Read Just One Night, Part 2: Exposed for Free Online

She’s thinking, perhaps wondering how far she can backpedal before I have her crashing into a brick wall. “Politics are funny” is the phrase she settles on. “Sometimes people . . . perfectly competent workers, are let go because they don’t fit within the structure as well as it was originally presumed they would. But I’m just speculating, Kasie. You’re the one who suggested you were leaving.”
    “Did I suggest that?” I ask. I keep the sarcasm light, almost playful. “And here I thought I just asked a question,” I say with a smile. “I’m more than a competent worker, but let’s not spend time debating things we both know. In fact . . . now that I think about it, there’s a lot of things we both know, aren’t there?”
    “I’m not following.”
    “Well, let’s see.” I get up from my seat again. My anger is intense, but I like the way it feels. I like the way I’m able to give it shape, form it into a weapon of torture. It’s a slow torture, delicate and feminine . . . it has artistry. I imagine myself holding a pretty little scalpel and rubbing it gently against Asha’s throat. “We both know you shouldn’t have been at that party unless of course you came with someone else. I saw you hanging out with Mr. Freeland. Was he your date? Your way in?”
    “Did I give Freeland my affection in exchange for a party invitation? No,” she says, and now it’s her turn to smile. “I don’t mix sex and commerce. Do you, Kasie?”
    I stopped. This is more audacity than I expected, even from her. “Are you asking me if I’m a prostitute?”
    Asha giggles. It’s a surprisingly appealing sound, almost seductive in it’s daintiness. “Don’t be silly,” she says. “You’re an honorable woman. You wear a rather expensive engagement ring to prove it.”
    I glance down at the ring. It squeezes too tightly.
    “Besides,” she continues, “prostitutes have sex for profit. Not you. Although after you started dating Dave, you did get a very profitable position here—”
    “He got me an interview. I got the job.”
    “And then you also got us a very profitable account, didn’t you?” Asha asks sweetly. Her voice is the spoonful of syrup used to mask the bitterness of a crushed pill. “You got that all by yourself. No help from Dave at all. Mr. Dade just handed it to you.”
    I don’t answer. Instead I wait, to see how far she’ll push. Is her hatred enough to make her careless? Has she been spying on me, even before that day on the boat? Or is this all presumptions and speculations?
    “What did you tell Tom Love?” she asks. “That you met Mr. Dade in the security line at the airport before flying home?”
    “Yes,” I say. I have my back to the wall while she looks up at me from the chair I ushered her into. This is my office. I’m in the position of strength here. But the dynamic is unstable.
    “It’s funny, because I’ve never gotten into a conversation with anyone I didn’t know while in those security lines. Everyone’s so focused on getting their keys out of their pockets, their watches unstrapped from their wrists, it’s not really a let’s-get-to-know-each-other kind of place, is it?”
    “For every rule there are exceptions.”
    “True,” Asha agrees with a nod. “And for every crime there is a criminal. When Mr. Dade called to tell Tom he wanted consultant Kasie Fitzgerald to head a team to help him prepare his company for a public offering, he had a different story of your first meeting. He said that the two of you had spoken at a blackjack table.”
    I raise my chin as if the gesture could increase my height. I need to be above this, but I don’t manage it. Her words cut as they were meant to. Tom never told me that my tale contradicted the true story he had apparently already gotten from Robert.
    What else had Robert told him? Had he told Tom that we had ended up in his room? No, he wouldn’t have shared any of those secrets. For a brief moment my mind