The waiter nodded, and turned to Julian. “And you, sir?”
“The same.” Julian snapped his menu shut. “And send a glass of wine to the chef. Tell him it’s from J-Dawg.”
“Will do.” Our waiter gathered our menus and wandered off.
“J-Dawg?” I suppressed a grin.
He shrugged. “It’s what my buddy, Liam, calls me.”
“Liam? Your sister’s husband—he works here?”
“Uh-huh. He’s owns this place.” A hint of pride tinged his voice and I understood why this place was special to him, why he wanted to take me here. “Wait till you try the food. Liam’s a badass in the kitchen. He’s a master chef, one of the best.”
I stroked his leg under the table with my foot. “Oh,” I moaned, making my voice airy and breathless. “Is the food orgasmic?”
He smiled, a curve of his sculpted mouth. “You enjoy torturing me, don’t you?”
Yes, I did. I took great pleasure in watching him squirm when I gave him blue-veined throbbers out in public. And I found it especially amusing when he told me he pictured playing mini golf with his grandmother whenever he had to tame the rumbling in his loins.
“Why?” I lowered my voice and feigned innocence. “Do you have a hard-on right now?”
Grinning with just enough arrogance to make him look sexy, he reclined in his seat and said coolly, “Nah. That’s my dick normally. Huge, right?”
“You poor thing.” My shoulders lifted with laughter. “Is your stiffy giving you a hernia? Don’t worry, all you need to do is tuck and duck and I’ll try not to laugh.”
“Miss Frost,” he chided, “behave yourself.”
“You, too,” I countered. “I don’t think our waiter appreciated your—”
“My je ne sais quoi?” He shrugged. “I was just channeling Glenn.”
“I know.” I sat forward, leaning my elbows on the table. “And that was a very convincing impression of Glenn. You must have lunch with him pretty often.”
“Yeah.” He didn’t sound too thrilled. “I don’t really have a choice since we work together on so many campaigns.”
“Hey,” I pointed out. “At least you don’t have to work with Tim.”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you.” He hesitated for a brief moment and his face grew serious. “Is Tim giving you a hard time?”
“No.” While it was not the whole truth, it did not feel like too great a lie. “Nothing I can’t handle.”
“Listen.” He reached across the table and gave my hand a firm squeeze. “If he gets out of line, you let me know, okay?”
I squeezed his hand in return, but didn’t comment.
“I don’t understand.” He frowned. “What’s his beef with you? It’s like he has some sort of personal vendetta against you.”
I said nothing.
Seconds passed before he spoke again. “Tim told me you accused him of sexual harassment, too.”
The word too was not lost on me. “I did.” The table was quiet for a moment before I added, “Because he did cross the line with me.” I met his gaze almost as if to challenge him, daring him to call me a liar after I’d hurled those same accusations at him.
But he didn’t.
“What did he do?” While he kept his voice even, I could hear the thread of worry and anger that underlined it.
“You believe me?”
“Of course I believe you.” His voice was strong, and it was certain.
Emotion caught in my throat, prickly and raw.
Julian trusts me, he believes me.
“What did he do?” he repeated.
The waiter chose that moment to return with two glasses of wine.
After he left, I picked up my wineglass and took a long sip. “Grabbed my hips and simulated sex, slammed me up against the wall and called me a dirty, little cunt…” I pulled in a shaky breath. “He hasn’t laid a hand on me in a while, though.”
When Julian spoke again, I heard the dark undercurrents in his words. “Did you file a complaint with HR?”
I nodded.
“And?”
“They didn’t take me seriously. Tim gave them his side of the story. He told them he was reaching around me to grab a fax and just happened to brush up against me.” I took another swig. “And they believed him. When I told them about all the other inappropriate things he’d said to me, I was met with a wall of BS like: ‘Maybe you’re overreacting’ and ‘I’m sure he didn’t mean anything by it.’”
“Fuck HR.” His anger spiked, rolling off him in waves. “I’ll take care of Tim my way.”
“No,” I said firmly. “I can handle Tim.”
The last thing I needed was a brawl in the office. “Promise me, Julian. Don’t do anything stupid. Like I said, I can handle him. I know how to keep Tim in line.” I reached for my wineglass and took another long sip, hoping to God that what I’d just told him was true.
When we got back to the office, Julian entered the building first while I waited a good ten minutes before I elbowed the door open and stepped from the car.
There was a whisper of movement and I almost jumped when Tim appeared before me.
The shadowed lighting in the parking garage gave his expression a darker, more sinister cast.
Unease slithered across my shoulders.
“Well, well, well, if it isn’t the Sadist Bitch. I finally have you all alone to myself.” He laughed—a harsh, humorless sound. “Now who would’ve thought I’d get passed over that promotion? And who would’ve thought they’d give the job to you? You of all people!”
I spoke with deadly calm. “You report to me now, Tim. If you ever—ever—cross that line with me again, I’ll report you to HR and I will get you fired.”
“Oh, I know you already went to HR to tell on me, you little snitch. And guess what? All I got was a written warning.”
“I’ll file another complaint against you,” I said quietly, pronouncing each word as a distinct, murderous threat.
“I’m not worried,” he sneered. “Uncle Les has my back.”
He took a step closer, enjoying the way my eyes widened in surprise. “Oh, you didn’t know that, did you?” He wore a self-satisfied smirk. “Les Heinrich is my uncle.”
Les Heinrich—as in the Les Heinrich who was the founder of this agency and who sat on the board of directors—he was Tim’s uncle?
Tim had to be fucking kidding me.
Only he wasn’t.
“And here’s something else you might not know.” A hint of slyness crept into his voice. “I know all about you and Simon. I know you fucked my little cousin. That’s how you got the job here.”
A rush of mortification flooded my body. But I let none of it show on my face. “Who told you?”
“Simon.” He gave an unpleasant laugh. “He’s back.”
Wait. What? Simon is back from London?
My mind was scrambling furiously and my world was shifting beneath my feet.
“Tongues will be wagging at the office when they find out you fucked Heinrich’s son.” A crooked smile twisted across his face. “I wonder what Julian will think when he catches wind of this.”
Steeling my face to impassivity, I worked hard to put a note of disdain in my voice, lest it trembled instead. “What does Julian have to do with this?”
“What?” He ran a finger along the sleeve of my blouse. “You think I don’t know you’re fucking Julian, too? You dirty whore.”
His words were like a slap.
I jerked fiercely away from him. Tim was a bully. A coward driven by his deep-seated insecurities. His fears of inadequacy. “What’s your deal, huh? Is it because I rejected your advances? Or is it because you’re just all butt-hurt I got the promotion and you didn’t?”
“Bitch.’ His voice distilled to a rough whisper. “You didn’t deserve that promotion.”
“And what?” I raised my chin in defiance. “You did? For the record, I have a ninety-nine point nine percent referral rate from past client
s. That speaks to the quality of my work. That and I’ve gone out and actively made pitches, winning new clients for this agency. What did you bring to the table? Nothing. That’s why I got the job.”
“That’s where you’re wrong.” His smile was dark, dangerous, and I wondered if I had somehow stepped into something I didn’t have a chance of handling. “You got the job because you fucked Heinrich’s son.”
His mocking tone set my teeth on edge. “Simon only got my foot in the door.” I began backing away from him, keeping my steps slow and measured. “I did the rest.”
“Sure you did,” he said scornfully. “By sleeping your way to the top. Did you fuck my uncle, too?” His tone was harder now, slipping from curiosity to demand.
“Fuck you.” The vicious snarl that left my lips surprised me, as did the tears I was forced to blink back as I turned from him.
Squaring my shoulders, I picked up my pace, lengthening my stride, putting as much distance as I could between us.
“Fuck you—you crazy bitch! You can suck my dick!” he shouted after my retreating back.
Whipping my head around, I lifted one mocking brow. “I don’t do small favors. And even if I did, I can’t raise the dead.”
Chapter Twenty-Eight
“Thanks, Brian.” After I hung up the phone with our head of security, I closed my eyes for a moment and concentrated on breathing.
How tired I was. I let my shoulders slump and rested my face in my hands as I massaged my temples.
Now Simon was back. Simon fucking Heinrich.
What the hell did he want?
Squeezing my eyes shut, I let the rush of painful memories settle over me like a black veil. I could remember every detail, every scene, as if I were watching a movie in slow motion, frame by frame.
Freshman year at college. Late August. Shiny wooden seminar tables. The smell of new textbooks. Bright-eyed, bushy-tailed freshmen. Fun elective courses. The inevitable frisson of making eye contact with the hot teaching assistant.
Ancient Greek and Roman Studies was that fun elective course for me, and Simon Heinrich was that hot teaching assistant every girl in class had a crush on. He was a pillar of perfection. Over six feet two, built and lean with dark hair, flawless bone structure, and dreamy features, he looked like a steely-eyed, purse-lipped model hiding something dark—or perhaps just constipated.
“The Greeks had no holy text of divine commandments to live by.” Simon began, guiding the class discussion section. “Instead, they looked to the example of mythical heroes. These myths were not set in stone. Each generation reinvented the old myths, telling the same old story from a new perspective or with a different emphasis. This constant reinterpretation kept the Greek myths fresh and relevant. In short, it brought myths to life. The Greeks called this process the theatre. And they divided it into three different genres: satyr plays, comedies, and tragedies.”
Simon paused and surveyed the classroom. “Now, I’d like you to split into three groups. If comedies are your thing, gather over there.” He pointed to the left of the classroom. “If it’s satyr plays that interest you, gather over there.” He gestured to the right. “And for those of you who enjoy tragedies, remain seated right here—in the middle.”
Chair legs scraped across the floor. Before long, I realized I was the only person in the room who had remained seated. I guess I was a sucker for Greek tragedies.
No surprise since my life was one big fucking tragedy.
As I shifted awkwardly in my seat, I caught Simon watching me. He was leaning against the desk in front of me with a smile playing across his lips.
Not exactly a friendly smile, more like a curious one. “So tell me, why tragedies? And not comedies or satire?”
Unexpectedly, I felt self-conscious and sensitive to his opinion of me. “Catharsis,” I told him.
“Explain,” he said.
“We can’t learn without pain. Aristotle argued that tragedy cleanses the heart through pity and terror, purging us of our petty concerns and worries by making us aware that there can be nobility in suffering.”
“Ah, yes.” Simon nodded once. “He called this experience catharsis.”
“And what about you?” I asked him because he seemed to expect it. “You’re still here. You haven’t moved to a different group. Why tragedies?”
Folding his arms across his chest, he silently appraised me. I understood that look and gave him time to indulge it. “Because,” he said at last, “I enjoy saying: I told you so.”
Lifting my eyebrows, I merely waited.
He gave in. “In every Greek tragedy, the chorus acts as the moral compass, telling the hero his beliefs are wrong, begging him to refrain from some disastrous action, yet they are ignored. At the climax, the misguided beliefs and actions of the hero lead him to catastrophe. As he bemoans his fate, the chorus sings, ‘I told you so!’ and hammers home the moral. Now the morals might vary from play to play, but they mostly follow the same basic formula: Remember so-and-so? Remember how awesome he was? In his pride, he did such-and-such, and it destroyed him. Don’t be like so-and-so. Don’t do such-and-such. And finally, I told you so.”
At once I liked him, his dry humor, his certainty.
College was an uncertain time for me, and Simon Heinrich embodied passion and certainty. Two things I desperately wanted.
And I fell for him. Hard.
I was a young impressionable seventeen-year-old and Simon was in his mid-twenties, secure and centered in himself.
He was a far cry from the boys in my dorm who burped out the alphabet and played videogames twenty-four seven.
And I enjoyed attending class discussion sections because Simon made them fun, interesting, and thought provoking. I could listen to him talk for hours, and he seemed to enjoy engaging me in discourse. He was confident, knowledgeable, sexy, and he was teaching in a field I had a profound interest in.
I was actively learning about stuff I cared about, and I felt like he respected me when I asked questions and expressed myself.
Now looking back, perhaps when I was crushing on him, I was confusing the messenger with the message.
But at the time, it felt like they were one and the same.
Try as I might, I couldn’t deny that pull, the underlying sexual tension, the intellectual charge whenever I was around him.
And while there are so many clichés about relationships between students and their TAs, ours didn’t feel that way.
There wasn’t that heady thrill of transgression. It wasn’t seedy or predatory, and I certainly didn’t wear a plaid miniskirt or seduce him by eating an apple on his desk.
It was all pretty normal actually. We started having lunch often. We discussed things we were reading. We discussed things we were thinking about. We never discussed our personal lives, which suited me just fine. And when the course was finally over and he was no longer my TA, he asked me out to dinner.
I guess I wasn’t surprised. Deep down, I was half-expecting it, even hoping for it.
Later that night, when we went back to his apartment for coffee, we ‘mingled’ between the sheets. For a time, we continued sharing weekends, meals, our minds, our bodies, and I was utterly addicted to what we did in bed.
Simon’s intelligence was a power aphrodisiac and he gave me regular homework assignments: masturbate more. And he enjoyed watching me pleasure myself.
It was a glorious time. Toward the end of the semester, we were lying naked in his bed, and he was kissing me. “I love you, Sadie,” he whispered against my lips as his hands skimmed up my waist to cup my breasts, shaping them, the pads of his thumbs rasping against my hardened nipples. “I love you,” he whispered again.
My heart stilled in that moment. He was the first guy—the only guy—who had ever uttered those words to me. And for reasons I couldn’t even begin to explain, it made me trust him.
When he broke the kiss and looked into my eyes, it seemed like several thoughts were running behind his. “You trust me,
don’t you?”
His erection dug into my hipbones and he was playing with my nipples, teasing them until they came to taut, aching peaks.
Then he began to shift, wedging his cock between the juncture of my thighs… the rub of his shaft so intimate against my skin, so excruciatingly thrilling.
Dimly, I was aware that he wasn’t reaching for a condom. “Don’t worry, baby.” His voice was cool and calm. “I’m clean.”
He was still moving, stroking the length of his shaft against my seam, pre-cum seeping from his cock.
“Simon, I—”
“Shhh.” His breath was coming fast and heavy, hot with need. “It’ll feel so much better without. Trust me.”
“But—”
“Don’t you trust me?” Palming my breasts with calloused hands, he bent down and sucked a nipple into his mouth, drawing on the tightly beaded tip with deep suction until I bit back a moan.
A deep groan rumbled in his chest, and his breathing turned rough and uneven.
Then it all happened so fast. Too fast. In the heat of the moment, the tip of his shaft pierced the folds of my sex and he was moving inside me. Harder and faster he drove into me, the movements getting frenzied, desperate, the springs of the mattress squeaking in protest with every thrust, every plunder.
Just seconds before he came, he pulled out and I finished him off with my hands.
Something like a strangled groan escaped him as thick wads of cum squirted out onto my breasts, leaving a sticky trail of semen over my skin.
“I love you.” He collapsed against me, breathing heavily against my neck. “I fucking love you.”
Months later, it was those very words that consoled me when I needed the courage.
The courage to tell him.
We were in my dorm room, sitting on my twin-sized bed. Blood was thrumming through my veins and every muscle in my body was taut with nerves.
“Baby, what is it?” Simon began to rub small circles on my back. “I don’t like it when you’re upset.”
“I’m pregnant,” I told him, surprised at how steady my voice was.
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