Page 26 of Sexting His Assistant

“Why?” I ask softly. “It was written with such confidence.”

“It was written to someone else.”

There it is. The knife, exactly where it belongs.

I look at her for a long moment. “Yes.”

Her breathing changes. Barely. I notice because I’m noticing everything.

I set the phone back down. “Was it true?”

Her eyes fly open. “What?”

“The text.” My voice remains level. “Was it true, or were you performing for a man too dull to interest you otherwise?”

She stares at me as if I have struck her.

I continue before she can answer. “Because if it was fiction, it was detailed fiction. If it was true, you have appalling judgment.”

“You’re unbelievable,” she says.

“No,” I say. “I’m patient. There’s a difference.”

She laughs once, disbelieving and angry. “Patient?”

“Yes.”

“With what?”

With you, I almost say.

Instead I ask, “Who was he?”

Her jaw sets. “No.”

I step closer. “Nina.”

“No,” she says again, stronger this time. “You don’t get to interrogate me because I made a humiliating mistake.”

“Humiliating for whom?”

“For me,” she snaps. “Obviously.”

I study her face. “Only for you?”

She falters.

I lean one hand on the back of the chair between us and lower my voice. “You sent another man a description of what you want done to you while sitting in my meeting.”

Her breath catches.

I go on, because if I stop now I’ll do something worse. “You sat there while I spoke, while I looked at you, while you wrote that filth to somebody else. So no, Nina, I don’t think the humiliation belongs solely to you.”

Her lips part.

A mistake. Mine, for noticing.

“You have no right to be angry,” she says, but the force has gone out of it.