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)
I was just as guilty.
If I had truly said no, truly shown him I didn’t want to have sex, then there wasn’t a doubt in my mind he would have stopped.
He didn’t because he knew I wanted it. Knew I wanted to be forced to my knees. Knew I wanted to be dominated by him. Knew I was just as attracted and drawn to him as he was to me.
In the moment, it didn’t matter who else I was hurting by my actions, and I was no better than any of the people that I had helped prosecute.
I had knowingly let my ambition, my own wants and needs, cloud my better judgment, and I’d acted in my own interest regardless of the pain and harm my actions inflicted on others.
Adultery may not have been punishable by law in the United States anymore, but if it had been, I would have turned myself in.
My entire adult life was spent working toward becoming a lawyer. I wanted to stand in front of the bar after passing the exam and have those great men and women look at me and say that I was their ethical equal.
Of course, I knew not all lawyers were ethical, in fact, some were downright shady, but that wasn’t me. I had always believed that ethics meant doing the right thing because it was the right thing, not because someone was watching.
My gut twisted painfully, and I knew that I couldn’t accept any of this anymore.
I couldn’t do it.
I looked down at my phone.
It was 4:45, and I had already done well over the amount of work that could be expected for a single day.
If Harrison was not back in the next fifteen minutes, I was clocking out at 5:00 p.m. with my colleagues.
The second 5:00 p.m. hit, the office around me got louder.
The other paralegals and a few of the secretaries packed up for the night and for the first time since I started working here, I followed suit.
Harrison may have requested, no, demanded, that I stay late at work, but I knew that if we were alone in his office again there was no way I would be able to resist him.
Especially after knowing how his mouth felt on my skin and how he felt inside of me. I considered myself a strong woman, but even I had limits.
There was no way for me to take back what had already happened, but I could at least do everything in my power to make sure it never happened again.
In the elevator, I grabbed my phone to call the car service, but at the last minute I thought better of it and called someone else instead.
CHAPTER 23
EDDIE
When I walked up to the third floor, dodging a few mice and some paper bags that looked very suspect, I found Sabrina standing outside of her door wearing a parka and holding two steaming, disposable cups.
“What’s that?” I asked, wrapping my arms around my middle, trying to keep my body heat in my thin coat.
I was considering, not for the first time, ripping open the seams of the paltry coat and shoving the matted polyester filling from my pillows into the lining for warmth. The flat pillows rarely kept me comfortable anyway. Maybe they could have a new life keeping me from freezing to death.
Why had I been so stubborn as to leave Harrison’s coat behind at the office?
“Hot chocolate from the café down the block,” she said. “Landlord douche-face turned on the electric but now is claiming the heat is broken, and I was too cold to stand there to make the good stuff.”
“It looks hot, so it already is the good stuff. The chocolate is just a bonus at this point.”
“That’s exactly what I was thinking. You want to tell me what happened?”
“No, not even a little bit,” I said, moving past her to unlock the door to my apartment.
I looked around and realized for the first time that maybe this was where I belonged. Going from the luxury apartment to this made me realize how bad this place really was. I had always known it was horrible, and that when Harrison saw it, he would see me differently. But just a taste of what life could have been like was enough to see my reality in a new light.
This apartment wasn’t a stepping stone. It was exactly where I was meant to be, in the filth with all of the other people who put their pleasures above common sense and the needs of others.
This was what I deserved, and the fact that I had deluded myself enough to think anything else was just pathetic.
“Are you sure you don’t want to tell me?” Sabrina asked, handing me the paper cup of hot chocolate.
“Yeah, I’m sure. I just can’t talk about it right now.” I took a deep breath and set my bag on the floor in front of the mattress that made my back hurt.