Page 39 of The Assistant
“It’s not for you to worry about,” I say, attempting to reach out and cup her face, hoping it might comfort her. Instead, she backs away and shakes her head.
“Really? Because you forced me to get everything together in less than an hour and travel across the country without any warning. You refuse to talk business in front of me now that we’re here. That’s not to mention you didn’t even tell your dad where we were going,” Harper says, rattling off all the strange things she’s noticed today. “Something is wrong, and I want you to tell me what it is.”
I back away from her and pace for a moment, running my fingers through my hair.
“Do you really want to know what’s wrong?” I ask, turning around and watching if she nods. My frustration with everything today is boiling over, and I can feel it about to explode out of me, and I wish I could stop it. “You’re what’s wrong. This obsession I have for you is what’s wrong. You’re making my life miserable and adding so much stress to it. That is what’s wrong.”
She unfolds her arms from in front of her and stares at me with a mixture of hurt, anger, and confusion on her face. I almost wishI could take back what I said, but I can’t now. It’s out in the open, and it was 100% true. If it weren’t for Harper, I wouldn’t be in this situation.
Sure, I would have thought that selling her to Malik was wrong, but I might not have cared the way I do. I wouldn’t be risking my life to protect her the way I am.
I’m furious about it. My entire life has been turned upside down because of her. It’s for that reason alone that I feel like I need to punish her for it. I feel like I need to make her squirm, to see her fighting back against my retaliation.
I take a few quick steps toward her, and she tries to move out of the way, but she’s not fast enough. My hands wrap around her arms, squeezing tightly as I grip her and pull her toward the bed.
“What are you doing?” she snaps, trying to free herself from my grip. I don’t let go as I shove her down on the bed and reach for her skirt. I fumble with the button for a second, not able to get it undone right away, opting to just rip it open instead. The button flies across the room as I tear through the rest of the fabric to see her in front of me in her blouse and panties. “Dawson!”
“Stop talking and let me fuck you,” I demand, holding her down while I lower her panties. She writhes underneath me, and when she’s completely bared for me, I spread her legs and unzip my pants.
“You can’t run away from your problems like this!” Harper shouts, pushing against my chest and staring at me with an intensity in her eyes I never expected to see from her.
I stop what I’m doing and sit up on my knees, letting her scoot away from me. She just watches me with her chest rising and falling rapidly as I take a moment to simmer down.
She’s right, and I hadn’t thought about it like that. Every time something’s come up that’s inconvenience to me, I’ve chosen to just fuck her in an attempt to forget about it. I’ve done it a lot more with the entire Malik situation too.
My eyes narrow at her, and I point my finger, forcing my face to be as stoic as possible. “Stop asking questions for your own sake, got it? If you don’t, there’s going to be consequences.”
She watches me with her jaw clenched, but when she sees the sincerity in my eyes, fear takes hold, and I can tell she’s shaken by what I said. Good. She should be.
Chapter 20
Harper
Dawson left earlythis morning for a run around the compound, and I haven’t seen him since. After last night, things have been strange between us. Last night he didn’t hold me close to him as we fell asleep. We lay with our backs turned to each other as we eventually fell asleep. It felt weird. He was distant and lost in his own mind about whatever was bothering him.
All of that last night, and I still have no idea what we’re doing here. Who is Xander, and what business does he have with Dawson?
A part of me thinks I don’t want the answer to those questions. Nobody can make as much money as Xander has with truly above-board work. I have a pretty vivid imagination, and I’ve painted a clear picture in my mind of what exactly it is Xander does for a living.
I try to force the thoughts out of my head and focus on work. Dawson brought me here for a work meeting, so I’m assuming everything is supposed to be business as usual. I have no idea how long we’re staying, so that makes a large part of the work I do difficult.
I’m tempted to log back into Dawson’s email, too. He had me log out on the plane, and that’s because he was hiding something. I want to find out whatever that is. I convince myself it’s not worth the punishment, knowing that Dawson is going to be absolutely pissed about it if he finds out. He’ll probably get some sort of notification that I’ve logged into his account and come running back here to make me pay for it.
Instead, I settle on doing work I can do without him. I go through my own email and filter out the spam and all of the cold-call emails about doing business with Dawson. As per usual, there are plenty of people who have tried to get in contact with him who have somehow found my information in the hopes I’ll reach out personally. All of those emails go in the trash too.
Dawson’s schedule is in disarray after this impromptu trip. I go through every meeting and figure out what exactly it was supposed to be about and come up with a plan to reschedule them all. Dawson took care of some of the details yesterday, but he left the majority of the labor to me.
I carefully go through and craft kind, apologetic emails to all of the clients he decided to bail on and email those to Dawson for his approval. The sooner we get those rescheduled, the better.
My phone rings, and I pick it up without looking at the caller, naturally assuming it’s Dawson. With the exception of the occasional call from another employee at work, Dawson is the only one who calls me. God forbid my mom called to check in to see how I’m doing with this indentured servitude she willingly signed me up for.
“Hello?” I answer in a cheery, professional voice that I know Dawson likes.
“Is this Harper?” An unfamiliar voices says. I sit upright and raise my eyebrows, not quite able to place where I know this voice from. “This is Malik. Do you remember me?”
My heart beats faster, not from my desire to sit here and talk to him, mind you. How the hell did he get this number? What is he calling me for?
“Oh, hi Malik! Of course I remember who you are.” I do my best to sound professional and charming, and I’m aware that it might come across as a little flirty. This is how Dawson trained me to act around his clients.
