Page 75 of Sexting My Best Friend's Brothers
She pauses, her hand on the handle as she turns to look at me.
“You aren’t protecting the company, Ethan,” she says, her voice shaking. “You’re just protecting yourself. You’re a fucking coward.”
She slams the door.
I watch her walk away through the glass wall. I watch her disappear into the darkness of the hallway.
I am alone.
I look at the desk. The scattered papers. The torn scrap of black lace on the floor.
I sink into my chair.
I won. I pushed her away. I saved the mission.
I put my head in my hands.
And for the first time since I was twenty-two years old, huddled in a transport carrier leaving a war zone…
I cry.
14
TESSA
The elevator ride down is a blur of chrome and humiliating silence.
I wrap my coat tighter around myself, trying to hide the evidence. My dress is wrinkled. My hair is a tangled bird’s nest. My lips feel swollen, bitten raw.
I look exactly like what I am: a woman who just got fucked on a desk and then discarded.
The doors slide open to the main lobby.
I keep my head down, walking fast toward the exit. I just need to get to the curb. I need to disappear.
“Tessa.”
The voice stops me dead.
I look up. They didn’t leave.
Owen and Asher are standing by the security desk. Owen is pacing, his jacket discarded on a chair. Asher is leaning against the turnstile.
Owen stops mid-stride. His face drains of color as he takes in my wrecked hair, the coat clutched to my chest, the mascara streaked on my cheeks.
“Jesus,” Owen breathes. He moves toward me instantly, guilt warring with panic in his eyes. “Tess? I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed him. Did he?—”
“Don’t,” I choke out, stepping back.
I can’t let them be nice to me. If Owen touches me, if he looks at me with that worried expression, I’ll crumble right here.
“Tessa, wait,” Asher says. His voice is calm, but he’s moving fast, cutting off my path to the door. “You’re in distress. Let us drive you.”
“No!” The word rips out of my throat, harsh and jagged.
I flinch away as Owen reaches for my arm.
“Don’t touch me,” I whisper. “Just… don’t.”
