Read Just One Night, Part 3: Binding Agreement for Free Online Page B

Services, Media and Entertainment, or Travel Transport and Logistics and yet those are three of the four departments that will be reporting to you now. Your protector won’t do you a lot of good if you screw up this company beyond repair.”
    “I don’t have a protector.”
    Mr. Costin flashes me a sarcastic smile. “We all have protectors, Kasie. Gods that we pray to for help. A lucky few of us get the attention of one of the earthly gods. They’re more easily seduced. But then you know that, don’t you?” He glances at his watch and sighs. “Go home, come back tomorrow ready to learn. I assume that tonight you’ll need to do some more worshiping because without your protecting god, you don’t have a prayer.”
    I dig my fingernails into my palm but then force myself to release my fist and smile at Mr. Costin before leaving his office with the quiet humility he seems to want from me.
    But I don’t leave the building as he requested. Instead I go to my office and start to organize. I hadn’t asked if I would be moved into Tom’s office; Mr. Costin hadn’t exactly invited those kinds of questions. So odd to get a promotion from a man who hates you. And it’s odd that only a few months ago I couldn’t imagine anyone really hating me any more than I could imagine anyone completely loving me. I just hadn’t viewed myself as the kind of person who inspired those kinds of extreme emotions. But now the word “hate” comes up a lot in regard to me. Dave, Tom, Mr. Costin, perhaps Asha . . . how is it possible that after so many years of playing it safe, I’m now inspiring such contempt?
    I don’t like it. I never wanted to be the Bond girl who destroys lives for lovers and profit. But I have always aspired to power, and perhaps it’s the meek who inspire more charitable emotions. If so, isn’t strength worth the price of animosity?
    The strong can’t be erased.
    And what of love? Does Robert love me? Or is this something else?
    As for Mr. Costin . . . well, if he’s right about the amount of influence Robert has, I could have his job as easily as I got Tom’s. He must know that. So in his case it’s his fear that makes him hate. It’s so conventional, it’s not even interesting. The only part that gives me pause is that I’m the one he fears. The head of this company fears me. That’s . . . different.
    I drive home that night thinking of the moon and the ocean. Together they can do so much damage.

CHAPTER 6

    I DON’T WANT TO invite Robert over tonight. It’s not just that I need space this time. Things are getting out of hand but the most frightening part about it is that his ideas, propositions, and philosophies that I know are unethical are becoming more and more alluring.
    So I don’t reach out to him. Instead I make myself a salad, open a bottle of wine, and cry. Maybe it’s because this isn’t the life I imagined. It’s so much more and so much less. Eventually I call my friend Simone. She doesn’t berate me for evading her for weeks on end. Instead she simply listens to the notes of emotion in my voice and tells me she’s coming over.
    She arrives holding a bottle of Grey Goose by the neck. She studies me, standing in my doorway like an expectant trick-or-treater. I’ve changed out of my suit into a long silk robe; my hair hangs loosely over my shoulders. “Wow,” she says as she finally enters, walking past me. “What a difference a month makes.”
    I follow her into the kitchen, where she leans against the counter holding the vodka against her heart. I study the label depicting white birds flying over a glass sky. “What do you mean?”
    “Well, let’s think,” she says solemnly as she opens the bottle. “You were a good girl dating a controlling asshole and then you had an affair, and then you got engaged to the asshole, break up with the asshole, and couple up with your lover. All that in less than thirty days?” She raises her blonde eyebrows. “That might be