I freeze and confusion washes over me. This isn’t the woman I left this morning. Something happened. Something—
“Katja? What’s going on?” I try to stay calm, but I can feel a buzz of panic trickling into my veins.
“Fuck you,” she spits as she opens the cap of the gasoline, preparing to pour.
Not wanting to replace the new flooring I just had installed, I lunge forward and yank the gas from her hands before taking several steps back to place it down next to me. “I need you to talk to me. What has you so upset?”
“Your office! I was in your fucking office.” She’s struggling to breathe and get the words out, but I don’t need her to explain. I should have been honest on the roof when we were laying it all on the table… but I’d been afraid—and now it’s too late. She pushes me out of the way and storms past me down the hallway before spinning on her heels to face me head on. Her hands are on her hips, her eyes are narrow, I can see the veins in her neck, and I’ve never seen such a terrifying sight in my life. To say the woman is furious would be a gross understatement.
“It was you all along,” she accuses. “You wrote those letters to me demanding the money. It was you!”
Fuck. I inhale deeply and slowly let the air out. “Yes.”
Her mouth falls open for a moment before she recovers. “Wow, you aren’t even going to try and deny it?” I see the fury in her eyes morph to sadness for a moment, but the rage quickly returns. “You’re a sick motherfucker.”
“I’m a vengeful motherfucker,” I admit. “I’m not going to deny that fact.”
She moves forward as if she’s going to charge me, but then stops herself. “You extorted me for money out of revenge? Because I kicked you out of The Whitney?”
All I can do is tell the truth even though my heart feels as if it’s being constricted by chains. “Yes.”
“That’s all you have to say? Yes, I’m vengeful, yes. Really? Nothing more?”
“I’m trying to be honest with you.”
“Oh, really? Now you want to be honest?” She laughs bitterly. “You expect me to believe you? You expect me to believe you’re not hiding more from me? After everything we’ve talked about! After everything you’ve done! What do you have to say for yourself?”
“What else do you want me to say, Katja?”
“I want you to explain yourself. I want you to make sense out of this madness. I want you to tell me that this isn’t as fucked up as I think it is. Tell me I have this all wrong, and there’s a good explanation. Tell me something to make this right!” The way her voice breaks feels like a knife twisting in my gut.
“I can’t, because I’m not going to lie to you.”
“Are you going to try and apologize at least? Try to beg for my forgiveness?”
I feel helpless, empty, wrecked, and all that comes out of my mouth is, “Would it make it better if I did?”
Her eyelashes flutter and her lip quivers, but she quickly composes herself and any sign of devastation vanishes once again. She glances around the thirteenth floor. “So, this was all part of your plan, huh? Trick me into believing I’m going to lose everything, make me beg for money, humiliate me with your consequences, and then force me into bed with you?”
“Originally, yes, on everything except forcing you into bed. You were a willing participant when it came to that.”
“Fuck you!” she shouts.
I know Katja’s emotions are out of control. She’s not one to curse like this, but I’m clearly making her feel as if there are no other words to say. I don’t blame her one bit.
“You tricked me into believing there was something between us. You said you wanted a partnership, you said you wanted me, that you wanted us…” She reaches for a vase on a table, picks it up, but then pauses. Taking a deep breath, she puts the vase back down and adds, “Congratulations. Your plan worked perfectly.” I can hear the pain in her words and I hate it.
“That’s not true,” I admit. “Nothing went according to plan.”
She laughs sardonically as she looks at me, her eyes cold, her jaw locked. “Is that so? To me, it seems like everything you wished for happened. Goals achieved. You wanted to fuck me over and make me pay. You wanted to hurt me. Success.”
I nod slowly. “Yes, when I started all this I wanted to hurt you. I wanted you to feel what I did when you forced me out. I wanted you to feel the betrayal, the pain, and what it’s like to get screwed over.”
She opens her mouth to speak, but I raise my hand to silence her.
“And I know you’re feeling all of that now. But my plan was also to rebuild The Whitney, which is well underway. I knew I needed to fix a lot of damage that you allowed Tristan to do. But I didn’t expect to get back in here, to be back working with you and… I didn’t expect to feel how I did all those years ago. I didn’t expect to feel the need to protect you again. The need to care for you again. And I sure as fuck didn’t expect to fall in love with you. That wasn’t part of the plan.”
“Love! Are you going to stand there and declare your love for me after what you did? How fucking dare you! If you even had an ounce of love for me, you wouldn’t have done what you did. You bought up all the assets from Tristan just so you could fuck me over.”