I swallow. “Respectfully, I disagree about the record. But I know what you mean.”
“Good.” He smiles again. He has a good smile. That’s the worst part—he has the face of someone likable. That’s what tricked me into liking him when I first started working here. I was friendly back then, and that was my first mistake.
He continues, “So let’s just—reset. Okay? Forget the reports, forget the tension, go back to how things were.”
“How things were was also a problem. You’ve been harassing the younger staff.” And me.
Something shifts in his face. The warmth stays, but something underneath it changes, settles into something harder. “I think you’ve misread a lot of situations.”
“I don’t think I have.”
“Lena.” He says my name the way he does when he wants to sound patient. “I’m trying to make this easier for you. The supervisor position—I have some pull with the evaluation committee. I’m trying to help you.”
“Thanks, but I don’t want your help.”
He’s close enough now that I can smell his cologne. He moved again while I was talking, and I didn’t track it, and that’s the second mistake—I let him close the last two feet while I was focused on his face. The counter is against my lower back. There’s nowhere left to go.
“You’re being difficult,” he says, still in the patient voice, and then his hand is on my jaw.
I recoil for one second out of instinct, but then his mouth on mine, his hand holding my face still, the smell of his cologne, the counter digging into my spine?—
My palms hit his chest, and I push with everything I have. He stumbles backward into a chair that topples over. I’m through the door before he finishes stumbling.
I don’t stop.
I don’t go back for my bag. I don’t go back for my coat. I don’t go back for the photo of Opal on my monitor that I’ve been looking at every day since I started.
I take the stairs because the elevator requires waiting, and I don’t have waiting in me right now. Need to move. Need to breathe. I hit the lobby, and I hit the street, and I keep moving—fast and straight, not running, because running means something was taken from me, and I’m choosing this. I’m moving toward something. I’m going to Opal.
I don’t remember the bus ride.
When I walk into the penthouse, Dario is there, and his face goes very still as soon as he sees me. The words grind out between his teeth. “What did Ed do?”
“Not Ed.” I tell him what happened. Factual, in order, because anything else would cost more than I have right now.
Dario’s expression doesn’t change much while I talk. That’s almost worse than if it did. “You’re not going back to that building.”
“I have a job?—”
“You don’t have to go back there to keep it. I’ll handle it.”
Part of me knows I should ask what his version of “handle it” means. I should be the person who thinks carefully about this, who draws the line, who considers what proportionate looks like.
But then I feel Reggie’s hand on my jaw. His mustache burning my upper lip. The way he moved on me like a fucking serial killer in a horror movie—not stepping fast, but closing in all the same.
Panic tightens my chest.
I put in two reports that went nowhere but to the man they reported. The HR rep is clearly a friend of Reggie’s.
You’ve misread a lot of situations, said with the absolute certainty of someone who has never once been held accountable for anything.
The police would laugh at me. They have real crime to handle.
Who else am I supposed to turn to?
I nod once. “Okay.”
Dario gets his jacket and leaves.
