Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 98398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98398 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 492(@200wpm)___ 394(@250wpm)___ 328(@300wpm)
Her words stung more than she could possibly know. No, I did not have this job because I was a charity case. I had this job because I was the best paralegal here, but her calling me a charity case hit a nerve harder than she could know.
“Ma’am, as I have already stated, I do not know where Mr. Astrid currently is. I have not seen nor heard from him since he left this morning and I’m not expecting him back in the office during business hours today.”
“That’s not acceptable,” she screeched, loud enough that several of the others in the bullpen all stopped to look at us.
I took a deep breath to maintain my composure.
“I apologize if you don’t find that acceptable, but that’s all I have to tell you. I don’t know anything else. I am happy to take a message if you would like, or I could try calling his cell phone if you don’t have the number.”
“Of course I have my fiancé’s cell phone number.” The way her eyes darted to the floor and then to the space right over my left shoulder told me she didn’t.
“Right,” I said, giving her a pleasant smile and praying this woman would just leave already.
Instead, she leaned down, hovering over my desk, the smell of her expensive perfume smothering the air around me. “Look, you little street urchin, I don’t know who you think you are, but you cannot keep him from me.”
“I’m not trying to keep him from you. I’m telling you he’s not here. Is there a message you’d like me to give him?” I spoke slowly and condescendingly, hoping that she would finally get the point.
“Fine.” She huffed. “Tell him I was here looking for him and give him these to approve.” She tapped a long, manicured fingernail on the thick envelope on top of my desk.
“Absolutely, I will see that he gets it.” I carefully moved it to the side out of my way.
“Good,” she said. “It’s the announcements for our engagement and copies of the wedding invitations for him to approve. I will hear about it when he gets home if you don’t give them to him. I will have you fired.”
She turned on her heel and stomped away, leaving only an invisible trail of the cloyingly sweet, toxic scent of her perfume.
“Oh my God, girl, who was that?” One of the other paralegals, whose name I never remembered, stood in front of my desk.
“I believe that was Mr. Astrid’s fiancée,” I said.
“What did she want?”
“She was just dropping off some things for Mr. Astrid to look over. I’m guessing they got their signals crossed, because she was under the impression that he was here.”
“But why was she yelling at you?”
I just shrugged. I had no other answer. I had absolutely no idea why I was the one she decided to aim her venom at.
“God, for the way that she was going after you, you’d think you were fucking her man or something.”
I pretended to cough on a sip of coffee, hoping it would hide the telltale signs of my guilt. I pressed my fingertips to my cheeks as if it were the coughing fit that made them flushed.
“Yeah, I don’t know, maybe her bikini wax was a little rough this morning?” I joked, and the other paralegal laughed, placing her hand on her chest as she walked back to her own desk.
The more I thought about it, the more I wondered if I were the asshole in this situation?
If I asked people on Reddit who was the victim—the paralegal screwing her boss or the entitled rich bitch that was being cheated on—I wasn’t entirely sure I would be seen as the victim anymore.
Yeah, she was a grade-A Karen, but maybe she knew.
Instinctively maybe she knew the reason her fiancé wasn’t at home last night wasn’t because he was late at work but because he was with me.
Did he go home last night and crawl into bed with her after leaving the one he’d fucked me in?
I no longer felt vindicated by my pettiness toward her.
She was the victim whether she consciously knew it or not.
I was the villain.
I had knowingly, willingly, had sex with a man who belonged to someone else.
Twice.
It was one thing when I was entertaining fantasies of him before I knew he was engaged, but for me to let it go this far knowing that he belonged to someone else was deplorable. I had become the worst kind of woman.
My bullshit reasoning this morning was nothing more than the future lawyer in me arguing my own innocence, even though I knew I was guilty as sin. Maybe I should switch sides and become a defense attorney?
I was the other woman who was fucking a man that could help her career.
It wasn’t as if he had given me a chance to say no. But I knew that was no more of an excuse than one a criminal driving the getaway car would make, claiming innocence because they weren’t the one inside robbing the bank.