Before You Go

Chapter Eight

I smell bacon.

I stretch out on my bed with a huge grin. I love bacon.

My hands wander to the other side of the bed to find it cold and empty. Carter must've been awake for a while now.

And he's cooking bacon in my kitchen.

I toss the comforters away and slip my feet to my fluffy slippers. I check the clock that's hanging on the wall. It's eight in the morning.

I make my way to the kitchen, and I'm greeted with a view of a shirtless Carter transferring perfectly cooked bacon from the skillet to the plate. His face lights up when he sees me, and mine does too.

"Good morning Valentine." he greets me. "I hope you don't mind that I'm using your bacon, or that I'm cooking in your kitchen."

I drop to the empty seat beside me. "Not at all, as long you made some for me."

He laughs and slides a plate of bacon and toast. I don't waste time and start eating.

Bacon and toast taste good. But when someone prepares them for you, they taste great. When a shirtless man prepares them for you, it's amazing.

"You really like breakfast." he says.

I shake my head. "I love breakfast food. But I usually don't have time to prepare breakfast on the weekdays. I wake up too late to do it. So I just boil a bunch of eggs ahead of time and take one before I leave."

He opens his mouth to speak but my phone ringing from the living room cuts him off. I groan because I have to stop eating and go to retrieve it.

It's Agatha Porter. Why is she calling me this early on a Sunday? Why is she even calling me on a Sunday?

"Good morning, this is Valentine Clarke speaking." I greet her when I answer the call.

"Can you explain to me why you're meeting with legal on Monday?" she doesn't even bother to return my greeting and gets straight to the point.

"How did you know?" I ask quietly, and I feel the colour draining off my face. Adam forcing himself on me in the ladies room from last night starts to flash in my mind, and I shake my head vigorously to remove it.

"Barry logged it in the calendar and I am still connected to it." she answers like it's the most obvious thing in the world. "Why are you meeting with legal, Clarke? What happened to the deal? Please tell me you didn't screw it up."

"We got the account." I answer her with a hushed voice. I can't seem to make my voice louder when talking about it.

"Then why are you meeting with legal? Why are you whispering?"

"I want to file a complaint against the representative."

"What?!" Agatha screams out so loud on the other line I pull my phone away from my ear. "Are you insane? Why would you do that? They just signed with us!"

"He assaulted me." I say and try my best not to cry. My voice is quiet. "He wanted me to go with him to this party before he'd sign anything. I agreed. He followed me to the ladies' room and started to force himself on me."

Agatha is silent. Carter gives me an empathetic look, but quickly looks away, pretending he isn't eavesdropping when I look at him.

"He followed you to the ladies room?" she asks, her tone perplexed. "How much proof do you have? Were others able to see?"

"Two male employees of Alpha Airlines came after I screamed." I say. "Security came too."

"They caught him inside the ladies room?"