost an entire wall . . . it’s decadent as hell.

And then I catch my reflection. My hair is a tumble of waves that fall over my shoulders; my eyeliner, not properly removed before bed, is now mildly smudged, giving me a careless, sultry look. I hold Dave’s text in my hand while wearing Robert’s shirt on my body. Who is this woman?

I don’t know this woman,
he said.

. . . and I responded,
I know who she is, I just don’t know where she went.

I stare down at the phone. The device itself is the only thing that’s familiar to me right now. It has my photos, the numbers of my contacts, old e-mails, and so on. It’s filled to the brim with reminders of the life that I destroyed. And I destroyed it for the man whose shirt is still on my back.

The devil works in mysterious ways.

But I can’t dwell on it anymore. It’ll drive me insane. So instead I type in a response to Dave.

Yes, we should talk. Let’s meet before your squash game tomorrow night. In the restaurant next door to the club.

I press Send and wait, one minute, then two and then the response comes:

You don’t need to go out of your way. We can meet by your work.

I smile. He has just shown all his cards, confirmed all my suppositions. I look back up at the mirror; there is one small thing I recognize in this woman smiling back at me: her intelligence.

No, we’ll meet by your squash game. It’s easier.

This time it takes him only seconds to respond.

Do you have your car? How will you get there?

He’s placed the target on his heart and I load my weapon.

I have someone who will give me a ride.

I giggle as I send this last message, knowing exactly what images are playing through Dave’s head. He sees me walking into a restaurant in front of all his friends. He sees Robert Dade by my side, a man stronger, more successful, better looking, a man who surpasses him in every way that matters. He sees himself as the cuckold as we sit down across from him, Robert’s hand on the leg of the woman whom Dave once boasted to have as his own.

In this vision he is the one cloaked in humiliation.

The Balance of Threat. It’s a theory of a highly esteemed Harvard professor. The idea is so simple, it’s beautiful. Independent nations’ behavior will be determined by the perceived threat of other nations. Where people miss the genius is that they focus on the wrong word,
threat
. But threats are finite. They can easily fall apart when a bluff is called. The word that holds the power is
perceived
. Perception is everything. I have no interest in threatening Dave the way he has so openly threatened me. I want my threats to be unstated but intrinsic in my messaging. I never said it would be Robert driving me to the club. I never said I would try to show him up to his friends. I want to let his imagination do my work for me because the demons within will always have more influence than the demons without.