I add, “Not yours. Hers.”
That gets his attention in a way my pain never did. His posture shifts, and his eyes sharpen.
“What’s she offering you these days?” I ask. “Same terms you gave me, or did she upgrade?”
He tilts his head, an old move meant to make me feel irrational. “You think I work for her?”
“I think you don’t know who you are unless someone tells you what to want.”
His face darkens. “You don’t know shit.”
I watch his fingers tighten on the glass, and I keep my shoulders down.
“I know you choked me the last time I told you I was leaving,” I say.
He flinches, barely, then recovers.
“You were hysterical,” he says. “You always get hysterical when you don’t get your way.”
I lean forward. “I know you emptied my savings. I know you used my name to open a second line of credit for a trip I never took. I know I wasn’t the first.”
His eyes flick past me, then back, measuring the room. His voice drops. “You need to stop talking.”
“No,” I say, and I push his glass away an inch. “I’m not scared anymore.”
He laughs once. “You should be.”
I breathe through my nose and keep my gaze on him.
“You think you’re clever,” he says.
“I think I’m awake.”
His gaze drops down my body, and it isn’t desire, it’s assessment. He looks at my stomach and smiles like he found an old lever.
“You got bigger,” he says.
Heat hits my face, and I refuse to let it show as weakness.
“I’m not here to be reviewed,” I say.
“You always were sensitive,” he says. “You’d eat a cookie and punish yourself, and you’d still blame me for noticing.”
“You didn’t notice,” I reply. “You collected weaknesses and used them.”
His smile widens. “Listen to you. Therapy words.”
“They’re words,” I say. “You’re the one who made them mean something.”
He leans back, and his voice goes sweet. “You think someone’s going to save you? Your rich boss going to scare me off?”
I don’t give him Ethan’s name.
He reads the silence anyway and grins. “There it is. You got yourself a man with money, and you think you’re untouchable.”
He tips his head. “He know what you are?”
“What am I?” I ask.
