I shake my head to clear the thought. “Rebecca.”
“If you’re going to call me a name, it’s Becs. Not Rebecca.”
“Rebecca, please don’t interrupt me.”
She rolls her eyes at me, sits up on my desk, and throws my shirt to the ground. I should be more upset about a thousand-dollar custom-made shirt being treated like trash, but I would use it to mop the floor if it meant just a taste of those lips.
I shake my head again to remove the crazy unfamiliar thoughts from my mind. I can’t seem to concentrate. What is wrong?
“Fine. You call me Becs, and I’ll call you Bray. Deal?”
“Rebecca,” I say ignoring her request. Becs seems like a name a friend would call her, and my intentions are far from friendly when it comes to her. “If you will please stop interrupting me, I’ll explain that I didn’t get you fired. I had a chat with your boss this morning about your performance at work. For the past few weeks, anytime I’ve tried to talk to you at work, you’ve been cold and distant, even rude. I was worried that something was wrong at home. I only spoke to him to clear things up. I never said you were a problem or that you should’ve been fired. I merely said that I’d noticed a change in your attitude at work and asked if there was any personal reason for the behavior.”
She gives me a skeptical look, and I wait for her judgement. I really was worried about her, she seemed so distant and I missed her sweet smiles. I ached to have them back. I knew her smiles were all I would get from her, and when they stopped, it hurt more than I thought it would.
“Why should I believe that? Because the second I showed up today my ass was canned. Explain why.”
“I don’t know, but if you’d like, you can sit here while I make a call and have you reinstated. I was just checking in and I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
I should have been more careful when I was asking about her. Everyone is always so over-eager to make me happy that I’m sure the manager thought firing her was what I wanted. I wouldn’t have asked the way I had if I’d thought it would have cost her the job.
“Why would you check in on me? It was pretty clear you didn’t think I fit in there.” She throws the last line at me like an accusation, but I don’t know what she means.
I excel at a few things, and reading people is one of them. I look at her face and see the emotions in her eyes. She looks vulnerable, yet strong. I can see she wants to believe me but she’s afraid of it. Her body language shows me she’s confident, but her nervous fingers betray her.
“What do you mean I made that clear? When?” I try to remember ever saying anything like that to her and then it hits me. “Oh, God, no.” I whisper.
“Yeah, I caught that conversation. No big deal, Vanilla. It’s just good to know where I stand.”
“I never meant for you to hear that because it wasn’t true. The woman I was with that day is my ex-partner's wife. She set up a meeting with me to go over some final documents and believe me, if she had seen me show any interest in you, your life would have become hell.”
She looks at me skeptically, but I see hope in her eyes.
“You don’t fit in anywhere.” I say, and see the defeated look cross her face. I don’t know why that would bother her. She’s a rarity. With her beautiful big eyes that are almost purple in color. Her short white-blonde hair with its color streaks of lavender and pink. A punk rock Tinkerbell is the only way I can describe her. I’ve never seen anyone so different, and breathtakingly beautiful.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for you to hear that, but that woman is evil and I didn’t need her knowing how important you were to me.”
A little smile plays on the corner of her mouth at my confession, and I could kick my own ass for admitting that.
I want to fix this situation. I want to go back to getting my sweet smiles when I get my coffee in the lobby, so I sift through my mental checklist on how to resolve this problem.
“Would you like your job back? I could solve this problem with one phone call, but you seem intent on making a scene and offering your body instead.” My cock jerks at the reminder that I could have her, that I could own her.
She hops off my desk and moves closer to me. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to go back to work for that asshole after he offered up a blow job for some cash.”
Rage floods my veins instantly and I take a step forward, putting us just centimeters apart. The emotion she can provoke in me in seconds is unsettling, and thrilling all at once. I’ve spent my whole life trying not to feel anything towards anyone. I can feel the heat coming off her body and I don’t know if my anger or desire is stronger. “He said what?”