had no choice but to go with him and his daughter to the museum. I hope she knows what she’s doing.”
Kim is shaking her head.
“But she told you he’s an asshole, said that he was just treating you like every other woman who has come before you. Why would she fall into that trap?”
“She’s young, she’s ambitious, maybe she doesn’t care about integrity as much as I do. Maybe her priorities in life are different,” I say.
Kim breathes in deeply and licks her lips.
“I still think you should talk to him about it. Tell him what she told you, see what he has to say for himself.”
“Kim! I’ve met his girlfriend now. It doesn’t matter what’s going on with Erica. Now I have proof he never planned on getting tangled with me seriously.”
I swing my legs off the bed and stride into the bathroom. Kim follows me to the door. I’m splashing my face with water in the basin. Then I start rubbing my face with a cleanser. I just want to get all this makeup off.
“Okay, Blaire, I get it. You don’t want to dwell on this any further. You just want to move forward.”
“Yes! Exactly!” I hiss at her in the reflection of the mirror. “I just want to forget about him.”
“Then you’ll have to sell this apartment. You need to move away from here. You need to figure out what you’ll do with your company.”
“I can’t get out of that contract,” I say, patting my face dry with a towel. Suddenly, I feel very tired. My shoulders and legs are aching. I can feel those tears welling up in me again.
“I’m going to talk to Kirk. Maybe we’ll see if his legal team can work on it. Maybe his brother can help too. We’ll get so many people to put pressure on Trevor Davenport that he will have no choice but to amend the contract somehow. No matter how long it takes. You don’t have to work with him again.”
I turn to Kim and my tears start flowing.
Not many people have seen me cry. I don’t think even Kim has. She rushes to me and puts her arms around me.
“We’ll figure this out together, Blaire. You don’t deserve this, and you need to make him see that he can’t treat women this way.”
I’m nodding as I rub my cheeks with my knuckles.
“More importantly, you need to tell his girlfriend. She deserves to know the truth too.”
“I can’t…” I’m shaking my head. “I can’t talk to her.”
Kim grabs me by my shoulders and peers into my eyes.
“Put yourself in her shoes, Blaire. Wouldn’t you want to know if it were you being cheated on? If Trevor was treating you like this?”
She’s right. I would want to know. I wish someone had warned me about Stephen the way Erica warned me about Trevor. I may not be able to make my peace with Michelle, but that doesn’t mean she has personally hurt me in any way.
“Okay, yes, you’re right. She should know.”
Kim smiles a little and then sighs with relief.
“Good. I promise you, this is the closure you need. You will feel much better once you’ve spoken to her and helped another woman get out of this mess.”
I nod. Yes. This is exactly what I need. Trevor has to see the devastating effects he has on women’s lives when he plays with them.
25
Trevor
“You need to speak to her,” Calvin says.
I needed to speak to someone. Especially someone who knows Blaire. I know the two of them have gotten to know each other pretty well ever since Blaire came under our wing. They have even become friends.
“I don’t think she wants to speak to me,” I growl as I pace around the office.
“I’m not sure what’s going on but this seems like inexplicable behavior. I mean, Blaire is a smart and intelligent woman. How she’s acting with you just seems erratic and irrational. It’s not like her.”
“Then maybe the woman you know is very different from the one I have gotten to know. Blaire has always been erratic and irrational around me.”
Calvin rubs a hand over his face.
“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you this way with a woman before. You just seem…out of it. Crazed. You need to do something about it.”
“And what the fuck am I supposed to do?” I growl at him, slamming my fists down on my desk. What I really want to do is punch the wall. That is what Blaire has driven me to.