She stepped out of the dress, piled in a heap on the floor, and moved towards him on the chair. He still did not move.
She placed both her hands on his shoulders.
“You can have me, you know,” she said in a husky voice. “Why settle for her when you can have someone like me?”
Rust said, “I’d rather have one night with her than a thousand nights with you, Fiona Montgomery. Now put your clothes back on and get the hell out of my office.”
A hot flush crept into her cheeks.
“I could break you,” she said with a choke.
“Do whatever you have to do. But I won’t be blackmailed. Not by you or by anyone.” He stared pointedly at the door.
She gathered up her clothes hastily and put her dress on.
I will survive this. But I’ll make sure he won’t.
“You’ll be sorry,” she said, aware that she was sounding like a cliché.
He just gazed at her sadly.
“Maybe I will,” he said, “but at least I have my integrity intact, unlike yours.”
She stalked out of the office and slammed the door.
Stacey outside was curious as hell.
“Everything all right with the Professor?” she asked.
Fiona pursed her lips.
“Not at all, Stacey. Not at all. Watch this space. It will be interesting.”
She left, head held high.
17
Inside his office, Rust stared out of the window.
He believed in everything he just said. And part of him deep down inside knew that he deserved it. He couldn’t slake his lust for Kate’s innocence, and now he had to pay the price.
Even though he was both a psychiatrist and a psychologist, he believed in karma. He believed in things which came full circle. If you did bad things in life, one day, they came back to hit you in a roundabout way, even though they were not connected. Bad things engendered bad karma, and bad karma – like a domino effect – came right round to hit you in the face again.
He knew he deserved this. He deserved this because he was turning into a monster, the very monster his father said he would turn into. He deserved it because of all those things he and his father did in Bellevue – to all those insane people.
But if that was his bane, then let the fallout begin.
He could take it.
And he hoped Kate could take it too.