“I appreciate what you’ve said,” I say. “That you believe I could … possibly run Fleur.”

“If anyone can do it, it’s you. I’ve been grooming you for it since you were a child.” He rests his arms on his desk, clutching his hands together, all while I gape at him. This entire conversation has been surreal. “There’s something else I need to tell you, Violet. Something you might find … unpleasant.”

Ah, here it is. I’m almost relieved that he’s about to deliver bad news. I didn’t believe he called me in here just to lavish praise on me. That’s not his style. “What is it?”

“I was contacted by my lawyer this morning,” he says, his voice low, his expression grim. I feel my body sway at the mention of the word lawyer and I clutch the arm of the chair so tight my fingers hurt. “He notified me that Alan Brown is set to be released from prison in a few weeks.”

The sway turns into a full body slump and I collapse against the back of the chair, my mind spinning. I haven’t heard that name in so long I could almost forget the man existed.

Almost.

“I thought …” My voice drifts and I glance down, focus on my knees peering from beneath the hem of my white dress. I’m trembling and I grip my shaky knees, release a steadying breath, but it comes out like a stutter. Stay strong, stay strong. “I thought he had a twenty-year sentence to serve. It’s barely been three years.”

“His sentence was reduced. They let him out early.” The disgust in Father’s tone is clear. He hates this, probably as much as I do. “I didn’t want you to find out in any other way, like reading something on the Internet or by a reporter contacting you. Or worse … someone from his family reaching out to you. Not that any of them will, but you know what I mean. I wanted to be the one who told you first.”

“Thank you,” I say with a short nod. The Browns are a family we grew up with. My sisters and I played with the Brown children. Went to school with them. My parents and the Browns were old, dear friends.

Until their son tried to attack me. Then the old family friendship was horribly splintered forever.

“No one will find out your connection to Alan Brown, Violet, especially considering you testified as Jane Doe during his trial. We took every precaution to protect your identity,” he reassures me as he has before, countless times over the years. But we both know the truth. Anyone with decent research skills and access to Google could narrow it down and figure out that the college junior Alan Brown assaulted four years ago was me.

Little nineteen-year-old me. I fought him off and identified him to the police. My testimony got a dangerous man off the streets.

And now he’s about to be set free.

“I’m not worried about the media. He’ll find me,” I whisper. “He knows exactly where to look.”

I remember the cold stare he gave me as I testified on the witness stand during his trial. When I’d gone to college, Father encouraged me to look up Alan. He liked knowing Alan was there to protect me since I went to college not knowing another soul.

And at first it had been nice. He’d shown me around campus. He took me out to lunch and dinner, introduced me to his friends. But then he thought there was something more between us beyond friendship. When I rejected him, he became enraged.

He attacked me. Beat me up, punched me in the face with his fists again and again, tearing at my clothing. Somehow I fought him off with a ferociousness that still surprises me. He didn’t get what he wanted, not from me.

Alan broke me, though. My family wanted the incident gone, swept under the rug, forgotten, especially Father and Grandma. It was too scandalous for the media to find out. It could have ruined the company image.

Instead, their dismissal of what happened almost ruined me. I no longer trusted anyone.

I put him in jail, though. The rage that had taken over his face when I described in court how I fought him, how I hurt him … it’s something I’ll never forget. But somehow, after the trial, all the fight was taken out of me, all of the strength and confidence that had once been a natural part of my personality for so long.

I only just now feel like I’ve gotten some of that strength and confidence back.

“He won’t bother you, Violet,” Father says firmly. “I promise.”

When I meet his sincere gaze, I see that he means it. Believes it.

But I don’t know if I can.

Chapter Sixteen

Ryder

I wait just outside Violet’s office, leaning against the wall across the hall from her door, my arms crossed in front of my chest, tapping my foot against the floor. I’m impatient as fuck, dying to see her, yet feeling cautious, too. She could tell me to get the hell out and I’d have no choice but to do what she says.

After all, she’s my superior. And I had my fingers buried deep inside my superior’s body last night, making her come in seconds. The memory fueled me for the rest of the night and through this morning. I keep finding myself jacking off to thoughts of her and I normally don’t do that. If I want a woman, I have her. I use her and then I’m done.

Not Violet, though. I toy with her and end up unsatisfied instead. It’s fucking torture. Not for her, since I’ve given her a couple of orgasms.

It’s torturous for me.

The need to talk to her, look into her eyes, hell, tell her I’m sorry—and I never tell anyone I’m sorry, since I regret nothing—is damn near overwhelming.