His Dancer, His Chains novel · Chapter 3 of 24

Chapter 3: The New Assistant

Rafferty doesn't fire her, his fiancee Nicolette makes her welcome, and a photo of Cora on stage arrives from an unknown number.

Rafferty stood up as I walked toward his desk.

He didn't look like he had expected me.

"Ms. Pownall," he said.

"Mr. Gage."

The glass walls of the hallway were full of people pretending not to look.

"My office," he said. "Please."

I followed him in, and he shut the door.

For a moment neither of us spoke.

"I didn't know," he said. "I swear to you, Cora. The agency sent a name on Monday, and I never opened the file."

"I didn't know either."

"I believe you."

"You should. I wouldn't have come within a mile of this building."

He rubbed the back of his neck, and the dry calm he had worn in the booth cracked a little.

"I can have you moved to another floor today. Another company. I'll pay the agency myself."

"No."

"Cora."

"I have a sister in the hospital, and this job pays every other Friday," I said.

"I'm not going to be sent away because you're embarrassed."

"I'm not embarrassed."

"Then what are you?"

He looked at me, and I saw his eyes drop to my mouth and come back up.

"Careful," he said, low.

Heat went through me again, the same heat from the booth, and I hated how fast it came.

"Where do I sit?" I said.

He pointed at the desk outside his door.

"Nobody here knows what happened at that club," he said. "Nobody will hear it from me."

"I know that."

"Good."

The morning went by in a blur of calendars and a phone system older than I was.

He gave me clear instructions, and he never raised his voice.

He did not touch me once, and by noon I was keeping track.

At twelve-thirty a woman in a cream blazer came down the hallway with two paper cups of coffee.

She had honey-blonde hair in a smooth knot and a pearl bracelet.

Every person on the floor straightened as she passed.

"You must be Cora," she said, and she held out a cup.

"I am."

"I'm Nicolette Belcher, Rafferty's fiancée. I'm so glad they finally sent him someone with a pulse."

She laughed. "The last three quit in a month."

Fiancée.

I had not known, and I made my face stay still.

"It's nice to meet you."

"The coffee machine on this floor is a crime, so I brought the good stuff."

She looked at my thin cardigan.

"Oh, you're freezing. Hold on."

She took a grey scarf off her own neck and put it around mine.

"Keep it," she said. "I have fifteen."

"I can't."

"You can. I insist. The agency told me you were the best they had, so don't let him scare you."

Rafferty came out of his office, and she kissed his cheek.

He let her.

"We're still on for the Belcher dinner Thursday?" she asked him.

"I have a meeting Thursday afternoon."

"Dinner is at eight, darling. Be there."

She squeezed my arm and left.

I stood there with the scarf around my neck.

It was soft and warm, and it was the kindest thing anyone had done for me in a month.

Rafferty was watching me with an odd look.

"Nicolette is good to people," he said.

"I noticed."

He went back into his office, and he did not say anything else.

I worked through the afternoon with my head down.

Pippa texted me a photo of her hospital dinner with a sad face drawn on the mashed potatoes.

I texted back a heart, and I stayed on the phone with her for ten minutes in the stairwell.

She was weak, but she was laughing, and the surgeon had said she was strong enough.

Thursday morning, they would take her in.

I did not let myself think about anything past that.

At five I shut down my computer.

My hands remembered the booth, the cushion, the exact spot where his hands had stayed.

I turned that thought off, and I picked up my bag.

My phone buzzed on the desk.

It was a number I did not know.

I opened it, and the screen filled with a photograph.

It was me on the stage at the Gilded Room, in the blue light, with my head thrown back.

Under it was a single line of text.

"Does your boss know?"

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