Page 114 of Devil Mine

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After finishing my last meeting of the day, I head back from the conference room to my office. I set my computer and files on my desk and take a moment to stretch my arms behind my back.

It’s been a long day. Productive but also overwhelming, with every second I wasn’t working spent reuniting with people I haven’t seen in months.

Looking down at my watch, I see it’s three thirty. Maybe I’ll sneak out a little early and help the chef cook dinner. And by help I mean watch Mariela do all the work while I sit on the other side of the island and talk to her because I’m hopeless at anything related to kitchen work. The feedback I’ve received when I’ve attempted to cook in the past has been far from complimentary, and I’m woman enough to admit when I know I’ve been bested in an area. So I usually sit down with her instead, staying out of her way and chatting with her as she cooks.

I’m surprised to find I’m this excited by the prospect of an evening at the house. It’s nothomeyet, but it’s somewhere I’m feeling increasingly more comfortable with each passing day. I didn’t think I’d be attached to it this quickly, especially not enough to consider leaving work early when for years I’ve considered this office to be my surrogate home. But I find that I really like having something to look forward to that isn’t work.

I’m putting my computer away when my office door opens. I look up to find Franklin hovering by the entryway. My mood turns instantly sour. I haven’t seen him all day and was hoping to leave without a run-in with him, putting off the inevitable awkward encounter until at least tomorrow. He’s the one part of work I absolutely have not missed and being confronted with him as I’m walking out is not how I planned on ending my first day back.

“It’s professional courtesy to knock before entering someone’s office, Franklin.”

I don’t spare him a glance and continue putting things away in my bag.

The click of the door closing resonates as ominously loud as a gunshot in my office. I’m instantly tense, the hairs on the back of my neck raising. I straighten, abandoning the task at hand and staring at Franklin.

“You run away for months and think you can just come waltzing back in like nothing’s changed?” he demands, voice cold and devoid of all emotion.

“Open the door,” I ask calmly.

“But thingshavechanged.”

There’s a chill in the air, a sinister warning that tells me I’m in trouble. Working to mask the tremble in my voice, I repeat. “Open the door, Franklin.”

Ignoring my demand, he moves towards where I’m standing. He puts himself between me and the door, cornering me. I try to hold my ground as long as I can, my hand clutching the back of my chair desperately, but there’s a terrifying air of violence wafting off him that scares me.

“What are you doing?” I ask, hoping to keep this civil. When he rounds the desk towards me, I put my hand out. “Stay over there. Franklin,” I warn. He keeps advancing. “If you come any closer, I’ll scream.”

I’m hoping this is all a misunderstanding. That he’s trying to intimidate me for whatever sick reason, but that this will be quickly over. That my words will make him back off. But when a cruel smile twists his lips, I realize I’m very wrong.

“Go ahead and scream. I sent Crystal on an errand, there’s nobody at her desk. Nobody to hear your screams except me. But believe me, I’ll enjoy them enough for the whole company.”

“What do you want, Franklin?” I ask, backing away with small, barely noticeable steps. “What are you after?”

My stomach falls when my back hits the farthest corner of my office, one shoulder coming against the wall of windows and the other against the bookshelf behind me.

There’s nowhere left to go.

“I want what was promised to me, what was supposed to be mine before you got yourself sold off to someone else and ran away,” he snaps, before correcting himself. “I’mtakingit actually.”

He mentioned marriage during our dance at the gala but I didn’t realize he said it because there was an actual deal being put in place between my father and him like he seems to be suggesting now. It doesn’t matter. I would never have married him. Unlike Thiago, if he’d caught me I would have given my life trying to escape him again.

My hands go discreetly behind my back and start feeling along the bookshelf for anything I could use as a weapon.

“You’re not taking anything from me,” I hiss.

Franklin stands less than ten feet from me with an awful rictus on his face, a sadistic predator taking pleasure in having trapped his vulnerable prey. It puts every encounter I’ve had with Thiago into perspective. While he’s more dangerous and definitely more violent, he’s never made me feel unsafe like this and he’s never threatened me with his size or physicality like Franklin is now.

“Watch me,” he sneers. “I think it’s about time your pussy got a good fucking from a real cock.”

My stomach twists in revolt at the thought and bile rises into my throat. I can’t let this happen, I won’t survive that kind of victimization. I’d rather he kill me.

My searching hands turn desperate, blindly scanning every inch of the shelf until my fingers brush against something made of glass. When they close around it, I realize it’s my Women in Business award I received last year. I won it based on the vote of hundreds of my peers for my contributions to the media profession and the broader industry at large. It was the proudest day of my life, my crowning achievement to date, one I’d worked myself to the bone to get.

The irony in this award becoming my weapon of choice is not lost on me — no matter where we are, no matter how safe a woman feels, it only takes one man to rip that illusion away. This is a reminder of that. But today my tenacity and my obstinate refusal to bend the knee to my father might just save me.

“Youdisgustme,” I declare. “And you’ll never touch me.”

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