My ability to handle moments like this was broken a long time ago.
"Stop saying that." His voice was gentle but firm. "You're not fine. You haven't been fine since the gala photograph was published. Talk to me."
I looked away, focusing on the fountain in the center of the square.
Water trickled from the top tier into the basin below, and a few children had gathered around it to toss pennies and make wishes.
How awesome it would be to be carefree like that.
"I just hate the attention and the whispers…" My eyes welled up, but I blinked back the tears.
"You told me there was something from your past," Nate said, "but I don't think you told me everything. What else happened?"
I let my head drop and stared at my ballet flats.
Telling a new person about my old trauma felt like dragging my past into my present.
I hated it.
I didn’t want to remember it, let alone relive it.
But Nate seemed to genuinely care.
"My ex, Brad… He…" I was choked up. It took a few seconds to collect myself and continue. "He recorded us having… You know… doing… Sex," I said, and I thought I might vomit right there.
"In less than twenty-four hours, everyone had seen it. My roommate, my professors, people I'd never met. They all knew what I looked like naked. They all knew the most intimate details of my private life."
Nate's hands clenched into fists at his sides as his face darkened into a scowl.
"I tried to report it," I continued. "But honestly, fighting it would’ve been more humiliating and made the public damage worse and last longer."
"Christ, Ember. I'm so sorry," Nate said quietly.
I wrapped my arms around myself. "My friends stopped inviting me places. My family tried to be supportive, but I could see the disappointment in their eyes. My mother cried every time we talked. My father stopped looking at me directly."
The dam I built around that memory was crumbling and I felt on the verge of having another mental breakdown.
I wanted to move on, but it felt like the eternal splinter you can never dig out.
"So you changed your name," Nate said, and I looked up at him, shocked.
"Yeah, how did you know?"
"We run background checks on everyone before they're hired…" He grimaced. "I didn’t know anything about your past, though, I swear. And I'm so sorry that happened." He looked like he was in physical pain from not comforting me, but we were so exposed.
So when he pulled me against his chest, I stiffened for a moment, aware that we were still technically in public view, but his arms were strong and warm and I couldn't bring myself to pull away.
"No one will ever hurt you that way again," he said into my hair. "I promise you that."
"You can't promise that." My words were muffled against his coat.
"I can, and I am." He pulled back just enough to look at my face, his hands gripping my shoulders. "What Brad did to you was monstrous. He violated you in the worst possible way, and he deserves to rot for it."
The intensity in his voice made my chest ache.
I'd assumed this thing between us was purely physical.
Great sex with an attractive boss, nothing more complicated than that.
