Boss in the Bedsheets - Kate Canterbary Page 0,104

purpose to keeping me around.

Denis replied, "All I had to do was ask my brother to run some checks down at the station. Your new boss doesn't waste any time getting you paid, does he?"

That damn cop brother of his. There wasn't an ethical bridge he wouldn't burn. The arson extended to legal bridges as well.

"Since you weren't returning my texts or calls," Denis continued, "I had to come here for myself. Considering you left town in such a rush and with some critical documents in hand, you left me no choice."

"That's not true," I argued. "I have no reason to keep a single thing of yours."

Denis brought his fingertips to his forehead and muttered a string of ripe profanity, banishing the refined professor act as he curled his hands into fists. It was then I realized this man scared me. Perhaps it hadn't always been that way and perhaps I'd felt this cold tingle before but I'd scribbled over that reaction and renamed it something more innocuous, something less dangerous. He'd been passionate and zealous, short-fused and sensitive. He was a whirlwind, a great, dusty mess of a man. And I'd believed him every time he insisted I didn't comprehend, I wasn't intellectual, I didn't have the acuity for academic work. Oh, and by the way, did I mind gathering all his research, revising all his work, and ultimately drafting his papers for him? Because those little things would really help and what good was I if I couldn't at least help him with the enormous undertaking of it all?

Denis was all of these grand and overpowering things, and I couldn't bear the sight of him anymore because he'd used it against me and then he'd used me. I didn't know much for sure but standing in front of a person who borrowed the most advantageous bits of you for his personal benefit while you both knew the truth was almost as awful as letting yourself be used in the first place.

"She asked you to leave," Ash said. "She was more courteous than required." He reached for the telephone on my desk, tapping out an extension before leveling Denis with a glare. "I'm not asking and the security officers won't be courteous."

Ash kept that glare on Denis while he spoke in hushed tones to the security office. I could feel Denis's temper sparking and everything inside me screamed to move, to go, to get the hell out of the way before he blew up. I knew what that was like and while he had never put a hand on me, words had the power to be just as violent as fists.

But I couldn't move. I wasn't convinced I could breathe.

Ash dropped the headset into the cradle. "You have about ninety seconds to leave before you're forcibly removed. I'd recommend you take this time to exit my office and this building, and never contact Miss Besh again unless you'd like to find yourself the recipient of a restraining order."

I knew the minute the tide turned in Denis. I'd seen it a hundred times if I'd seen it once. The professorial demeanor vanished and in its place was an irritable man who felt the world owed him everything. "This doesn't involve you," he snapped at Ash. "I didn't invite you into this conversation but since you're here, you should know she lied to you. She doesn't know shit about accounting."

"You're vitally incorrect on each of those four points," Ash replied. "Not that I could take you seriously when you've spent the past five minutes on blatant intimidation moves."

Denis shifted and took a step toward me, his hands outstretched and those old familiar eyes of his, the ones that asked for everything and promised the moon in return, flashed hot and desperate. "I know you have it. I'm not leaving until you give it to me."

Ash gave a beastly growl as he blocked Denis from advancing on me. "You must not want this to end peacefully, do you?"

"I don't have it, Denis." A shiver moved through me. "I left everything for you, all of it, even my notes and annotations. The entire outline is there. I put it all on your desk. There's nothing else for you to take from me."

"But it's not finished," he roared. "What the fuck am I supposed to do with half a dissertation?"

I hugged the files to my chest as if they could block his words from permanently lodging in my soft tissue. "You're going to have