Page 125 of Look, Don't Touch

“Excuse me.” I push through a group of drunken women, weighing the pros and cons of some kind of facial plastic surgery. I’d go around, but there are just too many of them.

“Oh, hello, handsome,” one of them chirps. “No excuse necessary.”

“Yeah, you’re welcome to crash our party any time.” Another garbles the words any and time to be one mangled word.

I don’t even glance in their direction. My gaze is locked on Hailey and the fucking creep about to grab her.

Something inside me is unleashed. Whatever temperate manner I’ve maintained throughout my adulthood is gone in an instant. As though it never was. What takes its place is molten, bright, and screaming for retribution, though nothing has happened…yet.

I’m floating on a high of accomplishment and unadulterated love. One of New York’s most renowned philanthropists is attacking me with questions about how I pulled off the domestic violence gala to the fundraising tune of nearly three million dollars. I want to tell her that I had nothing to do with it. That my lover’s generous donation challenged others in the NYC business scene to do the same. However, I know that’s only half of it. I worked my ass off for this event because I believe in it wholeheartedly.

“Thank you for taking the time to answer my questions, I know you’re busy.” Millie Broydier pats my hand. The smile on her face falters.

“Are you okay?”

“Yes.” Her lips press into a line. The curve of her perfectly groomed brows flattens. “I just…thank you for the education portion of the evening too. I’ve been guilty of saying, ‘why don’t they just leave.’” She draws in a breath and then adds, “When they’re being abused.” As though I don’t know what she’s talking about.

“Many of us have been guilty of the same. It’s hard to understand when it’s such a taboo subject or something we haven’t experienced for ourselves.”

“I just can’t believe that women are seventy times more likely to be murdered by their partners in the two weeks after they leave.”

I nod. “And that’s when they have the means to leave.”

“My goodness.” Millie places a manicured hand over her throat.

I’m about to respond, but someone shoves me from behind. Momentum tips me forward, and I’m about to smack face-first into the fancy-pant’s woman. A shriek leaves her throat as though this is the most horrific thing she’s ever experienced.

But…I don’t hit Millie or the ground.

Arms snake around my chest and hips, jerking me back into an unfamiliar grip.

My right breast is in oppressive fingers that I haven’t consented to, and my fucking pussy is being groped as though the man is blind and searching for a light switch. Aggressively searching.

Millie’s eyes go wide as dinner plates.

“I’m ready for that dance now.” The bourbon-soaked voice of Chad Iversen condenses across my cheek.

Disgust and dread marry in a rushed ceremony that will surely lead to the vomit suddenly sitting in the back of my esophagus, forming confetti for the celebration.

I mean to scream. But I’m too busy fighting off the urge to puke.

I mean to demand he release me. But my lips are quivering like I might start foaming at the mouth.

I mean to fight. But my arms and legs quake as though I’m a newborn.

Millie stumbles back. The people around her turn toward me. Their faces morph into horrified Halloween masks.

The irony that this is my domestic violence fundraiser and I’m being assaulted publicly during it, is somehow not lost on my fritzing brain.

Why can’t I scream or kick or drop to a knee and toss him off me? Why won’t my body do something?

A hot, wet thing slicks up the side of my face.

Humiliation drowns me, but I didn’t ask for it. Not like I have at Crave. This is degradation against my will.

My trembling hand forms a fist.

I reach back ready to make mush of this man’s nose.

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