Great Exploitations (Crisis in Cali) by Nicole Williams

not relax. “I’ve spent plenty of time thinking about that, and I believe I might have a good understanding . . . and I’m going to guess that what you saw the day you ran away from me might have been the catalyst for this career .”
    I bristled over his tone. “Is my career so much more shameful than anyone else’s?” I popped out of the chair and crossed the room to stare out the large window. The city looked the same, its abundance of lights flickering in the dark, but my entire world seemed forever changed.
    “Only you can answer that,” Henry replied, rising from his knees. “I’m not going to judge you for what you’ve done or tell you I’m disappointed or take the moral high ground. You did what you had to and wanted to, I’m sure, and that’s all I need to know.”
    For some reason, dressed in a revealing cocktail dress, I felt more naked than I did when I was actually naked. “What I do—what I’ve done —doesn’t bother you?” There was a hint of doubt in my voice because I found it hard to believe that a man who cared about any woman wouldn’t be bothered by her having a career like mine. Most men were jealous, possessive creatures who didn’t want to share their bedmate with another man . . . or men .
    “It bothered me at first. It bothered me a lot.” Henry stared at the chair I’d just been in, as if I was still there. “But it doesn’t bother me anymore.”
    My eyebrows pinched together. “How can it not bother you anymore?”
    Henry’s stare left the chair to find me. “Because I told myself that when I found you, if I found you, nothing else would matter. I’ve committed years to waiting for this moment when I could apologize, explain, and if you weren’t flashing a ring on your left hand, try to win you back. I ran through every possible scenario I might find you in . . . from the most illustrious of careers to the lowest of them, from being engaged, seriously dating, or batting for the other team.” I lifted a brow, but he kept going. “I went through every possible situation I believed I could find you in, and even in those worst ones, I arrived at the conclusion that I wouldn’t let it bother me.”
    I went back to staring out the window. “But you didn’t think of the scenario you actually found me in, did you?” It was a wasted question. How could he have run through this possibility? What I did wasn’t a career one heard about or would even believe existed.
    “No, I didn’t.” He stuffed his hands in his pockets. “That’s why it took me a while to . . . get used to the idea.”
    “And you’re used to the idea now?” From his inability to meet my eyes, I had my answer.
    “I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to the idea, Eve. What you do is difficult to wrap one’s mind around, despite whatever reasons I’m sure you have for doing this.” Henry waved around the room I’d arrived at to lure a married man into bed so his wife could be free to leave him with money on her side. “But me getting used to the idea doesn’t change what you’ve done as a profession, and it doesn’t change the way I feel about you.”
    He couldn’t be saying what it sounded like he was. “So?”
    His shoulders lifted. “So it’s a moot point. I’ve known for a long time that if you’d have me back, I’d take you as you were, however I found you. No questions asked, no conditions applied.”
    “You can’t mean that,” I replied, shaking my head.
    “But I do.”
    Exhaustion rolled over me, making me wish I hadn’t left that chair. “What do we do now, Henry?”
    “Whatever we want.” He moved a few steps closer to me, the shadows on his face fading some. “What do you want to do?”
    That was the question. What did I want to do? In the span of half an hour, my whole world had been torn from its axis and was just waiting for me to direct it where to orbit. What I did and who I worked for had been discovered, and while I wasn’t worried that Henry and the