One of the things I had been doing that was getting on his nerves was trying to scratch underneath my cast. It was so God damned itchy, and I couldn’t wait until the following Monday to have the cast removed and the moon boot fitted. In the meantime though, I desperately had to relieve the horrid irritating sensation on my leg, and I was doing it by using all means possible. This was pissing Bryce off, and the fact that he was trying to stop me from doing it was pissing me off.
I woke up Tuesday morning fidgeting, trying to scratch a really deep spot down near my ankle which was practically impossible to reach.
“Alexis, for fuck’s sake, stop scratching,” he groaned into his pillow.
“That’s easy for you to say. You don’t have a tube of fucking plaster attached to your leg irritating the shit out of you.” I stuck my finger back down into the cast, but it fell way short of the spot.”
“You have been tossing and turning all night,” he growled.
“I know. I’m the one who has been doing the tossing and the turning.”
I got out of bed, hopped to the bathroom and opened the vanity cupboard. Excellent. I grabbed Bryce’s comb and wedged it down into my cast, relieving the annoying tingling.
“Oh yeah, that’s what I’m talking about,” I purred with relief.
“What are you doing?” he called out from the bedroom.
“Nothing, mind your own business,” I called back, smiling and lapping up the respite by happily pulling the comb up and down my leg.
“Hunny, stop that.” He had gotten out of bed and was standing in the door way. “The surgeon said not to poke things down into your cast.”
“No! I don’t care what the friggin’ surgeon said. He is a hypocrite. He put this stupid, heavy, irritating, ugly piece of shit on my leg. He does not get to tell me not to itch.” I scratched a little more, desperately trying to push the comb in deeper.
“Alexis, give me that. Hang on a minute, is that my comb?” he questioned, with eyebrows raised.
“Yes, it is.”
He put his hand out.
I yanked the comb back out and threw it at his chest. “I hate you.”
He laughed. “No, you don’t.”
I hopped past him. “Right now? Yes, yes, I do.”
***
Bryce and I had been working sporadically over the past week. He’d told me that I didn’t need to, and that Abigail and Lucy were sharing my work load. It’s just, I wanted to work. It helped stop my mind from reverting back to the events of the accident. I still couldn’t stop the flashbacks, and Jessica was still working on methods to help me with it.
She had helped me immensely throughout the week, having a covert talent in making me open up to her completely, which was obviously a good thing. I was functioning again, thinking clearly and not diverting off my path to recovery—well...not as much—I still had moments of self-defeat. Now, that I was back at work—sporadically or not—I enjoyed the distraction, but I kind of felt useless, a hindrance; a burden even.
Ever since I had taken on the role of P.A for Bryce, I had brought nothing but dramas to the job. Most of it was, in part, a result of his introduction into my life, but regardless, I still felt someone else could do my job better than me. I didn’t want to disrupt his business life like I had disrupted his personal life.
Jessica had told me to tell Bryce everything I was feeling when I was feeling it. I had also told myself this before having my talk with Jessica, but I guess her being a professional and instructing me to do it kind of pushed the thought into an action.
I hit the button on my phone and buzzed Bryce in his office.
“Yeah?” he answered in his sexy, I’m-a-busy-billionaire-businessman voice.
“I think you should replace me,” I said quite frankly.
“Excuse me?” he replied, uncertainty in his tone.
“I suck, and I’m a nuisance. There are plenty of other women who are better than me,” I explained.
“Alexis, can you come in here for a moment, please,” he said softly, but still all businessman like.
“No. I can’t.”
“Alexis!”
“Bryce! I quit.” There, I said it. That wasn’t too hard now, was it?
His door opened all of a sudden and he walked out into the foyer.
“You wanna talk?” he asked.
I shook my head.
“You want me to talk?”
I shook my head again.
“You want me to come over there, pick you up, carry you upstairs and spank your sexy arse?” he said, quite casually.
I thought about it. Hmmm, actually yes, that does sound like a good idea.
He noticed my pause and made his way to my desk.
“No,” I said quickly, with apprehension and playfulness in my voice. Shit! Too late.