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He laughs. “I was going to tell you it had been dropped. I just wanted to see you squirm a little longer. My bad. Should have done it sooner. Oh, well. Now if that’s all, I have things to do…”
“It’s not all. I have decided to report you. To the police.”
He gets up then, and in two strides he’s at the door. My heart is in my throat. He’s going to tell me to get out. I can argue all I like but he can easily have me thrown out.
He opens the door a crack and checks outside. Then he steps out and yells: “I’m in a meeting, June. I’m not to be disturbed.”
“All right,” she sings out.
I’m so relieved I close my eyes for a moment and let a long breath out.
“The police? And why would that be, Anna?” he says now. He has closed the door and returned to his desk.
“You assaulted me, Geoff. Why do you think?”
He cocks his head at me. “You’re sure you want to go there? Firstly, I don’t think I assaulted you. I only did what I thought you wanted me to do.”
“I never wanted to have sex with you, and you know it.”
He laughs. “Really? What about Chicago?”
“You know, I’m glad you brought that up. I’ve thought a lot about Chicago lately. And it occurred to me that I didn’t drinkthatmuch that night. I just had some wine and one nightcap with you at the bar. Certainly not enough to explain waking up in your room, disoriented and confused.”
He pushes against the back of his chair, and rocks back and forth. “You must have, since that’s exactly what happened. I’m not responsible for how much you drink, Anna.”
“I think you spiked my drink.”
“You can’t prove that.”
I smile.Wrong answer.“I’m right, aren’t I?”
“Hey, I just made it easier for you. That’s all.”
“How was that easier for me?”
I’ve been standing this whole time but it’s hard to keep up the bravado when my legs are about to give way. I reach for a chair and sit down.
“I know your type,” he says. “You want to play but you don’t want the guilt. So, I gave you a little nudge, that’s all. Made it easier for you to say you didn’t know what you were doing.” He winks. “I should have upped the dose.”
I feel sick. I’m back there for a second, in that hotel room in Chicago. I can’t believe I came so close…I have an urge to lunge at him, scratch that smirk off his face, but I don’t. I’m not done yet.
From the way he tidies up papers in front of him, I can tell he thinks our little chat is over. He starts to get up when I say, “I had an interesting visit with Ryan.”
He sits back down, slowly. Up till now, he was smirking. Supremely confident that he could talk his way out of anything I put to him, but not anymore. His jaw locks and his mouth is so tight, his lips are almost white.
“You coerced your own nephew into setting me up, so he could take a nude picture of me. Onyourcellphone. Then you used that photo to rattle me. You wanted me to feel paranoid and frightened. All the while pretending it was your nephew who was doing that. Do you have any idea how sick you are, Geoff?”
He throws his pen on the desk. It bounces off and onto the floor.
“You only have yourself to blame. You come on to me—”
“What are you? Some kind of incel? You can’t accept that a woman doesn’t want to sleep with you?”
He’s leaning on his desk now, arms crossed, a fierce look on his face. “There are consequences for women like you.”
“And there are consequences for men like you,” I reply. “You scratch vile words on my car—”
He laughs. “If you don’t like it, then resign, Anna. I’m not stopping you.”
