The restaurant was a nice Italian place Mia had never visited before. When she arrived, the maître D showed her to the table where Emily was sitting next to a woman with long brunette hair. Emily hopped up to hug her, and Mia sat down across from the two of them. "This is Shaylee," Emily said, sitting back down.
Shaylee had a wine glass in one hand that she lowered from her mouth as Mia said, "It's nice to meet you."
Without putting the glass down, Shaylee gave her what could only be described as a nervous grin. "Yeah. You, too." She glanced around the restaurant, her eyes darting back and forth from one side of the room to the other, though she hardly turned her head. Then, she took another drink of wine and brushed her long, straight hair over her shoulder before she began to spin the glass back and forth on the white tablecloth without ever removing her hand.
She wore a red dress with inch wide straps on either side of the deep V that revealed the inside of her breasts and cut most of the way to her belly button. She was thin, to put it mildly. Without meaning to stare, Mia noted that her collarbone protruded rather far and her arms were not much more than skin stretched across bone. When she did make a meager attempt to smile, her gums seemed to have pulled back from her teeth, giving her the appearance of a skeleton.
Mia pulled her eyes away and focused on Emily. Perhaps Shaylee would've been beautiful with another thirty pounds of flesh on her bones, but at the moment, she was strikingly thin, and it bothered Mia. She had to think that hadn't always been what the woman looked like. Perhaps before she'd quit working for Sam she'd been beautiful. With her dark hair and blue eyes, she even looked a bit similar to Mia-but not in her present state.
Emily began to make small talk, and Mia joined in, discussing a local news story and a coworker's new dog before the waiter came to take their order. Shaylee said next to nothing and only ordered a salad. Emily was clearly concerned and tried to convince her to eat more, but Shaylee wouldn't be swayed. When the waiter was gone, Emily cleared her throat and tried to make more lighthearted conversation, but Shaylee wouldn't join them, and Mia wasn't sure what to say.
It wasn't until they were almost done with their meals-not that Shaylee did much more than pick at her lettuce-that Emily brought up Sam. "Shaylee, I know it's difficult for you to talk about Mr. Whittaker, but I thought it might be helpful if you told Mia what you could about what happened at the end of your time at Whitaker and Whitaker."
Shaylee sucked in a deep breath and picked up the wine glass that had been refilled several times and hardly left her hand. "I'd rather not talk about it," she said, her words slurred from so much alcohol.
"I know, dear," Emily said, patting her frail arm. "But... as you've said before, you don't want what happened to you to happen to anyone else. Do you?"
A wave of uncomfortableness washed over Mia as she wasn't sure what to say or do. She didn't want to make Shaylee speak about something she was trying to forget, but she also didn't want Emily to have gone to all of this trouble for no reason.
Shaylee took another drink and then said, "Get out while you can. He's... poison. He'll make you need him and then toss you away, replace you with someone else. Someone new. Someone who excites him in ways you can't. Then... when you beg him for just one more time, he'll laugh at you and tell you to go pack your desk."
She wasn't looking at Mia as she spoke. Instead, her eyes were focused on her nearly-full plate. Assuming she was finished, Mia said, "That sounds... terrible."
"You don't know the half of it." The vacant eyes came up to meet hers then, the lack of life within them haunting. "He's a drug. You'll crave him, but you can't replace him. There's no dealer that can supply what you'll want."
Mia swallowed hard. She could see how Sam could have that effect on people. But after her night with Beau the evening before, she wasn't sure Sam was the only one who could give her what she wanted, what she needed.
"Shaylee was let go, replaced with the woman whose job you've taken," Emily explained, her hand still protectively placed on Shaylee's arm. "After that, Shaylee came back to the office a few times. Mr. Whitaker, your boss, not mine, had her arrested for trespassing the second time. It's been a difficult six months for her."
"Six months?" Mia had no idea the secretary before her had worked their such a short amount of time.
"Yes. He doesn't keep anyone for too long." Emily shook her head slowly. "Many of the women are in far worse states than Shaylee here. She's slowly making it back to who she was before." Emily patted her arm, but the gesture did little to make Shaylee feel any better.
Mia didn't know what to say. She could only wonder what had happened to the others, not that she wanted to know. "Thank you, Shaylee, for taking the time to speak to me. I appreciate it."
Shaylee took a drink from her glass and nodded, but she didn't look back at Mia again. Under her breath, she muttered, "God, I wish he'd fuck me just one more time...."
"Now, Shaylee, you don't need that. Remember?" Emily said, both hands on her shoulders now. "You are a strong, independent woman. You don't need to be mistreated by a man in order to know your worth."
Shaylee nodded, but Mia could tell she was only doing so because Emily wanted her to. Deep down inside, Shaylee had already linked her self-value to her ability to make Sam want her. Now that he didn't, she felt as if she weren't worth anything at all.
Mia took a deep breath, realizing now more than ever how important it was for her to break her ties with Sam-before it was too late. Beau could give her everything she wanted, could he? And if Sam could go through secretaries so quickly, there was a good chance he wouldn't want her for much longer anyway. Resolved that she knew what she needed to do, Mia thanked Emily and Shaylee again and called for a car to take her to Beau's, certain she'd made up her mind and was ready to start untangling herself from Sam Whitaker, once and for all.