Rule's Addiction(28)

Maria stood to her feet and pasted on a smile. “It’s all right, I’ll handle him, okay?”

Beth looked relieved. “Are you sure?”

“Of course, don’t worry. This isn’t about you. Go back to work.”

As Maria headed in the direction of Garrett’s office, Beth went back to her station at the front. Trying to contain the fury racing through her veins, Maria walked into his office and shut the door with a silent click, and then turned, leaned against it and waited for him to raise his head from the document he was perusing.

After a long moment went by, she realized he knew that it wasn’t Beth in his office, and now he was blatantly ignoring her, or possibly, playing some sort of demented game, waiting for her to speak first.

She accommodated his wish without hesitation. “I think it’s time for you to go back to St. Louis,” she said without inflection.

He immediately raised his head and seared her with a look that spoke volumes. His expression clouding with fury, he bit out contemptuously, “What, exactly, makes you think you have the right to tell me what to do?” He continued to stare and then bit out way too softly, “Who do you think you are?”

An abrupt chill hung between them at his question. Refusing to allow a river of hurt to unfold at his callous words, she focused on the tide of rage seething inside. “I can do this job with my eyes closed and you know it. There’s no reason for you to be here anymore. You’re unbalancing the operation . . . you’re upsetting Beth. You can’t keep pulling her from the reservation desk. It can’t continue to go unmanned the way it’s been today.”

He swiveled his chair and stood to his feet, a glowering mask of condemnation reflected on his face. “I’m warning you. You best be careful what you say to me.”

For some reason, insanity perhaps, she wasn’t scared of his threats, at least not as far as her job was concerned. He could rant and rave and threaten all he wanted. For some inexplicable reason, she knew her job was secure, no matter what the personal outcome between them turned out to be. Being secure in that knowledge, it made it easy for her to continue fighting with him. “Seriously, Garrett. You need to pack your shit and leave. Go to the Keys or to St. Louis or wherever the hell you want, but there’s no damn reason for you to stay here.”

His hand lashed out in hostility. “There’s every fucking reason for me to stay here and you don’t get a vote in the matter, understand?”

Maria steeled her insides. “What reason?” she shouted. “What possible reason do you have?”

There was a pause of only about one second before he exploded. “You, goddammit!”

A sudden ridiculous, horrible, inappropriate thrill shot down her spine and rippled through her bloodstream. That he would voice the admission out loud shocked her silly. Why, she didn’t really know. But she never expected him to admit to the reason he continued to hang around, not in a million years, even if she’d known the truth deep down. And now, as he began stalking toward her with punitive, sexual intent blazing from his eyes, she was damn sorry she’d opened what was quite obviously, a can of worms. She breathed deeply for a moment, until she realized she only had a second left before he reached her.

She took it and ran, turning and escaping from his office, slamming the door behind her.

She thought about running upstairs, running somewhere, but she didn’t. She took a stabilizing breath and walked as calmly as she could and sat down behind her desk. Running her hands over the keyboard, by rote she pulled up the next month’s reservation calendar and pretended to study it.

The door to his office clicked open and without looking up from her computer screen, she was aware that he came to stand directly in front of her desk.

Her eyes stayed glued to her screen as he placed his palms on the edge of her desk and leaned into them. “Don’t question my actions, Maria.” His voice was harsh, pissed, and Maria slid her eyes over and saw that his fingers were pushing down so hard on her desk that his knuckles had turned white. Two of those fingers had been inside of her last night. Her heart beating wildly with the thought, she surreptitiously slid her eyes back to her screen as he continued even more antagonistically, “You want the right to question my actions? You want the right to have a fucking input into my life? Don’t tell me to stay out of your panties. Denying me what I want won’t ever get you close enough to have an input.”

With that, he turned around and stalked from the offices altogether.

Maria took her hands from the keyboard and leaned back in her chair. Somewhere in the pit of her stomach, she knew that her day of reckoning wasn’t going to be avoided for much longer. She let out a breath she hadn’t even realized she was holding . . . and silently admitted that the river of lust she felt for him couldn’t be held behind the dam much longer anyway.