“That’s so wrong.”
“Yeah. But I was wrong, too.” My voice cracked. “How does someone devote themself to knowledge, only to be the stupidest woman who ever lived?”
“It’s not your fault.”
“I was a grown woman with a multibillion-dollar project under my control. If I was smart enough to handle that, I should have been smart enough to see through Lloyd. Itwasmy fault.”
“You said it yourself. Sure, you were an adult with a lot of responsibility, but you were still young, and heknewthat you had no understanding of the world or people outside of your textbooks. He took advantage of that, manipulated you, and then threw you away when you were no longer convenient. He was in the wrong.”
Broken clocks and all of that. Ididhate Lloyd Exeter, but at the end of the day, I had to own up to my mistakes and pay the price for making them. That price was losing my dreams of space, that price was working at BuzzCorp…
“My life is my responsibility, Hudson.” The echoes of those words rang with the ghosts of my parents’ voices. There was no way Hudson could have heard it, but I did. “And it’s one I can’t trust myself with. I’ve never been able to. Work, fine. Yes. I can manage. But anything else? I’m incompetent.”
“You haven’t ruined anything with me.”
“Not yet, maybe,” I retorted. Then, when I realized what thatyetsignified, that I would be spending more time with him, I tried to cover my tracks. “Not that it matters anyway; you’re leaving soon.”
He toyed with his shirtsleeves. “Did you ever apply anywhere else after GalacticSolutions?”
“Why would I when they badmouthed me to everyone? Itwould have been a waste of my time. No one would hire me. It’s why I didn’t want everyone in the office knowing I was a virgin. Once you get labeled, it’s hard to shake, and people only see you through that lens forever. With Lloyd, I was this man-eating slut who’d blown him and then blown up his rockets. Unqualified. With the virgin thing, it felt the same. That everyone would see me not as a brilliant engineer but unfit.”
He flattened his lips, surveying my workshop. “I know you showed me all these designs because you think it’s a reminder of your failure, but I think it’s a sign of your potential. Have you ever thought about getting out of sex toys and back into rocket ships?”
My reaction was knee-jerk and defensive. “I like my job.”
“I know you do. But I think you might love space exploration more. Maybe you should consider a career change.”
“I can’t. No one would hire me,” I reiterated.
No one except Clara, whom I’d met while crying in the bathroom of a Women in STEM networking seminar. I’d tried to make connections that day, but it felt like every woman in that room was side-eyeing me. Judging me for making their lives harder by being branded yet another office slut sleeping her way to the top. Giving women in the industry a bad name.
“It’s possible they would now.”
The idea that my scarlet letter had somehow expired over the last two years had never occurred to me. I truly thought I’d be doing my penance walk forever, daydreaming about space exploration while tinkering away with my latest cock ring innovation.
And why not? Whyhadn’tI considered it?
Was it because I didn’t want to? Because I didn’t want to try and fail to break back into the industry? Because it was safer to stay with Clara than chance a new job hunt?
Was I sabotaging myself?
Of course I was. That was why Hudson was here, after all. I was trying to sabotage our relationship before it could even really begin.
“You could have anything you want, Scout. Anything, and anyone. You’re the only person holding you back.”
I scoffed, if only to hide how much I wanted him to be right. “No one else agrees with you. Not me, not my parents, not anyone who’s gotten Lloyd’s side of the story.”
“Clara does, I bet. She’s the one who hired you after you lost your job at GalacticSolutions, didn’t she?”
That barely counted. “Clara would have hired a mop wearing a Nikola Tesla Halloween costume if she thought it would improve her bottom line.”
“Now you’re just being cruel to yourself.”
Yeah. I was.
I deflated a little bit and shrugged.
“I don’t know any other way to be.”
