I nod, my teeth nearly shattering from the force of not speaking.
He returns to James. “We’ll deal with this later.”
He’s gone before I can even exhale.
James is quiet for a moment, staring at the floor, then says, “That’s not how it should have gone.” He doesn’t look at me. The line of his jaw is so sharp it could cut. “I’m sorry.”
There’s a hollow in his voice that makes me want to reach across the desk and touch him, but I don’t. Not with the afterimage of his father’s threat still burning in my mind.
I gather my notes, murmur something about getting back to work, and escape to my office, making sure not to look at anyone on my way there and closing my office door behind me.
At my desk, I pull up the brief I’ve been working on and try to lose myself in the research. Try to let the monotony bleach the conversation from my mind, but the words keep echoing back.
“If there is ever a question of impropriety…”
“Whatever this is, it ends now.”
How could James lose his cool like that? I want to be flattered, but mostly I’m nauseous. What the hell was he thinking? What the hell was I, for ever letting this happen?
After all the work I’ve put in to get here, am I really going to allow myself to throw it all away because I can’t keep my hands off my boss? How fucking pathetic. Even worse, I can’t keep my hands off my paralegal, either.
I peek at Nash’s desk, finding his chair empty and breathe the tiniest sigh of relief that he wasn’t here to watch my mid-year review shitshow.
Chapter 27
Ihave never left the office at the end of a workday as quickly as I did today, but I had to get out of there.
I drive home on autopilot, hands still trembling from the aftershock of today’s events. Every stoplight gives me more than enough time to relive every moment. I replay the conversation, the exact moment James’s control shattered.
I’m angry. At James, yes. But mostly at myself.
When I get home, the apartment is dark, fridge humming, Salem nowhere in sight. I stand in the entry, keys still in my hand. All day I have rerun the moment James looked his father in the eyes and dared him to act. And the moment after, when the only thing I could feel was a sort of dumbstruck panic, as if a car had swerved but didn’t quite hit me.
I don’t even bother turning on the lights. The apartment is a blue shadow, the dim light seeping in through the blinds. I sit there for a long time, unmoving at the kitchen counter, hands folded over the cold marble.
After a while, my phone vibrates in the pocket of my bag. I take it out, expecting a text from Mina or Nash. Instead, it’s a message from James.
James
We need to talk.
The fuck we do. If anything, we shouldn’t be speaking at all, and he certainly shouldn’t be texting me.
I stare at it, thumb hovering just above the reply, then set the phone down and let my hands go slack. I want to scream. I want to text him back, to ask if he’s lost his fucking mind, if he knows what he’s done.
But I can’t. I can’t even move.
Salem stalks out from under the coffee table, leaps onto the windowsill, and stares at me. As if everyone in the office judging me wasn’t enough, now my cat is too, it seems.
The phone buzzes again.
James
Avery.
I don’t want to talk to him, don’t want to feel the way his voice could so easily seep under my skin, so I text back:
There’s nothing to talk about. Your father was very clear.
