Just One Night, Part 3_ Binding Agreement(34)

We convince ourselves that they’re not really deserving. That they’re not better than us.

But I’m not deserving. I’m not better than any of them. Maybe I have the talent and intelligence necessary for the job but I haven’t paid the dues. I’m here because I slept with the right men. Everyone knows that.

More e-mails light up my in-box. More reports, more requests for permission to pursue one account or another. All addressed to Miss Fitzgerald, all written with practiced caution.

We still respect the power and we will still bend to it regardless of how we may feel about the hands that hold it.

I look down at my hands, remember how they feel when they’re against Robert’s naked skin. I remember the pleasure and the excitement.

I remember how it felt when I first wrapped my hand around his erection, how the ridges rubbed against my palm as I moved my hand up and down.

And I remember how it felt to slip that same hand into Dave’s grasp less than a week later when he gently led me to the jeweler where we could shop for a ring.

I close my hand into a fist, turn my head away in disgust. I know how people feel about the hands that hold my power. They’re the hands of a slut.

But then again that’s not really true, is it? Because it’s Robert who holds my power. That’s common knowledge. All this time I’ve fooled myself into believing that people fear and respect the ocean but in the tradition of all the great ancient societies, it’s the moon they worship. It’s the moon they respect and pay homage to, pray to. The ocean? That’s nothing more than a consequence of the greater gods.

This fear I’m banking on, it’s fear Robert has loaned me. Once they all find out that Robert is no longer part of my life, what holds it all together?

And how do I live knowing that I will no longer be able to lay my hands on him? How can I breathe without the promise of that sin?

The thought makes me feel slightly ill. I try to focus on other things—the reports, the files, the balance sheets—but in the end my thoughts keep going back to him. I need his guidance, the comfort of his voice.

I look down at the file open in front of me before slamming it closed. Numbers can be comforting but right now I need the distraction of antagonism.

I go down to Asha’s office. I don’t call ahead first although I should. Her assistant doesn’t stop me as I walk to her door, open it without knocking. She’s sitting at her desk, poring over a file. Draped over her chair is a fox-fur–trimmed coat, the kind of coat you could never justify a need for here in LA. She looks up at me with her eyes without moving her head, her dark hair hanging loosely over her shoulders. Her lips curl into a slow, sinister smile.

Ah Asha, I can always count on you to reject fear in favor of hate. I step inside, close the door behind me.

Leisurely, she straightens her posture. “Have you come up with some fresh torture for me today?”

“I could have you fired,” I say blandly. “Doesn’t that bother you?”

“We’ve had this conversation, right here in this office. Why retread old ground?” When I don’t answer, she presses further. “Why are you here, Kasie?”

I sigh, let my eyes run over her white walls, her dark wood desk. Like me she doesn’t have any photos of loved ones and I remark on it.

“I don’t take my personal life into work with me,” she says simply.

“Do you have a personal life?”

Again she smiles. “Ask me during my personal time.”

I nod although I doubt that she’ll ever answer a question she doesn’t want to answer regardless of what time it is. “I’m sorry I didn’t let you lead the Maned Wolf project,” I say, gesturing to the file. “Daemon didn’t earn the privilege.”

“Don’t apologize; it won’t do you any good.”

The comment takes me by surprise. “You act like you’re the one with the upper hand here.”

Asha leans back in her chair, swivels back and forth, half thoughtful, half bored. “As you’ve pointed out a few times, you could have me fired and for a little while there I thought you would. When you gave Daemon the authority that should be mine, I thought you had plans to bring me down slowly, painfully; at least that’s what I thought for a second.”

“For a second?”

“You know, when you asked me to acknowledge him as my superior. That was quite a move on your part, way up there on the evil scale. Except as soon as you got me to say what you wanted me to say, as soon as I had humiliated myself in front of my coworkers, you got this look on your face—”

“What look?”

“The look of guilt of course,” she laughs. “You really want to be bad, you just can’t quite carry it off.” She stands up, walks around her desk, and props herself on top of it. “I think that’s why you’re with Mr. Dade. I used to think you were using him to get ahead. But now? Now I think you like him because he gives you permission to be bad, and when you don’t take him up on it, he’s bad for you. He does all your dirty work, pulls you into doing what you want to do but don’t dare to initiate. That way you can avoid the guilt . . . or least that’s the theory.”