He frowns. “That’s it? I basically assault you in my office and you just say, ‘Okay’?”
“You didn’t assault me.” I pause and amend. “Almost, maybe. But you stopped.”
“Because my father walked in.”
“Still.” I pick at the continually fraying thread on my sleeve. At this rate, I’m gonna unravel the whole coat before the month is out. “You stopped. And you’re apologizing now. That counts for something.”
He stares at me like I’ve grown a second head. “You’re a strange person, Rae Everett.”
“Yeah, well. Takes one to know one.”
That gets a real smile out of him. Small, but real. “I mean it,” he says. “I’m sorry. For all of it.”
I think about that night. His hand on my thigh, his breath on my neck. The fear and the confusion and the painful thud of my panicked heart.
Then I think about him
