“What do you want me to say, Bree? That I regret following you? I don’t. That I wouldn’t do it again? I would. In a heartbeat. That man had his fucking hands on you and I wanted to break every one of his fucking fingers.”
“He’s a nice guy,” she tells me.
“I don’t give a fuck how nice he is,” I growl.
She flinches slightly, and something twists in my chest. I don’t want to scare her. That’s the last thing I want. But I also can’t pretend to besomeone I’m not.
“This can’t happen again,” she says quietly.
I open my mouth to contest her, but then bite back what I was going to say.
“I know,” I say instead.
“We have to be professional,” she replies. “For work.”
“For work,” I agree rotely, though inside a part of me is dying.
“You’re my boss. This is exactly the kind of situation I swore I’d never put myself in again.”
Again.
The word hooks into something inside of me that makes me want to ask questions she probably won’t answer.
“Understood,” I say instead.
She searches my face for something. Maybe evidence that I actually mean it.
Good luck with that.
Even I don’t know what I mean anymore.
“Okay,” she says finally. “Okay. We just. We pretend this didn’t happen. Both times. The gala and last night. We go back to being professional and we never speak of this again.”
I force a dead smile. “If that’s what you want.”
“It’s what has to happen,” she states.
She’s right.
I know she’s right.
The power dynamic alone makes this a lawsuit waiting to happen.
I control her paycheck, her career prospects, her ability to pay rent on this tiny studio apartment with its thrift-store furniture and its fire escape she uses as a balcony.
I should let her go.
Not just from my bed but from my company, too.
Give her a severance package and a glowing recommendation and never see her again.
But there’s no way in hell I’m going to do that.
Call it selfish.
Call it fucked up.
Call it whatever you want.
