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Kent realized his hands had tightened into fists. He shoved them behind his back so she wouldn’t see. He could hardly breathe. “Did he … hurt you?”
“He attacked me, threw me down on my desk, touched me …” her eyes went glassy. “I couldn’t get away, no matter how hard I fought, how hard I tried. He was too strong. And he wasn’t even a big guy, or a fit guy. But he was too much for me. I couldn’t get away. All I could do was scream.”
Kent wanted to charge from the room and track down the bastard, rip him to pieces, shred his very soul. But Phae needed him to calm down and listen to her, he reminded himself. His body taut, he said, “I’m sorry, Phae. You don’t have to talk about this anymore. I didn’t realize—”
“No, it’s okay,” she said, her eyes clearing. “He didn’t rape me. It was close, though. I got lucky when a security guard showed up. The guard stood in the doorway, coughed a few times, and when the ex-director heard it, he jumped off me and ran out of the room, trying to zip his pants as he ran.”
She continued. “I lay there for a few minutes, catching my breath and trying to get myself together. When I was together enough to leave, and had straightened myself up, the guard escorted me to my car.”
“Did you call the police?” Kent asked.
“The guard suggested it, but I told him no, it was all my fault. That’s what I believed. I’d caused it to happen because I’d stolen the guy’s job. If I hadn’t done that, he never would have gotten drunk and been angry enough to attack me. All my fault. That’s how I saw it.”
Kent went to her then, sat beside her and tried to comfort her.
“No, Kent,” she said, pushing away his arm. “If you do that I’ll break down. Just let me finish and get it over with.”
Kent collapsed back on his side of the settee and willed himself to be still and patient. Phae was here, alive and healthy. She was fine. That was the past, and this was now. But his heart broke for her.
She took another small sip of her drink. “I didn’t sleep much, and after too much thinking, I went to work the next morning determined to force my boss into returning the ex-director to his former job and me to mine.”
“But I didn’t get the chance,” she continued. “Security met me at the door and I was immediately ushered to my boss’s office. I was shocked to see the ex-director in there, too. I sat down and my boss proceeded to inform me that the ex-director had leveled a sexual harassment charge against me. I’d supposedly attacked him in my office the night before.”
“I can’t believe they could be so … so ….” Kent said. “I don’t have the words for it.”
“Yeah, well, I was such a big fool. It’s hard to talk about this and have any dignity left.”
“Screw dignity,” Kent said. “That’s nothing between us. And you weren’t a fool.”
“I was.” She smoothed her palm over her thigh. “I’d never bothered to learn the rules of the game. I’d left myself ignorant and unprepared. My arguments were nothing to them. They cut them down before I could begin them. The bottom line was, it was my word against the ex-director’s word, and he’d been with the company ten years longer than me, so who would they believe?”
She laughed in an ironic way. “They even had signed testimony from the security guard stating that I’d admitted the encounter was my fault. My boss told me I was finished at Fullerton, that they wouldn’t pursue civil or criminal charges against me if I’d quit right then and go on my way. If I didn’t quit, I’d be fired.”
Kent emptied his glass in a long draught. “Did you fight them?”
“I didn’t see there being anything left to fight for. Either way, I’d lost my job. I quit, signed a few papers and then was escorted out of the building by a couple of guards who’d already boxed up my things. That was the most humiliating walk of my life. I still burn when I think about it.”
Although he figured she’d resist, he leaned over and hugged her tightly anyway. “I don’t blame you for leaving Chicago, Phae. Anyone in your position would have.”
“But I didn’t leave Chicago, not right away. I couldn’t come back home a failure; I had to find another job. And I tried, Kent, I really did. I tried so hard, day after day, week after week, month after month. It was nothing but rejection after rejection. I couldn’t even get a part time job at the corner coffee shop to make a little money to keep me going while looking for something better. It was devastating.”
He couldn’t imagine dealing with such constant rejection. He suspected, though, that he knew the cause of it. “Your boss had blackballed you, hadn’t he?”
She pulled back and looked up at him. “Yeah. How’d you know that? I didn’t figure it out until an old schoolmate of mine told me after an interview that they’d checked my work history and called Fullerton and they didn’t have anything good to say about me. Lies, all of it. That I was abrasive, didn’t work well with others, had a bad attitude, left work early. You name it, if it was bad, I was it.”
“It makes sense. Your boss couldn’t have you making a success of yourself elsewhere and creating a name for yourself. You might one day come back to haunt him, so to speak.”
“Yeah, I think that’s exactly it. Wish I would have figured it out back then so I wouldn’t have wasted so much time. When I learned what was happening, I dropped Fullerton from my resume, hoping that would help, but with that big gap in my work history, no one was interested. And by that point, I’d already applied to every company worth applying to. I was done. Finished. Out of funds and energy. He beat me. I had to come home. A loser and fool.”
“You weren’t a fool,” he said. “Or a loser. Those two men, however, are bastards.”
“Like I said, I didn’t educate myself. I let them walk all over me. Because I quit, I didn’t even try to get severance pay or unemployment. I used up all my savings and ran up my credit cards trying to find a job I’d been blackballed from. Grandma Jones had to wire me bus money so I could get home. I couldn’t have been more ashamed.”
“You weren’t to blame, no matter what you say.” Kent studied her. “But you don’t sound angry about it. I think I’m angrier than you are.”
“It happened three years ago,” she said. “I’ve had to accept what happened, and most of what I’m left with is embarrassment. Sometimes I think maybe there was a reason for it beyond my stupidity. I hope there was, anyway.”
With the first hint of emotion she’d shown in a while, she said, “Grandma Jones sure was mad about it, mad at them, like you. After I cried for almost a whole night, she came to me with a piece of paper. She didn’t say a word, just handed it to me. On one side of the paper were all these quotes. Grandma believed wisdom could be found in the past. I still have that paper. Mostly, they were about having the strength to fight when all the odds are against you, and that the fight is more important than the victory.”
“At first,” she continued, “I thought she wanted me to go back to Chicago, and there was no way I could do that. But she pointed to the bottom of the page. Do you remember the quote I told you by Arthur Ashe?”
He nodded. “Sure. What we give, makes a life.”
“Pretty close.” She stood up and walked over to the bed. “Grandma always had a plan, and while I’d been crying, she’d made one for me. On the back of the paper was a list of occupations complete with addresses and phone numbers.”
With a wistful expression, Phae sat on the edge of the bed. “I’ll always remember the way she looked at me while she explained everything. She was so fierce, but in a protective way. I miss her so much.”
Kent went to her and took her hand.
“I’m okay,” she said. “Grandma’s plan was the life you see me living today. She had me pick a job from the list of occupations that I thought I could live with. They were all jobs with what she called a high gossip potential, like police dispatcher, social worker and waitress. Obviously, I picked hairdresser. And to make sure I never had another close call with an evil man, there were phon
e numbers for different defense and martial arts classes.”
“Are you telling me that being Captain Nice Guy was your grandmother’s idea?” Kent asked.
“That’s right, though we didn’t call it that. That was some joker at the paper’s idea. Grandma certainly didn’t make fun of it. She told me that if I learned how to fight for others, then I’d learn how to fight for myself. At first, my heart wasn’t in it, but it finally became important to me. I care about these people now and can’t imagine not being in their lives, even though it’s in a silent helper kind of way.”
She thought for a moment, then said, “When Grandma died, she left me the building downtown where I have my shop and apartment, along with her china cabinet and some money. In a sealed letter she left with her will, she wrote that the shop was for my livelihood for now, and that every time I looked at the china cabinet I was to remember to fight for what I believed in, and she said I should save the money to start the business of my heart when I was healed and ready.”
Kent sat beside her. “She must have loved you a great deal. She even made sure James would keep an eye out for you.”
“That was a surprise. I can’t believe James knew about me all along.”
“I’m sorry I never got a chance to meet your grandmother.”
“Me too. She would have liked you. Or more to the point, she would have liked to butt heads with you.”
“I get the feeling that I wouldn’t have had a chance of winning. I’ve had a hard enough time with you.”
She dropped back on the bed, her hands behind her head, and stared up at the ceiling. “I’m not the same person I was three years ago. Not even close. I used to be such a pushover and now I’m not. I can say no when it’s important now. Grandma Jones did that for me.”
He leaned over and tenderly stroked her cheek. “No. You did that for yourself. Your grandmother only nudged you in the right direction.”
She smiled. “Maybe you’re right.” Her smile fell almost instantly. “After everything I’ve told you, what do you think … of me? I mean, I’ve been so—”
Unable to resist any longer, he stretched beside her and gathered her into his arms. “You’re a strong, brave woman. I don’t deserve you, Phae Jones. I’m sorry about what happened in Chicago, and how I accused you of being a quitter.”
“Don’t be sorry. I have been a quitter, and I think if you hadn’t made me realize it, I would have walked out of this house and made the biggest mistake of my life. You know what? I actually feel better after telling you everything. It’s been this huge ball of shame and guilt and regret that’s been rotting in my stomach. Maybe it’s gone now. I feel lighter. Freer.”
An incredulous expression washed over her features. “It is, Kent. I think it’s gone. I can’t believe it. Do you think it will still be gone tomorrow?”
He watched silently as Phae unconsciously rubbed her stomach. Without thinking about it, he said, “I love you, Phae Jones. No probably about it.”
She looked up at him, her big brown eyes wide and trusting. “And I love you. I love you for not giving up on me.”
They held one another, savoring the novelty of being intimate, being together. He was a lucky man, he thought, to have won such a woman.
She pushed her hand under his robe and ran fingertips over his chest, sending electric tendrils out over his skin. His body responded instantly. He wanted her … always and all the time.
