Public Secrets

jeans. Freed, she looked wildly for a means of escape. With terror still pumping through her, she snatched up a pair of scissors and gripped them in both hands.
“Stay away from me.” Her voice was low and raw, as shaky as the hands that held the scissors.

“What’s this?” He was clever enough to know that the wild look in her eyes meant she would strike first and be sorry for it later. He’d been right about the virginal part, he thought while his breath heaved. And he wanted to be the one to relieve her of the obstacle. “Defending your honor? You were ready to cast it aside a minute ago.”
She only shook her head, jabbing with the blades as he took a cautious step forward. “Get out. I want you to get out. Don’t come near me again, or Marianne. When I tell her—”
“You won’t tell her a thing.” Through his fury, he smiled. “If you do, you’ll only lose a friend. She’s in love with me, and she’ll believe exactly what I tell her. Imagine, coming on to your best friend’s lover.”
“You’re a bastard, and a liar.”
“Quite true, Emmy luv. But then you’re a frigid tease.” Calmer, he picked up his discarded beer and swigged. “And here I was, trying to do you a favor. You’ve got problems, sweetheart, big ones, but nothing a good fuck wouldn’t cure.” Still smiling, he rubbed himself. “And believe me, I’m a very good fuck. Just ask your best friend.”
“Get out.”
“But you wouldn’t know about that, would you? Sweet little Catholic girl, all hung up in sins and those sweaty dreams you have when you listen to me upstairs with Marianne. Your kind likes it to be rape, so they can pretend they’re innocent all the time they’re screaming for more.”
Setting her teeth, Emma looked deliberately down to where he continued to caress himself. “If I use these,” she said quietly, “I’m going straight for your balls.”
She had the satisfaction of seeing him pale at that, from rage and, she was sure, from fear. He stepped back, and the sneer that had women screaming for him sent sweat dripping down her back.
“Bitch.”
“Better a bitch than a eunuch,” she said calmly enough, though she was afraid the scissors would slip any moment from her nerveless fingers.
They both heard the elevator open. They both braced.
“Emma!” Marianne’s cheerful voice sang through the loft. “Emma, are you home?”
Blackpool sent Emma a quick cocky look. “Right here, lover. Emma’s been showing me the prints.”
“Oh, she’s finished them.”

He turned and strolled out, leaving Emma to stay or to follow. “I’ve been waiting for you,” she heard him say in a voice like cool silk.
“I didn’t know you’d be here.” The breathlessness in Marianne’s answer told Emma she was being kissed. Prying one hand from the scissors, she rubbed it hard against her mouth. “Let’s have a look at the prints.”
“Why look at pictures when you’ve got the real thing?”
“Robert—” Marianne’s protest ended on a muffled groan. “But Emma’s—”
“Don’t worry about her. She’s busy. I’ve been waiting to get my hands on you all day.”
Emma stood where she was as their murmurs and whispers trailed up the stairs. Very quietly, she closed the door to the darkroom. She didn’t want to hear. She didn’t want to imagine. Her legs nearly gave out before she made it to her stool. Once there, she let the scissors drop with a ringing clatter to the floor, then curled her legs up and hugged them to her chest.
He had touched her, she thought in disgust. He had touched her, and God help her, for a moment she’d wanted him to go on touching her. She’d wanted him to take the choice out of her hands, just as he’d accused her of. She hated him for that. And she hated herself.
The phone beside her rang three times before she drummed up the energy to answer. “Yes.”
“Emma—Emma is that you?”
“Yes.”
There was a crackle on the line, a hesitation. “It’s Michael. Michael Kesselring.”
She stared dully at the prints drying above her work table. “Yes, Michael.”
“I … are you all right? Is something wrong?”
She found she wanted to laugh then, long and loud. “No, why should anything be wrong?”
“Well, you sound … I guess you’ve read some of the tabloids.”
“I’ve seen them.”
He let out a long breath. The speech he’d prepared so carefully had vanished from his mind. “I wanted to call and explain—”

“Why? It’s none of my business what