Page 228

Slowly.

Deliberately.

And I know what's coming before she opens her mouth.

“That's why he's fucking a fat bitch like you. Or did you really think you were his type?”

There are some insults you can dismiss immediately.

Others find old scars. That's what makes them effective.

They don't have to create a wound. They just have to know where one already exists.

For half a second, I'm not thirty-five-year-old Layla Hawthorne. I'm every version of myself who ever walked into a store and discovered nothing came in my size.

Every girl who wondered why her thinner friend got asked to dance.

Every woman who learned to love her body while the world kept helpfully suggesting she shouldn't.

Then I'm me again.

And I'm fucking furious.

I take a step forward. And Myrna actually takes a step back.

Good.

“Get out.”

She blinks.

“You heard me.”

“This isn't your office.”

“No. But apparently your boss trusts the fat bitch enough to leave her alone in it.”

Her lips tighten. I step closer.

“And whether Mitchell Knight is using me is between Mitchell Knight and me. But you don't get to talk to me like that.”

“You're awfully defensive.”

“And you're awfully comfortable confusing professional access with permission to be a jealous asshole.”

Color climbs her cheeks.

“I'm not jealous.”

“Then you're just a bitch. Somehow that's worse.”

Her mouth drops open. I point toward the door.

“Get. Out.”

She walks toward it. Then stops.

Of course she does.