I release the handle, spin to face the man.
It’s not the asshole question. It’s not the smugness. It’s…the note of something familiar in that condescending tone.
Whydo I recognize it?
Why does the young male reporter, his phone in his hand, his—you guessed it—smugexpression in place, look so fucking familiar?
It’s not because I’ve seen him at press conferences.
It’s—
“Hiller,” I whisper as horror slides down my spine. I’ve seen this man before…in a photograph that used to sit on my desk.Beforeit was my desk. When it was Hiller’s desk. When I ignored screaming fits and being berated—Hiller’s modus operandi for dealing with frustrations.
While trying to do my job. While I sat across from him and tried to pretend the shit that he did to me didn’t happen.
While guilt and shame ate at my insides.
The kid’s chin comes up and it’s then that I fully see his father in the line of his jaw, the hardness in his eyes—like he’s a rattlesnake prepared to strike.
He just smiles. “You fuck with my dad, and I fuck with you.” He taps on his phone’s screen, points it to face me, and…
I watch a shaking video of Damon and me in my office, clearly taken through a sliver of opening, the edge of the door blocking most of the space. But not blocking us. Not blockingDamon as he paces. Me as my face falls, hurt rippling through my expression?—
Fuck, it’s worse seeing it like this than experiencing it the first time.
“…if this is what it’s going to mean to be in a relationship with you, where you don’t fucking trust me to protect you, then I don’t want it.”
“You d-don’t want it? Don’t want us?”
“Y-you d-don’t w-want i-it?” he sneers. “God how fucking pathetic is it that a sniveling bitch like you is here while my dad got fired? So”—a shrug—“now the world will see exactly who you are.” He taps at the screen, shows me what I missed before: that the video of Damon and me is on a popular social media app. “Posted five minutes ago and it already has six thousand views. This shit’s going viral, baby.” He grins and it’s terrible. “This is too fucking perfect. I cannot believe that my dad was fired and you’re hereandyou’re screwing the GM. That’s fucking rich. How many times did you have to blow Damon before you got the job? Ten? Twenty? A hundred?”
I watch this man, this fucking monster in the making and…I’m just done.
He’s not, though. “Now that Damon doesn’t want you, are you going to ruin his career too?” A smirk. “Or maybe I should have waited to post so I could see what kind of head you would give to get me to delete it.”
Something snaps inside me and I decide,fuck it.
He shakes his head. “God, all my dad did was?—”
“Rape me.”
His mouth drops open, his eyes going wide. He’s silent for a long moment before he stammers out, “Wh-what did you?—?”
I step closer.
Done.
I am so totally fucking done that I react on the fly, pullingout my phone, bringing up the same app he used, and starting a new live video. “A few minutes ago this man”—I turn, getting myself and Hiller’s son in the frame as I search my brain for his name—“Zach Hiller,” I say as it comes to me, “recorded me without my knowledge during a painful, heartbreaking conversation. Then as I was trying to go home, planning to cry into a glass of wine while I came to terms with the fact that the man I love may not feel the same way, he decided he needed to confront me in the parking lot and rub it in.”
I move, cutting him off when he tries to slink away.
“Oh no, Zach,” I say, watching as the live count grows. “You wanted to do this, let’s do this. You asked how I got the job. You asked if it was because I blew our GM and the man I love, Damon Connors.”
“I—”
“You asked if I fucked my way into the position.” Yeah, Tera and the legal team are going to kill me, especially when I keep going. But…zero fucks to give right now. “It couldn’t be that I’m qualified, right? It couldn’t be that I’ve worked for it. Of course not.”
“You—” Rage flashes through his eyes, but I keep going.
