I backed away, ready to make an escape.
“Hold on,” he said calmly, frowning at his screen.
I froze near the doorway.
“You’re a smart, young woman. Come help me figure out how this new emailing program works.”
Every fiber in my being was telling me to leave. He was at the meeting when this was covered. He knew how to use this program. But the words left my mouth before I could stop myself.
“Yes, of course.”
James’s returning smile was anything but friendly.
I reluctantly walked around the desk to stand beside him, keeping at least three feet between us as I looked at his screen, all while keeping an eye on his hands. They were resting on his thighs as he sat back and feigned confusion.
“What is it you need help with?” I asked.
He scratched his scalp and sat forward. “Well, finding my contacts for starters.”
His hand dropped back to his thigh.
“Your contacts are on the bar across the top—”
He skimmed the same hand up the back of my thigh so fast I didn’t have time to process it. Not until he reached between my legs. My entire body jolted before he could touch me further. I stepped away quickly, stumbling when my thigh hit the corner of his desk.
I forgot how to breathe. The air had caught uncomfortably in my throat as I raced for the office door, not looking back as his chuckle became a distant echo in my head, drowned out by the steadily increasing roar in my ears as I rushed to the bathroom.
An uncontrollable shaking took over my hands as I sobbed quietly, fumbling to lock the bathroom stall once I was inside. I pulled my arms around myself. I could still feel where his clammy hand had pressed against my inner thigh, and where he touched me through my underwear.
I coughed and quickly flipped the toilet lid up, but nothing came.
Breathe.
Holding my hair back, I closed my eyes and tried to think of something else. Anything that would stop my hands from shaking. Or at least to ease the crawling feeling under my skin.
“If someone ever gives you a hard time again, let me know.” Dean’s words echoed through my mind briefly. He dislocated someone’s jaw after they spiked my drink. To get him involved with this problem... It would put everything at risk. It would haunt my conscience if he did something to James.
Why am I worried about James’s well-being after what he has done?
I pressed my palms against my eyes, shaking as the crying came quietly.
It took several attempts for me to pluck up the courage to unlock the cubicle door. After splashing my face with cold water from the tap, it took me several more tries just to walk out of the bathroom again. And when I did, on shaky legs as I stepped into the hallway, I headed left. Straight for Mom’s office at the end.
Now or never.
The closer the open door came, the more I wanted to turn back around. But I needed to say something. I couldn’t do this anymore. James had gone too far.
Kate Whitmore was behind her large desk on the right side of the spacious office, adjacent to the door. Reading and signing paperwork, she looked focused. Busy.
I knocked softly on the wooden doorframe.
She looked up from the papers and smiled, albeit with confusion about why I was there.
“Lily. Is everything okay, sweetie?” She glanced back down at the paperwork, scratching her signature across the bottom of a couple of pages.
“Do you have time to talk?”
She flipped the paperwork over and gathered it off the table to put into a folder. “It’ll have to be quick. I have a house inspection to get to.”
