She made a mental list while she dressed and left the house shortly after Ryan. When she returned, she had a plastic bag with eggs, milk, juice, and bread.
She made her way slowly up the steps onto her dark porch. With her head bent, she wriggled the key into the doorknob and unlocked the door. Now the deadbolt. She twisted it to the right and pushed once. It didn’t budge. She really needed to get this fixed. She twisted and pushed again. Nothing. Come on, come on.
She was about to push again when someone grabbed from behind. With a cry, she dropped the plastic bag filled with groceries, and it landed on the porch with a thunk as large hands spun her around and pushed backward. Her head hit the door so hard she saw stars.
“Cheating slut.” Cheating? It was Jerome, and he smelled like he’d downed a bottle of vodka. “Not good enough for you? I’m an attorney, but you’d rather be with a damn furniture maker?” he asked.
Shawna shrank back against the door. He didn’t touch her again, but he didn’t allow her to move, either. He crowded her with a menacing posture.
“Answer the question.”
“I don’t know what you’re—”
“Did you have sex with him?” he sneered.
Unsure how to answer, her heart started a wild thumping. “I don’t know what—”
“Don’t lie. I know you did.” His heavily slurred speech frightened her. She didn’t know what he would do in this state, and he had the advantage in size and strength.
She slipped a hand inside the open mouth of her purse, careful not to make a sudden move and draw attention to her action. She didn’t have pepper spray, but she had menthol mouth spray somewhere in there, which she planned to turn into a weapon to defend herself if she needed to.
“One of the paralegals said she heard two people having sex in the bathroom,” Jerome continued. “Since you and Ryan were missing, it didn’t take a genius to figure out who were the culprits. Then you left together.” He shook his head and laughed bitterly. “I can’t believe how long I’ve waited for you. I’ve helped you lug groceries, I helped you change a flat on that raggedy car you drove. When it gave you problems, I volunteered to take you anywhere you needed to go and never took a dime from you for gas money. I thought you were special. I thought you were a different kind of woman. I treated you like a queen and put you on a pedestal, but women like you don’t appreciate a man like me.”
Shawna remained silent, worried that anything she said would set him off. She could count on one hand the number of times she’d asked for any of those favors, and he’d refused to take money from her. He’d always been there to help and she’d accepted, but he’d had an ulterior motive all along.
Her fingers found the spray and she thumbed off the cover.
“Two years,” Jerome said, holding up two digits. “And you let a man you barely know fuck you in the bathroom at my company’s office party like a whore. While you were there with me, you fucking slut.”
“I’m not a—”
“You’re a slut!” he said louder, getting in her face.
She held her breath and angled her head away from the stench of his mouth, tightening her fingers around the vial. Fighting back the tremors that threatened to overtake her, she found her voice. “Step back.”
His face twisted into an ugly snarl. “Don’t worry. I’m not foolish enough to harm you. I value my career and won’t jeopardize it over you.”
He dipped his head to look her in the eye. “You think he’s going to make a commitment to you? Men don’t make commitments to women who are easy.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Shawna said in a small voice.
“I know exactly what I’m talking about. What you did was disgusting.” He laughed shortly. “When he dumps you, don’t call me because I don’t want another man’s leftovers. And I don’t like sluts and that’s what you are—a filthy slut. I refuse to dirty my hands with you.” He looked at her with disgust, as if she was something nasty.
Then he turned around and walked off the porch.
Chapter Twenty-two