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“Well, you are behaving like one,” he snaps.
I hold my hands up in defense. “David, you fucked me in your office three hours ago. If you’re that worried about people finding out, why did you do that?”
“Did—I—I didn’tmean?—”
“Oh, I’m sorry, did you not want to?” I cross my arms over my chest. “Did you say no? Did you not want to?”
“Of course not,” he sighs.
“I get not telling people here,” I say slowly, my heart clenching painfully. “I get not wanting this to be more than a fling. But casual isn’t secret.”
“It is to me.”
We look at each other.
His words hurt me. They feel like an insult. They feel painful, like he is saying them just to hurt me, even though I know he’s not.
“Alice is my best friend,” I try again. “Of course I told my best friend. Wouldn’t you have?—”
“No,” David says firmly. And what’s worse is that as I hear him say it, I believe it. I believe he wouldn’t. I believe he wouldn’t want to.
I don’t know what I thought we were. I didn’t think we were real, that we were serious, that we were anything really. But I did think…
I don’t know.
I thought we were…
I had to tell Alice. Ihadto. I had to tell someone about him.
He doesn’t feel as strongly about me, it turns out.
It stings. Literally, like little bites all over my skin. I’m itchy with it. I’m red. I’m humiliated, I’m devastated, I’m angry, I’m understanding. It all crowds into me, stuffing me with emotion like a pinata, and I have to get out of there, because honest to God, I have no idea what will come out of me if he hits again.
“Got it,” I manage. It comes out more hoarse than I’d hoped.
“Laura—”
I ignore him. I have to. I let the stairwell door swing shut, hard and loud, wincing as I walk back to where Alice is waiting.
She jumps up immediately when she sees me.
I can see exactly when she registers the emotion I’m feeling. Her brows pinch together, her lips press into a hard line, and she becomes something so much more frightening than me—she becomes valiant and vengeful, and I know I have to get her out of there before she comes face to face with David because I will in fact lose my job.
“Lunch?” I beg.
“Lunch,” she agrees. The sympathy on her face is easy to read, and I let her wind her arm through mine. We go the back way out of the building, and I make it to her car before I burst into tears.
“If it takes my whole life,” Alice vows as she pulls onto the street. “I’m going to make David Donovan rue this day.”
I laugh, the sound watery and flimsy. I reach over and squeeze her wrist in thanks.
“It’s fine,” I say, looking out the window. “It just… wasn’t meant to be.”
Even though I thought it was,I admit it just to myself.Even if I wanted it to be.
CHAPTER 10
David
