Good fucking thing you weren’t. I probably would have killed him just to get my hands on you.
“It was going to be our unofficial announcement of our relationship. We were going to show off how good and professional we looked together. Partners. Equals. And then he cancelled on me at the last minute, sending mealone.
“So I got a little too drunk and let a handsome stranger flirt and dance with me.”
I have to fight against the small smile pulling at my lips. She’s telling a story about what she calls the worst night of her life, but she's inserting details aboutusinto it, proving thatweare part of the story she considers important.
A sob slips from her lips before she continues, “And… and I don’t know if I was feeling guilty because I found you charming and hot. Or if I was just drunk and wanted to see him, but I went over to his apartment.”
“And?” I’m not sure I want to hear how this story ends, but it’s one that she needs to tell someone.
“And he was in the middle of getting bent over byhisboss,” she drags her hands through her hair, still wearing a hole into the floor with her endless pacing.
“Shit.”
“So when he left and it was just me and Ian, he tried to explain, tried to make it seem like he really loved me and was just gainingleverage over his supervisor to keep us from getting in trouble when the truth came out.” She takes in a heaving breath before continuing, “But I’m not fucking stupid. I could tell from the placating tone he used with me and how it echoed the way he spoke to his boss before he bolted. Ian was using both of us to advance his own career.”
What a fucking scumbag.
“And I don’t know if he felt like he needed to prove it to me,” she sobs. “Or if it was to make himself feel more in control, to exert power over me, but-” her voice cuts off completely, leaving me breathless and begging the universe not to let this story end the way I can feel in my gut it’s going to.
“What did he do?”
A sad smile pulls at her lips, “He didn’t succeed, but he-hetriedto use, umm, intimacy to show how much he really loved me. That’s what he kept saying, anyway.” Her voice cracks on the wordintimacyand my blood instantly boils.
“I’ll fucking kill him,” I tell her, standing to go do just that.
I have no clue who this guy is or where to find him. Don’t even know his last name, but Idoknow my face is the last thing he’ll ever see before his world goes black forever.
She stops me, pushing me back onto the bed before I can even get a few steps away, not that I really had any plan anyway.
Shaking her head with her hands on my shoulders, she pleads with her eyes, silently keeping me seated so she can get all of it out.
With a slight nod, I concede, taking her hands in mine, giving her the only comfort I’m capable of right now when my body is vibrating, heating with a murderous rage I don’t know how to control.
“I stopped him before he got too far,” she assures herself and me. “Even a little bit drunk, I was able to throw a nasty punch and leave him with a bloody nose before I ran out the door.”
Hell yeah.
I shouldn’t be cheering on violence, but I think, given her circumstances, he was more than deserving of the punishment she doled out.
“I wassoyoung,” she tells me, as if she needs to explain herself to me at all. “And so stupid.”
“I don’t think it’s stupid to believe someone when they say they love you,” I assure her, pushing her hair back over her shoulder, resting my palm against her pulse, either to ground her in this moment or myself… or maybe both. “It’s not your fault people are capable of lying about something so monumental.”
Her lips wobble, tears welling again, but she nods, hopefully taking in my words for the honesty that they are.
“Did you try to press charges?” I ask, knowing before she even answers that it’ll be a big, fat no.
“You’ve seen more of a courtroom than I have,” she releases a bitter laugh.Ouch.“You tell me what they’d say when I have no evidence, no character witnesses worth a damn, and he has both a busted up nose and the word of his boss?
“I didn’t even get a chance to talk to anyone about it. My internship was cancelled before noon that Sunday. And I tried to deal with it through the legal pathways Ididhave, but all I ended up with was a tainted reputation and one hell of a legal fee. Oh, and a paper trail that documents all of it as my fault, according to Skyler.”
Fucking Skyler.
“I’m sorry, Brigit.”
And I’m genuinely, so, so fucking sorry.
