SEXT

He scowls. “She must have access to my account. Nothing else makes sense. She must have gotten in there and been able to see the conversations, and…” His eyes widen, his jaw slackening. “That’s how she found your photo, too. It has to be. She took it from your inbox, where we were messaging.”

“Since she knows about both of your accounts, it must not have been too hard,” I agree. “If she hacked this old one, she must not have had a hard time hacking the new one too.”

“Christ, how long has she been doing this?” Zayne shakes his head. “Has she targeted other people I’ve messaged? I never heard anyone talking about being harassed like this, having their photos put up on a website somewhere…”

“Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. They might have just assumed you did it and sworn off ever speaking to you again.” I sigh.

“Shit.” Zayne pockets his phone in a single, angry gesture. “I have to stop this. I will. I’ll fix it.”

“How?” I catch his eye, my own wide with fear.

“I’m going to confront her. Tell her she needs to stop pulling this kind of shit. I’ll go to the police otherwise. We have proof it was her, and if she hacked my accounts, then she probably still has more screenshots like this saved. None of this is legal, Clove.”

I can feel myself nodding, my heart rising in my chest once more. But still… “You shouldn’t have to talk to her. Let me.”

“I couldn’t ask you to do that.”

“But you have all this history, this baggage. It will hurt you to confront her.”

He’s shaking his head hard. “It’s my mess, Clove. I’ll clean it up.” He steps back and presses the ground floor button. The elevator heaves around us, like it’s relieved to finally be in motion. As we whir down toward the first floor, he finally seems to take a look at my outfit, the whole thing, from head to toe. “What about you? You look like you’re off to take care of business, too.”

I nod, steeling myself once more, shoulders squared. “I’m going to get my job back. No matter what it takes.”

He smiles and leans in to kiss my lips, just once, feather-soft and light, a kiss that’s there and gone again before I have time to blink. “You will. You’re incredible, Clove. If anyone can talk your boss into having you back in the office, it’s you. And if you need me to come in and testify about it, explain that it was all this psycho…”

I laugh, shaking my head. “Somehow I don’t think that would help. If you tried to explain that it’s all a big misunderstanding, someone stole my sext to you…” I raise an eyebrow pointedly.

He grins in response, and leans down to kiss me one last time before the doors open. “Well, I offered.”

“You did. I’ll keep that in mind when I’ve finished winning my case.”

“Good luck,” he says, offering me a hand as I step out of the elevator. I take it, and twine my fingers through his, squeezing tightly just once for affirmation.

“You too,” I tell him, pouring every ounce of feeling into my tone that I can. I hope he can do this. I hope he can talk his ex down. I hope it won’t hurt him too much to be around her, to have all those old memories drug up. I hope she stops coming after him, leaves him alone to live a normal life.

I hope a lot of things today.

Time to start acting, at least on the ones I can affect.

I square my shoulders and cast Zayne one last long smile, then stride out through the glass doors of our apartment building to face the coming storm.

“And you want me to tell the board this?” My boss stares at me across the desk, hands folded on top, leaning forward just far enough that I can see the wrinkles at the edges of her eyes, the corners of her mouth. Normally she’s a cheery person, always smiling and laughing. Even when we do our annual performance reviews, she’s happy, complimenting me on my work and cheerfully explaining any areas that she thinks I should work on in the coming year.

It feels strange to see her frown, especially this much.

“If you think it would help,” I say, “sure. But either way, I wanted you to know exactly what’s going on. I want you to know that this isn’t who I am, who I ever would be in my professional life.” I’d just finished explaining the entire saga to her, starting from the point where my doorman saved my ass, all the way up through the awkward part where I shared one risqué but entirely consensual photo with him, and to the part where his psycho ex creepily hacked into all of his accounts and took it upon herself to make an example of me. All for daring to date a guy who dumped this girl years ago.