Page 46 of Pierced

“Eden,” I say, holding up my hand to make her stop. “I’m done here, OK? There’s nothing you can say or do to change my mind.”

“So why are you and Pierce playing this little sex game then, huh?”

“So I can humiliate him the way he humiliated me, and then walk out.”

She purses her lips and shakes her head. “You’re as cliché as the romance novels you hide in your desk drawer, Myrtle.”

I laugh. “Obviously you and I don’t read the same books. My story is not cliché and neither is my smut.”

“You’re pretending you don’t love him when you do.”

“Bullshit. Love? Please. I do not love that man. I admire him. I respect him. Or I did. Before—”

“Jesus, just let it go! He made a mistake, so what?”

“A mistake?” I say, standing up. “It wasn’t just a mistake. A mistake is something done by accident. He planned that morning, Eden. Planned it.”

“Believe me,” she says. “I know that better than anyone because my boyfriend helped. He planned it to humiliate me, not you.”

“And yet…” I say, pausing because I’m about to say something I shouldn’t. I know I shouldn’t, but I want to. And sometimes ‘I want’ wins. “And yet you do not have a job cobbled together to make you feel important when you’re clearly not. You have a new business. You have clients. You have a whole future in front of you. You won, Eden. You got everything you wanted. I didn’t. I lost everything that was important to me here at Le Man.”

“So tell him! Just tell him that!”

“I’ve tried,” I say, sitting back down in my chair. “I have. But he’s not listening to me. He still thinks moving me into this office and throwing money and perks at me is the answer. And I can’t do it anymore, OK? I can’t. I’m done. I’m going to see this little game through to the end and next week I’ll be gone. That’s the only outcome that makes sense to me.”

“Well… well, then you’re stupid.”

I lift an eyebrow up at her.

“You are. Because he loves you and you love him and—”

“Whoa.” I laugh. “He does not love me. He doesn’t even miss me! He thinks Valerie is my replacement! Just what the fuck is that, Eden? It’s so insulting!”

“You’re just misunderstanding his intentions!”

I sigh. “OK, listen. I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and agree that maybe this office and these new perks are his way of making it up to me. Maybe they are genuine.” She smiles. “But only as a hypothetical so you’ll hear me out. Because my perception of this situation makes sense. OK? It does. So one,” I say, holding up a finger. “We were a team. A team, Eden. The perfect team. We were synced up, and in tune, and on the same page. I was part of him, and he was part of me, and it was perfect. And then suddenly, out of nowhere and through no fault of my own, we… weren’t.”

“I understand that, but—”

“Two,” I say, ticking off another finger. “He didn’t even consult me. He never once asked me if I was the Sexpert. Not once. And I have always been honest and upfront with him. Always. And I thought he was being honest and upfront with me too. There was trust there, Eden. And he threw that away like it was last week’s garbage.”

“I get it, but—”

“And three,” I say, holding up my last finger. “He hired Valerie.”

She just stares at me. Like there’s more to that.

But there isn’t.

Valerie.

“She’s not out to replace you, Myrtle.”

“I’m sure she’s a perfectly nice woman. I’m sure she’s competent in her own way. But Valerie, Eden? Just what the everloving fuck was he thinking? Is that how he saw me? As just another Valerie?”

She frowns. Because now she gets it.

“She’s… she’s…” But this, I think, is the reason I’m sad. “She’s so… ordinary. She is the epitome of every other executive assistant out there. Is that all I was here? Was that all I was to him? A Valerie?”