He took another great gulp of bourbon, and focused on the way it scalded his throat. “Go on. Get your clothes on and leave. I’m not running after you anymore. If I’m not who you want, then there’s no point.”
Phae didn’t move. Kent set his drink on a shelf and vigorously rubbed his hair with a towel before tossing it over the armoire door.
“I told you to go ahead and leave. You don’t owe me anything.”
Phae slowly pulled on her shirt then lifted her head. His jaw clenched when he saw a tear fall down her silken cheek.
“I do owe you, Kent,” she said so quietly he could hardly hear. “I’m sorry. I’ve been on my own for so long, I’ve forgotten how to be part of something else. Something more, like us. And I’m afraid of what you’ll think of me …”
Her voice trailed off when Kent walked up to her.
He held out his hand. “Trust me, Phae. Trust us.”
She thought about it, then nodded and took his hand. He helped her up and led her to the plush settee. They sat side-by-side. He didn’t let go of her hand.
“Do you want a drink?” he asked, lifting her chin and pushing a lock of hair off her face.
She shook her head, her beautiful brown eyes shining with unshed tears.
Kent’s heart ached for her, but backing down now wouldn’t do either of them any good. “Tell me why you quit your job in Chicago.”
She looked away. “You’re going to think I’m stupid.”
“I won’t. You’re the loveliest, most passionate and smartest woman I’ve ever met. Just take a deep breath and tell me.”
She inhaled, exhaled, then looked him squarely in the eye. “I didn’t want to quit my job. I was forced into it.”
“How?”
She glanced away then back to him again. “Sexual harassment.”
“You had to quit because someone sexually harassed you? That’s illegal.”
“No. I sexually harassed someone else.”
Before he could stop himself, he barked out a laugh. “Ridiculous! You’d never do such a thing. Damn, you’d never have to. You’re joking.”
“I’m not joking, Kent,” she said in a deadened tone. “It’s part of my official work record at Fullerton.”
He stared at her. “You’re serious.”
She nodded mutely and turned her gaze on her hands resting on her knees.
“I think we could both use a drink,” he said and headed to the small table where he refilled his glass and poured a fresh one for Phae.
She accepted the drink, took a large gulp then coughed loudly. He patted her back.
“Sorry,” she mumbled once she’d caught her breath. “Not used to the hard stuff anymore.”
“It’s okay. I like that in a woman.”
She set her drink aside. “It wasn’t true, about the harassment. I didn’t sexually harass anyone.”
Kent sat back down beside her. “Of course you didn’t. Why don’t you start at the beginning?”
She settled into the corner of the settee, looking resigned, tired and frightened all at the same time. “It was a big deal to get signed on to Fullerton straight out of college. And getting that job meant my parents’ investment in Harvard and their sacrifices had been worth it. I’d made the big time. You can’t imagine how it was. Everyone in the family was so proud, and they counted on me to succeed. All the Joneses.”
Kent hated to think of the pressure she must have felt. His own parents and aunt thought everything Kent did was perfect, whether he failed or succeeded didn’t matter to them.
“I had no idea what I was getting into when I took that job,” she continued. “I was still a small-town girl, even after Harvard, and I was mixed in with these big-city sharks. I don’t think I ever stood a chance, but I didn’t know it at the time. All I knew was I had to do whatever it took to succeed. I worked day and night and though I had a few small setbacks, I advanced quickly.”
She reached for her glass and took a small sip of the strong liquor. “Then I made a fatal mistake. I slept with my boss.”
Though he knew it was foolish, Kent’s hackles rose at the thought of innocent Phae in the hands of her worldlier, probably depraved, boss. Not that he had any real reason to think the guy was depraved, but whatever.
“What’s his name?” he asked on an impulse.
She cast a sideways glance over the top of her glass. “It hardly matters. The sex wasn’t any good, by the way. It may not have been his fault, I suppose. I was only with him because I was lonely and homesick and overwhelmed by the job.”
“I can understand that,” he said.
“I suppose, but it was so stupid. We’d gone on a sales trip to New York. Our last night at the hotel, I drank a little too much. I was on a high because the trip had been successful and was a huge coup, and I wanted to share that happiness with someone else. I’d been so unhappy for so long, and I finally had a reason to celebrate. Unfortunately, I celebrated with my boss.”
She adjusted herself on the settee, turned more toward Kent. “He was a vice-president and had always been nice, showing me the ropes, giving me advice. I thought he liked me.”
Kent lightly touched her leg, hoping to dispel some of her forlorn air.
She shook her head as if she could shake away the bad memories. “What can I say? I’m an idiot. We flew back to Chicago the next day. He was really sweet on the plane and I thought I’d found someone to care for, so I didn’t even mind that the sex was lousy. Sex wasn’t what I was after, anyway. He dropped me off at my apartment and kissed me goodbye. He said he’d see me at work the next day.”
“When I showed up at work the next morning,” she said, “I ran straight to his office and jumped into his chair with him. He acted flustered and put out and kept saying that what I was doing wasn’t necessary. That’s exactly how he said it, ‘Phae, this isn’t necessary.’ He told me to go see my new office. Before I could ask him what he was talking about, he shoved me out of the room and practically shut the door in my face.”
Her upper lip curled. “I actually asked his secretary about a new office, and she gave me the strangest look before telling me to go to the regional director’s office. As I headed that way, I noticed people giving me odd looks. Some would stare and whisper as I passed. It was bizarre and made me nervous. I hadn’t noticed them acting this way when I entered the building, but then, I’d been so stupidly happy, I wasn’t paying attention.”
“I quickly found out that I’d been promoted,” she said. “The ex-director was in the office boxing up his belongings when I arrived. He told me, in a nasty tone, that our jobs had been switched. He’d been demoted and I’d been promoted, and he’d been left with the task of telling me. It was outrageous, but there wasn’t anything I could do about it. The guy was livid, and who could blame him? He sneered when he left and made a few filthy comments I’d rather not repeat. To summarize, he called me a whore who was sleeping her way to the top.”
A profound anger was growing inside Kent. He attempted to contain it for Phae’s sake, but it clawed at the edges of his restraint.
Phae ran her tapered finger around the brim of her glass. “I can’t stand admitting it, but like a fool, I ran crying to my boss. I told him I didn’t understand what was happening, that I hadn’t slept with him to get a promotion and that I liked and wanted to be with him. Guess what he said?”
Kent could only grunt a negative reply.
“He told me to back off, to quit pretending to be innocent. He said I’d known ‘the score’ as he called it. I’d been rewarded and that was that. If he w
anted to sleep with me again, he’d let me know, and in the meantime, I needed to keep my mouth shut. After all, he had a wife and children to protect.”
Kent couldn’t contain himself anymore. He leaped off the settee and began pacing the room, trying to walk off his anger.
“You’re mad at me,” Phae whispered.
“Not at you, Phae. I’m—”
“I swear, Kent. I didn’t know he was married. He didn’t wear a ring and he had no pictures on his desk, and in the time I’d known him he’d never mentioned a family. I think back on it now and I wonder if he wasn’t lying, making up a convenient excuse to get rid of me. Maybe that’s wishful thinking. But don’t you think that someone in the office would have mentioned meeting his wife and kids? Wouldn’t he have a picture somewhere? I don’t know, and the worst part is, I’ll never know the truth. I’m afraid to know it. Thinking that I’m an adulterer makes me want to throw up.”
“Don’t think about it,” he said. “There’s no point. The man lied either way. He’s slime. Tell me his name and I’ll ruin him faster than you can blink.”
Chapter 28
PHAE DID BLINK, SEVERAL TIMES, stared at him and blinked. “What are you talking about?”
He shouldn’t have said that, he realized. He’d put her off her confession. “Never mind. I hate that you were treated that way. Go on.”
“The story gets worse,” she said with a bleak look. “You might want to sit down.”
He wasn’t sure he could handle any more. “No, let me pace. It’ll be better that way.”
Phae sighed. “Suit yourself. That day went by in a blur. It was a nightmare that I sleepwalked through. I buried myself in figuring out my new job. Before I knew it, it was almost midnight. When I realized how late it was and how silent the building had become, I started to leave, but I never made it out of my office. The ex-director was standing in my doorway.”
Kent stopped pacing, his heart taking a dive in his chest.
“He’d been drinking heavily,” she said. “He called me some more filthy names and started coming toward me. Though his voice was slurred, I could understand it. He believed that since he got demoted, he ought to get a little something from the slut who’d stolen his job.”