Total pages in book: 93
Estimated words: 86432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 86432 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 432(@200wpm)___ 346(@250wpm)___ 288(@300wpm)
The silence after that felt dangerous.
Hathaway’s gaze sharpened. Gowry smiled slowly.
“That’s the spirit,” he said.
I realized too late that I had given him exactly what he wanted: not meekness, not tears, but resistance. Something to press on. Something he wanted to shape.
Hathaway seemed to realize it too. “Enough,” she said, and this time both of us obeyed.
She walked toward me, stopping close enough that I caught the faint scent of her perfume under the sharper notes of the office, sex and leather and my own humiliation. She lowered her voice.
“Can you stand up straight?”
I did, though it hurt and I knew she saw the flinch.
“Can you compose yourself?”
“Yes.”
“Then do it.”
I made my hands stop shaking by force, then reached to fasten my blouse. I smoothed my hair back behind my shoulders. I felt like a child pretending to be an adult after some catastrophic mistake, but by the end of it I could at least look less wrecked than I felt.
Hathaway turned to Gowry. “Whatever leverage you think you’ve gained, I can assure you it doesn’t exist. Alexandra here may not work for me after tonight, but that doesn’t mean you can continue to prey upon her.”
Gowry set his glass down. “You don’t own everyone who works for you, Frances.”
“No. But I do notice when one of my former staffers leaves a reception with a senator who enjoys proving points.”
He laughed softly. “You always did object most to methods that weren’t yours.”
I didn’t understand all of that, not really, but I understood enough to wish very badly that I didn’t exist in the room while they said it.
Hathaway looked at me again. “Did anyone see you come up here?”
I shook my head. “I don’t think so.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
“Joe…” I glanced over at Gowry. “One of his staffers… I think he knew the senator invited me up.”
Her mouth tightened. “Of course he did.”
Gowry did not bother denying it. “Joe’s good.”
“Good at compromising vulnerable young women who are too beautiful for their own good,” Hathaway said.
That almost made me laugh despite the horrible patronizing tone. It would have turned into sobbing if it had gotten out, so I bit the inside of my cheek hard.
Hathaway seemed to make a decision. “You’ll leave separately. Alexandra, you’ll go first. I’ll have someone bring your coat to the lobby.”
“I can manage my own coat,” I said automatically.
Her eyes flicked to my bare legs, the marks I was sure were visible on my thighs, the fact that my panties were still clenched in my hand like a handkerchief. “Clearly.”
I went scarlet and looked away.
Gowry picked up his belt at last and threaded it slowly through the loops of his trousers, never taking his eyes off me. The sound made my stomach tighten. “You can send her back to me if you’re interested in doing business. It doesn’t have to involve leverage.”
Hathaway’s reply came flat and immediate. “No.”
The word struck me with such force I nearly staggered. Relief, humiliation, disappointment so sharp it made me sick that I even could feel it—all of it twisted together.
He saw that too. “Interesting. Well, Alex, if you’re out of a job after this, you should think about signing up for Selecta Arrangements. If I see you there, we might have some fun.”
Selecta Arrangements. All young female staffers knew about the app where men like Gowry could make ‘arrangements’ with younger women they wanted to fuck in exchange for an ‘allowance.’
I wanted to tell him to go to hell. I wanted to tell Hathaway to stop looking at me as though she felt certain I would indeed sign up for Selecta Arrangements so that I could keep getting brutally whipped and fucked by Jason Gowry.
I wanted it to be fifteen minutes earlier in the evening, before I’d said yes to anything, before I’d discovered that part of me could obey with horrifying ease.
Instead I said nothing.
Hathaway opened the door. “Go.”
I moved toward it, then stopped because I couldn’t make myself pass her without saying something. “Senator—”
“If this is an apology, save it until you’re capable of one that isn’t mostly for yourself.”
That stung because it was true. I closed my mouth.
As I stepped into the outer office, she caught my arm lightly, just for a second. I looked up at her.
Her voice dropped lower. “If he touched you in any way you did not agree to, you tell me. If you are confused about what you agreed to, you tell me that too. Do you understand?”
I nodded.
It was not kindness, exactly. It was too sharp and unsentimental for that. But it was something steadier, and because I was so frayed it nearly undid me.
“He… he…” I stammered. I stood on the knife’s edge. “No,” I went on, “he didn’t. I’m not confused. I… it was consensual.”
Her eyes went hard.
“Then you’re fired,” she told me.