Page 59 of The Dragon’s Good Girl

That gets the beginning of a laugh out of me. "Glasses are in the kitchen."

"I know where your glasses are."

Of course she does. Tess has been walking into my kitchen and helping herself since we were nineteen.

She doesn’t ask what happened once we’re settled on the couch. She pours the wine, tucks her feet beneath her and waits.

So I tell her everything. Monica in the parking lot, what Soren told me when I got upstairs, the kiss that probably wasn’t my finest response to an emotionally complicated situation, and everything that unraveled afterward until I finally said red and left.

Tess stares at me over her glass. “You kissed him?”

“I was angry.”

“Those two things are not mutually exclusive, apparently.”

“It made sense at the time.” I take a drink. “Then I panicked and safeworded.”

That wipes the amusement from her face. “What did he do?”

“Stopped immediately. He didn’t ask why or try to talk me out of leaving. He just backed off and stayed there while I got dressed.”

Something in Tess’s expression softens. “Okay.”

I look at her. “Okay?”

"I'm thinking."

"That's rarely reassuring."

"Shut up, I'm trying to be wise."

Despite everything, I laugh.

Tess takes a drink and studies me over the rim of her glass. "You saw one woman leave his workplace looking happy and decided that meant everything he'd done with you was something he did with everyone."

"He has other clients."

"Exactly. You already knew that."

"Knowing it and seeing it are very different experiences."

"I'm not saying it wouldn't have bothered me." She pauses. "But you filled in a lot of blanks from one damp-haired woman walking to her car."

I don't particularly enjoy how reasonable that sounds.

"She looked like me when I leave there."

"Of course she did. Presumably the business model falls apart if everyone comes out looking traumatised."

"Tess."

"I'm serious." She shifts closer. "Margot, you don't know what happened in her session. Maybe he ran her a bath. Maybe he didn't. Maybe she likes being wrapped in cling film and serenaded in Latin. I have no idea what people are paying for in that house."

A laugh escapes me before I can stop it.

"There. Progress." She points her glass at me. "What you do know is what he told you about you."

I sink further into the couch. "That's the part I don't know how to believe."