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24
Lila
Thenextdayatlunchtime, Mae rushed into my office with two containers of sushi. “You will not believe who I just ran into on my way here?”
She slid one container over to me. I loved sushi, but I was too nervous to eat it. She was either talking about the man I desperately wanted to see again or the man I never wanted to see again.
I’d barely slept all night, hugging my bat, wondering what the hell had happened. By the time the sun came up, I forced myself into work with a thousand scenarios looping in my mind. Would I get fired? Would Rothwell take his revenge some other way? Was Hawk in jail? But I hadn’t heard anything from anyone all morning. Not from Hawk. Not from Dr. Rothwell. And not from HR. So, it looked like I still had my job…for now.
Mae opened a drawer and took out two sets of chopsticks I kept there for us. “Rebecca from HR. And boy, do I have gossip for you.”
“Am I fired?” I reluctantly accepted the set of chopsticks Mae handed me.
“Nope.” Mae sat on the edge of my desk. “She never mentioned your name, so I guess no one found out about your sexcapade with Hawk in here…Ewww!” She jumped off. “Was this where it happened coz I’m not eating here if it was.”
I nodded and tried not to think about Hawk’s tongue.
Mae pulled up a chair but kept her plate in her hand. “But she did say that Dr. Creep is on a leave of absence for two months. A Doctors Without Borders thing. That’s the official story, but I got the real scoop.”
She leaned in with a huge grin plastered on her face and whispered, “He’s in the hospital.”
Oh fuck, no. I dropped the metal chopsticks, and they clanged to the floor. I was doomed. I’d be fired for sure now that the guy who ate me out beat the crap out of my boss’s son.
Wait a minute. Why was I so selfish? Thinking only about me when Dr. Rothwell was the one lying in the hospital? What if he was badly hurt?
I mentally smacked myself. Of course, he was. Two months in the hospital? That was a long time for recovery.
It was all my fault.
If I had tried harder to put a stop to his advances, Rothwell might have given up and never shown up at my door. Then again, nothing had ever deterred Dr. Creep from coming after me over and over again. I didn’t think he would have ever stopped. I would not take the blame for his actions.
However, if I hadn’t been so obsessed with Hawk, he wouldn’t have shown up either. And Rothwell would have been fine and at work today.
And then what? What retaliation would Rothwell have taken on me for not letting him in? Maybe he deserved it after all the times he’d forced his hands…
Ugh. My skin crawled just thinking about it. Who knew how far he would have gone last night if I’d opened the door?
Mae, still oblivious to my mini panic attack, said, “I bet he’s had a penis enlargement surgery.” She picked up my chopsticks, rubbed them clean with a napkin, then handed them back to me. “What’s your theory?”
I couldn’t tell her. It would prove right her suspicions about Hawk. That he was danger personified. The last thing I wanted to hear right now wasI told you so. Or maybe I didn’t want her telling me to stay away from him. Because even after all of this, I wasn’t sure I could.
During the rest of the break, Mae gobbled up her lunch and gossiped about office stuff that I barely paid attention to. I poked at my sushi with my chopsticks. My appetite was gone because I worried about a man who kept assuring me he could handle himself. I wondered why he would risk so much to protect someone like me.
***
My client dabbed a tissue at the corner of her eye, catching a tear. “I was doing so well, but then my friends invited me out for supper. I said no because I was trying to stay away from the temptation. And they said they wouldn’t drink either, in support of me, so I finally said yes. But once we got there, Gina ordered shots for everyone, including me.
“I was going to leave, but I couldn’t help myself. It was right there. And looked so good. I wanted that buzz I get when all my worries melt away. I told myself that only one drink would be fine. I could handle it. Just one. But one turned to two turned to ten. Fucking Gina. I hate that bitch. It’s all her fault.”
“Is it?” I asked with a neutral expression.
My client looked at me like I’d let off a stink bomb. “Of course, it is. If she hadn’t tricked me into going out with them and then ordered drinks for us…”
“I see. Didn’t Gina do the same thing last week? And the week before that too?”
“Exactly. She keeps lying to me and sabotaging me.”
“So, what are you going to do about it now?”
