It’s Cheryl, our corporate lawyer, and suddenly a terrible dread settles over me. Grabbing the wall to keep from falling, I take unsteady steps, painstakingly slow, but I know that this is bad. Something tells me it involves Harrison and that’s why he called me at work. I silently pray with every step I take,Please let it be about something else.I chant this over and over as I approach his door, but there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s about me.
As I reach the door, I hear Cheryl describing a sexual harassment lawsuit against Dominic. Her voice is direct as she explains, “This is very serious, Dominic. Those papers name all the employees who have seen and heard inappropriate comments and behavior from you toward Miss Vasco.”
The air has just been sucked out of my lungs and I’m incapable of taking another breath. So this is Harrison’s next attempt to destroy Dominic, but it also destroys my relationship with him in the process. I haven’t given him enough credit at all. Even if he speaks as though he’s ignorant, he is apparently very clever when it comes to sticking a knife in someone’s back.
Cheryl takes a step into Dominic’s office and suddenly I’m in the limelight. All eyes are burning through me, like I’m a rodent to be destroyed and removed from their sight. Dominic gets up from his desk, his muscular body moving toward me with confidence and purpose. His normally warm blue eyes have taken on an icy glare. I try to speak to him as he approaches the doorway, but his murderous look slaps me across the face and renders me mute.
Then he slams the door in my face and I know, without a doubt, Harrison has beaten me to the punch. I’ve done too little too late. I should’ve told Dominic a long time ago but it never felt like the right time. In hindsight, there really isn’t a good time to tell someone that you were sent there to help destroy him. To make him fall for you so that it would be easier to betray him. To pretend to be his submissive only to prove that he’s not really a Dom.
But he is–he’smyDom.
I can’t catch my breath and I immediately begin hyperventilating. Dana knows what’s happening since she heard Cheryl’s report, but she comes to my aid anyway. She helps me sit down and talks calmly and soothingly to me until I’m able to focus my vision and control my breathing again. When I look at her, I expect to see hatred and disapproval, but instead I see sympathy and understanding.
“You will have to give him some time, Sophia. He won’t be capable of listening to any explanation you have right now,” Dana says, as if she knows everything. “In time, he’ll hear you out. After that, you’ll have to respect his decision, regardless of what it is.”
All I can do is nod in agreement. She’s right–there’s no way he’ll listen to me right now. With the cold, angry look he just gave me, there’s really no way he’ll listen to my side of the storyany timesoon.
