Unbreak My Heart (Rough Riders Legacy #1)(18)
But I wanted it now with Sierra.
“No, I understand. But Greg led me to believe we’d discuss this when he returned next week. I wasn’t aware you were looped in and to be honest, I do have an issue with it.” She scowled. “No. I do not need to bring up my concerns with the CEO, who is my father, but I’ll also remind you that he is your boss and he does have more important things to do than deal with the security breach in your department.” Pause. “You brought it to my attention. We’re dealing with it today. Call Mr. Avila’s office and set up a meeting. I’ll have my assistant follow up in thirty minutes.” She ended the call and tossed the phone aside.
“Problems?”
“Greg the misogynist dick-cunt gave his f*cking junior assistant a task list before he slithered off on vacation. Not only am I not ever under the supervision of a junior assistant, this little f*ckwad thinks because Greg constantly remarks about me ‘running’ to my father with problems that he can too. Junior asslicker isn’t supposed to have the information that he’s following up on anyway. But it is a breach of protocol and now I have to speak with Greg’s supervisor, who respects me even less than Greg.”
“Dick-cunt?”
She glanced up with a sheepish smile. “The term covers both sexes insult-wise, so I can assure myself I’m not sexist.”
I laughed.
She shoved her plate of half-eaten cheesecake aside and drained her Red Bull. “I have to return to the office.”
“I figured. You don’t want a to-go box for that?”
She shook her head. “I lost my appetite.”
I refused to let her pay for lunch.
She was on her phone almost the entire drive back. After pulling up to the main entrance, she turned toward me. “Any questions?”
“I want to see you again.”
“Any questions about Phoenix,” she reiterated.
“I want to see you again in Phoenix someplace besides your office.”
“That wasn’t a question. That was a demand.”
I shrugged. “We still need to have that talk.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Boone.”
Fuck. That. I leaned across the console. “It sucked hanging out with me today so much that you don’t want to do it again?”
“This was about business. That’s the only reason I agreed to help you.”
“Sierra, you are so full of shit. Be honest with me, for Christsake.” Like you’re being honest with her?
She opened her mouth—I braced myself for her denial, but she exhaled loudly. “Okay. Maybe it didn’t suck hanging out with you. Even when you f*cked around with my radio because you still have crap taste in music. But I have other things—business things—to focus on today, so can you cut me some slack, please?”
“Sure.” Maybe she’d grant me a break when I told her the reason I was pushing so hard to talk was so I could tell her the truth about how long I’d be in Phoenix. “Just understand I’ll jerk on that slack line and haul you in if it goes on too long.” I reached for the one section of hair that always ended up stuck to the corner of her mouth. “Thanks for taking time for me today and giving me a glimpse into the world you live in now. I always knew you’d do great things, Sierra Daniels McKay.” I twisted her hair around my finger and let it uncoil. “Brains and beauty and ambition. Intimidating for a lowly army grunt like me.”
Sierra’s gaze cut to my mouth. Her eyes heated. She parted her lips. All clear signs she wanted me to kiss her.
I had the control of a f*cking saint, not yanking her forward and planting my mouth on hers.
A f*cking saint.
Then she head-butted me and said, “Get out of my car, grunt. I’ve got names to take and asses to kick.”
“See you around, McKay.”
After two spectacularly shitty days at work, it was Friday night and I deserved to get my drink on.
With Greg’s absence this week I thought I’d have a reprieve from the corporate crap. No such luck. I wish I could’ve taped the conversations as proof that men were as catty and cutting as women. Worse maybe.
At one point I had to bite my tongue to keep from demanding that Greg’s junior assistant, Peterson, drop his trousers so I could affirm that he did, indeed, have balls. I’d never dealt with such a whiner. He expected management to listen raptly as he relayed how his coworkers’ actions made him “feel.” Evidently his emotional outbursts didn’t make him feel like a whiny douchebag who needed his ass kicked. That’s when I’d drifted into my Fight Club fantasy and imagined choking him out with my knee in the spot where his balls used to be.
The one upside to the week—besides seeing Boone twice—was using my frustration to move mountains. Literally. Lu had claimed a corner of the backyard as a place to showcase her landscaping design work. I agreed to buy the raw materials but we had to take delivery of the truckload of river rock on Wednesday. Between Lu’s classes and her job, she didn’t have time to fill a wheelbarrow, push it across the yard, dump it and repeat two hundred more times. Not really that many times, but it’d sure felt like it. Surprisingly, physical labor turned out to be awesome therapy for me—better than baking. Anger gone, muscles so sore I fell into a near coma after soaking in the hot tub. Plus, I had actually shocked my normally unflappable roommate. She’d expected to come home to a pile of muffins, cookies, pies, cheesecake and brownies—baking was my go-to stress reliever.