ONE MONTH LATER
“Everything looks like it’s been going well with your case,” Ron tells me, as I start setting up my office at the law firm.
His voice sounds reassuring and comforting but I never trust lawyers.
“So why do I need to practically move into your law firm then, if things are going well?” I demand.
“Your case has been taking up so much time we think it’s best that you’re here at the firm at least part-time, so that we can have contact with you whenever you need,” Ron explains. “As we gear up for the upcoming trial, it will be important that we be able to reach with you and work with you a lot more.”
“Ron,” I tell him, “I have done a lot to make sure we win this case. Please tell me you have this under control. Tell me we’re not going to lose.”
“We’re not going to lose,” he says, a resolute look on his face that actually looks convincing. “That’s why we’re having you work with us here at the office. So, that we too can do everything possible to win this case for you. Which we will. We will win. We always win.”
I sigh. I have no choice but to believe him. I really have done everything possible and now it’s all up to them. A stupid fucking competitor is claiming I stole their designs when I make all my toys and games myself— often specifically for my mother.
Other times, customers call up telling me about their child with special needs or circumstances and I make custom toys just for them and then mass produce them on a larger scale so that other children can enjoy them to. There’s no way this other company can prove that I copy them, because I don’t. They just know I have deep pockets and they want a piece of my empire. But they’re not going to fucking get it.
I’ve honored my promises to Katie because I haven’t wanted anything between her and I to get in the way of my legal team winning this case. I called my IT guy and told him to give up the investigation into Ruby that I had previously requested.
He had assured me that they hadn’t found evidence of any new hacking activity and that they would let me know if anything suspicious arose, but I told him stop the search and drop the investigation entirely. I know that Ruby was just trying to do what was best for Ron and the firm, out of love. I understand that now.
I also haven’t contacted Katie because we had agreed it would be just one date. I’m mad at myself for letting her have so much power over me that I took her to my apartment and took her virginity.
But at the same time, all she would have to do is say the word and I would be with her again. In every sense of the word. I fucking know it.
I haven’t been able to even look at another girl since I’ve met Katie. She has really done a number on my head. I never should have asked her out. I seem to have lost my mind and all control.
When Ron had called me and asked how I felt about moving my office to the firm for a while so that my patent trial would go as smoothly as possible, my first thought was that I’d be closer to Katie. I remembered how the partners had suggested letting her help on my cases. They had even mentioned that she’d done good work behind the scenes.
But now I worry that she’ll be assigned to work for me directly and that could be really bad. I already let go of a lot of my strict discipline and integrity when I slept with her. To know that I slept with a subordinate— even if she didn’t become my subordinate until after the fact— would be pushing things way too far.
Except I don’t know if I can fucking resist her. I’m already wondering where she’s at.
“Am I going to have a secretary?” I ask Ron, who just chuckles at me.
“Oh, Damien. We men are pathetic when we fall hard, aren’t we?”
“What are you talking about?” I respond, pretending to play dumb, but he’s shaking his head knowingly.
“Katie isn’t here,” he says. “Sorry for that little disappointment.”
“Where is she?” I ask, immediately upset.
“Calm down,” he says. “You’ll see your sweet little young thing again. She just took time off to move.”
“To move?”
“Yeah, she had some personal time saved up and she’s moving to her own place,” he says.
Her own place?
I automatically assume the worst and get jealous. Was she living with a boyfriend? And that’s why she didn’t want me to see where she lived?
I know the idea is ludicrous. She was definitely a virgin until I popped her cherry. I could tell that much— physically and emotionally.
But stranger things than living with a partner you don’t have sex with have happened. In fact, I think that’s exactly what Madilyn’s situation was before she got with Asher. And I don’t think I could bear knowing that Katie is living with someone.
“Apparently, the poor thing still lived with her parents,” Ron says, laughing. “Isn’t that something?”
Her parents?
I suppose those are “someones” that I can bear her living with.
She’s even more innocent than I thought. I feel a little bit disgusted at myself for taking her virginity now.
But she wanted it. She loved it. I know she did. And I know she wants more.
“Don’t worry, she’ll be at our wedding,” Ron says, with a reassuring smile.
“She will? She’s going all the way to Spain?”
“Of course,” he says. “So, you’ll see her there.”
Spain seems so far away— both geographically and in terms of time until Ron and Ruby’s wedding. It’s only a week away but it might as well be years.
I feel as if I’ll go crazy if I don’t see Katie again soon. I need some reassurance from her that she wants to be with me again the way I want to be with her. Even though I feel guilty for stealing her innocence.
I know that if she becomes my employee in any sense of the word— even an assistant I “borrow” from the law firm— that we have to stop sleeping together. And it’s pretty obvious that that’s what they have in mind to do— make Katie my assistant. So, I want to make sure we can sleep together before that happens.
Just one more time. That’s it. Then it really will be out of my system.