Total pages in book: 66
Estimated words: 63311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 63311 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 317(@200wpm)___ 253(@250wpm)___ 211(@300wpm)
“Boy toy?” I suggested.
He huffed irritably. “Possibly. Under her carefully worded text message is a question. Why is this lovely American pretending to be an assistant, and how shall he be dealt with?”
I gulped. “Oh.”
Graham sipped his tea. “It appears I’ve been duped. I haven’t had a chance to pull up your CV. What does it say?”
“My résumé. Right. Uh…that I worked for an LA-based law firm.”
“And?”
I tugged my collar as I pushed the tiramisu to the middle of the table. There went my appetite.
“And…that I was an indispensable employee who’d aided the firm in crucial cases. In my defense, caffeine runs were considered vital. I also did some filing and answered phones when the receptionist took a break. It was just…boring, so I didn’t stick around for long. But I’ve always done some kind of assisting,” I added enthusiastically. “I worked in the office at an LA fitness center and I ran errands at the design center.”
“I see. Anything long-term?”
I blew my cheeks out like a sad, deflated balloon at the end of a birthday party. “I was a research assistant for a professor at a private university for five years, but um…that’s not on my résumé.”
He set his cup down and cocked his head. “Why not?”
“It didn’t end well.”
“Continue.”
“Uh, I…he—” I licked my lips and melted into the upholstery in defeat. “We were secret lovers.”
Silence.
Hushed conversations, faraway laughter, and the clinking of silverware filtered through our private bubble like background music. It was comforting in a way, but it wouldn’t last.
“I see. May I ask what happened? Off the record, of course.”
I sighed heavily. “I don’t know what to say. I had an affair with my boss and in spite of the professional complications, I had zero regrets…until I found out he’d lied about—everything. Including his marital status.”
“You had an affair with a married man?”
“I didn’t know he was married,” I insisted. “Damian didn’t talk about his private life at all. He was stoic and quiet and…nice. I worked for him for three years before he mentioned that he and his wife had separated. I didn’t think anything of it. I liked him, but I didn’t think of him that way. He was ten years older than me and geez, I thought he was straight.”
“He wasn’t.”
“No. Like I said, I didn’t know and I’d been reassigned to aid another professor, so it was over. But he requested me to assist on an archival piece for the Motion Picture Academy and…things gradually changed. Nothing would have happened at all if he hadn’t told me that the separation hadn’t worked and he was in the final stages of a divorce. He wanted to keep our relationship quiet at work. He wasn’t ready to come out to his colleagues…and we were working together, so it seemed reasonable. Coming out is a very personal thing no matter how old you are.”
“True,” Graham agreed, tilting his chin slightly.
“I was born out and my mom loves me no matter what, but I have close friends who went through hell with families who didn’t accept them. I even know people who’ve lost jobs and friends because of their sexuality. I would never put anyone in jeopardy. But God, I was such an idiot.” I shook my head ruefully. “I believed everything he said. I didn’t question that we were always at my place and that he rarely had weekends free. I took what he gave and figured it was a matter of time till things settled down.”
“And that never happened.”
“No, I found out through the office grapevine that Damian was still very much married and that his beautiful wife was expecting their first child. I was in the break room when a fellow professor congratulated him. Apparently, they’d been trying to get pregnant for years. Everyone knew…except me.”
I braced myself for the accompanying stab of pain that came whenever I thought about that awful chapter of my life, but it didn’t come. Don’t get me wrong, the guilt, horror, anger, and gut-wrenching heartbreak were there…they simply took a back seat to Graham Horsham. He loomed larger than my past mistakes somehow.
He was the sort of man who took up space without saying a word. He didn’t have to. His pursed lips and arched brow said it all. No doubt he was thinking I was a fucking moron and a coward and—
“The professor sounds like a world-class prick,” Graham huffed.
I chewed on my bottom lip and nodded. “Yeah, but I’m not exactly innocent. I should have done my research. I used to be an expert at hunting for clues and sifting through Google entries like an academic Sherlock Holmes. I lost my edge along with my common sense, which I guess happens when you’re dedicated to a fantasy.”
“You believed what you were told by someone you respected and…he let you down.”