Page 23 of Boardroom Ties
I still don’t know why the country club even has a room like the one he took me to. It was like someone’s rich grandmother’s bedroom, minus the bed. A tall bureau stood in one corner, a desk along one wall, heavy crimson drapes obscuring the windows. The air was stuffy and reeked of furniture polish. A thick rug underfoot had been vacuumed flawlessly.
I had about half a second to register those things before Raymond was on me.
He turned that claw onto my throat and slammed me up against a bare stretch of wall. “Have you lost your fucking mind?” he hissed in my face. “Embarrassing me like that?”
“Embarrassing you?” I rasped. It was hard to speak when my throat was being kinked shut like a garden hose. “I was being polite, Raymond. He just lost someone!”
“I don’t give a shit what he lost.”
“Obviously not. That would require empathy.”
Sure enough, there it came: time to pay for my mouth.
Raymond’s face turned a shade of red I’d only seen a few times before. His grip eased on my throat.
Then his other hand came flying up and he backhanded me across the face.
The hit spun me sideways. As I pirouetted like the world’s worst ballerina, my heel caught on a fold in the rug. I stumbled, tried to catch myself on the bureau, but missed.
My cheekbone clacked against the corner of the bureau on the way down.
There was a sound in my head like a lightbulb popping. Then came the floor. I hit it hard. Too hard. Sparkles flashed in my vision as I came to a stop. I could see the little brass feet of the bureau an inch from my nose.
I didn’t move. I couldn’t. I didn’t want to move ever again.
Raymond stood over me, breathing hard. “Get up.”
I didn’t.
“Cassandra. Get up. Christ, this is…”
I didn’t understand at first why he was so panicked. It’s not like this was the first time this had happened. I’d just slip out the back door and have the driver take me home. Raymond would fabricate excuses for his friends, and that would be that.
Then I put a hand to my face. It came away wet and red. The skin above my cheekbone had split open. As soon as I touched it, itwas like I’d given the wound permission to be felt. It throbbed, deep and ugly.
“You stupid bitch,” Raymond muttered. He crouched down and looked at my face, then recoiled when he turned my chin enough to see the full extent of the damage. “Christ. Fuck. Fuck me, this is… This is a disaster. That’s going to need stitches. People are going to ask questions.”
“Good,” I whisper.
“What did you say?”
“Nothing, Raymond. I didn’t say anything.”
We rehearsed the lie as we waited half a block down for the ambulance. He left before it arrived, not wanting to stick around for the paramedics to question him.
They asked me again and again on the ride over to explain what happened, and I gave them the same answer every time.
I tripped on the rug and fell.
I tripped on the rug and fell.
After a while, evenIstarted to believe it.
When we finally arrived, the ambulance stopped. The back doors opened. Cold air rushed in my face and woke up every cut and bruise all over again. I winced, which hurt, which made me wince, which hurt… et cetera.
“Easy, sweetheart,” one of the paramedics crooned. “We’ve got you.”
They lifted the gurney out and the wheels dropped onto the pavement. I felt every bump in my molars as they started rolling me toward the hospital entrance.
