Page 73 of The Probability of Us

It’s been a while since I thought anything was perfect, but now everything is perfect because of him. Because I’m with him. Because he’s here. Life is sunny and bright. There’s not a cloud in my mind’s sky.

Or at least there wasn’t, until Jason comes stalking into my office like he owns the damn place and suddenly there’s nothing but storm clouds. He’s not a person I want around on a good day, but the look on his face now terrifies me—especially since he closed the door behind himself.

“Have a nice night?” he spits. He’s a coiled snake ready to strike, and I need to watch where I step.

With a cheery voice and smile I say, “I did, thank you.” But the gears are turning in my head, trying to dissect his words, what they could mean, and what the hell the dark insinuation that lies just beneath the words that’s turning my stomach is.

I stand up and try to subtly shake off the nerves that have been growing the longer he stands there glaring at me. Moving towards my coffee cart as an excuse, I hope to be able to get him out of the office as soon as possible. But the second I step around the table I know it’s the wrong move. Greedy eyes rove over my exposed legs and the feeling I’ve spent years trying to forget and save others from, the feeling that made me put the dresses in the back of my closet in the first place, washes over me. I’m struggling to stay afloat in a stormy sea.

I try to walk towards the door, but he shifts into my path and it’s not until I move to go around him that I realize I’ve played right into his hand. He corrals me away from the door, trapping me in the space between the desk and the blinds I always keep closed because I hate it when people look in the room as they walk by. It’s ironic because right now I’d give anything for someone to walk by and be able to look in. To be able to help.

My eyes dart around the room searching for a way out of this. Trying to figure out a way to get past the man slowly stalking closer to me, caging me in, trapping me, like a damn circus animal.

I take a step closer to the blinds, hoping that if I can find a way to open them, someone will be able to help. He clicks his tongue at the movement and closes the distance between us before I can reach them. His body presses against mine, pushing me into the wall and making it hard to move. I’d rather sink into the wall or melt into a puddle on the floor than have him this close to me.

“Nice dress,” he says, darkly.

A hand lands on my leg just below the hem and my body twists and pulls, trying to get away from him, but his size and strategic positioning keeps me from being able to stop him as his hand slowly inches higher.

“Get your hands off me,” I grit out. My lips shake and tears prick at the corners of my eyes.

His smile only grows with my discomfort. “I’ve grown tired of this cat and mouse game we’re playing. I think it’s about time you pay up for all the teasing you’ve been doing.”

“Excuse me?”

“Don’t act like you don’t know what you’ve been doing.” His hand slides up just under my dress and bile rises to my throat.

“Isaid,get your hands off me,” I say, louder this time. Hopefully, loud enough to be heard outside. I push off of the wall as much as I can, and his hand leaves my leg to push my shoulders back to the wall—hard. I groan as my shoulders and head hit the wall, but it makes a loud thump that shouldn’t sound normal from the outside.Please, someone hear.

“Tell me,” he says, leaning closer. I try to press my body as flat against the wall as possible, but I can’t get away from him. “Would you fuck me too, if my title was CFO?”

My eyes widen and my jaw drops open. He knows. How the fuck does he know?

But then my teeth clank together.“Have a nice night?”he’d said when he first entered. And at The Dizzy Acorn last night the name JSON for trivia, and the moment I thought I saw a familiar face in the crowd but then they were suddenly gone.

“You were there last night,” I say, not needing to phrase it as a question. I’m such an idiot for not considering that possibility from the start of this all. He could’ve been there any night when we were publicly dancing and kissing.

He sneers. “At least now I know why you’ve turned me down all these years. I wasn’t high enough on the corporate ladder for you.”

He moves in even closer, and I squirm, trying to find any additional distance to put between us. “It doesn’t matter what your title is, I’d never fuck you. The only reason I ever pretended to be interested was to save the other girls in the office from this. If Clara wasn’t your cousin you’d have been fired ages ago.”

“You little fucking whore.” He moves, barricading my upper body with one arm and moving the other back to my thigh, not bothering to move slowly this time.

I cry out, “Stop,” and start kicking the heel of my foot against the wall, trying to make any more noise that I can. He quickly hooks his leg around mine to stop me, and I can no longer do anything to stop this other than cry and yell.

“It’s a good thing Clara is my boss then,” he says as his hand continues to creep up under my dress.

No, is all I can think, all I can say. My eyes close, I can’t watch this happen. I want to be anywhere but here right now. I want to shrivel up and die. I want to burn alive and take him down with me.

I need help, but no one is coming. No one knows I’m in trouble.

“Actually,I’myour boss now,” a voice says from the door and my eyes fly open.

Peter stands there, accompanied by Victoria and my tears come faster now. Tears of relief.

Jason hesitates before finally taking a step back and my limp body drops to the ground. There’s pain from my knees hitting the ground hard, but pain is better than what was just happening. I’m sucking in breath after breath as if I’d just been choking and can finally breathe. Peter creates a path for Victoria to cross the room to check on me without crossing Jason and I focus on her kind smile as she crouches in front of me.

“Are you okay?” she asks.

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