Just One Night, Part 2_ Exposed(23)

His car is painted a uniquely dark, metallic silver that reminds me of the tinted mirrored windows that make up the high rise that holds Maned Wolf’s offices. He pauses at the driver’s-side door, his keys pressed into his palm. “Will you be safe?”

I look up sharply, consider his features. Concern is not an emotion I’ve seen him wear before. “Dave won’t hurt me,” I say.

“He’s hurting you now, Kasie. This is abuse.”

“I know . . . but what I meant . . . he won’t lay a hand on me, Tom.”

“I can take you home,” he says carefully. “Or if you like, I can take you to him.” I flush and Tom smiles wryly. “Would feigning ignorance be better?”

I nod. The reflection of my figure in the car’s metallic paint is distorted and fragmented.

“Very well; as far as I’m concerned Dave is the only man you’ve been with in years. Your relationship with Mr. Dade is purely professional. See,” he says as he unlocks his door, “facts can be bought, sometimes for as little as a smile.”

But I’m not smiling. I keep the thought to myself as he gets in and I watch my reflection in the shiny silver exterior shift, change, and disappear as he drives off.

When I get back to the house Dave is still in the doorway, his fury weakened with uncertainty. I move past him, wait for him to close the door before I turn to face him.

“I am stronger than a dress. I’m stronger than all of this.” The words are flat, without inflection. These are simple truths that don’t need enhancement. “Did you think Tom Love would forget who I am? Did you think he would see me in this dress and treat me differently than the woman he knows me to be? I’ve been working with him for five and a half years.”

“Yes,” he acknowledges. “And I’ve been your boyfriend for six. But as I said earlier, I don’t know who you are. What I do know is that the clothes you used to wear don’t seem to suit you anymore. This does.”

I feel the cheap fabric clinging to me, feel the air between my legs, reminding me of my exposure. I should feel vulnerable right now, but at this moment I simply don’t. He’s weak, desperate. I feel no more vulnerable before him than I would feel in front of a bird with broken wings.

“Is this how you wish to define us now?” I ask him brazenly. “With you constantly trying to bring me down and with me rising above it?”

“Seriously, Kasie?” he hisses. “Look at you! You’re dressed like a tramp!”

“And yet Tom didn’t see a tramp.” I take a step closer. Some foolish impulse takes over and I add, “Robert didn’t see me that way, either.”

“You’re bringing him up to me? In my home?”

I smile. In a Victorian novel he would have added the words “You dare?” and with a raise of an eyebrow I answer the unspoken question: Yes, I dare.

But I need to be careful here. The moment Dave gives up, the moment he thinks all his attempts at torture will be fruitless, he’ll end this thing with a phone call. And Tom was right in his predictions. If he exposes me to those who care about such things, to people I care about, he will pull away my newfound courage like the peel off an orange. I’ll lose everything.

So I soften my tone, offer him a treaty rather than a punch: “I don’t think you see me that way, either. I think you’re angry. But I think that maybe you meant it when you said—”

“When I said what?” The words come out like venom from a spitting cobra.

“When you said you wanted me to make you feel love. I think you want to love me again.”

He takes a step closer, hesitant at first, then another and another, each move becoming a little more confident and a little more aggressive. “He was different from me, yes? Edgier? Rougher? More dominant?”

“Is that what this is about,” I ask, almost weary, “dominance?”

“Give me a chance.” His right hand slips to the back of my neck and holds me in place. “I can give you what you want.” His left hand reaches for my breast.

I slap him in the face.

Slowly, his eyes never leaving mine, he lowers his hands and moves to the side, picking up his keys from a low table in the foyer.

“Where are you going?” I ask as he opens the coat closet.

“I’m going out.” He smiles sardonically before adding, “I need space to consider whether or not I’m going to destroy you. Don’t wait up. It’ll take some thinking.”

The air’s prickly. I may have pushed him too far. But he’s taking away my options and the violence he keeps pumping into my heart is hard to discipline. “My car’s still at work,” I say quietly.