The silence was deafening before he cool, calm, and collected voice stood the hairs up on the back of my neck. “You have work to be doing, Miss Becca, and if you fall behind there will be a serious punishment waiting for you. You left loose ends before you headed out on your sorry excuse for a vacation, and I had to field your damn director the entire time you were gone because she still doesn’t have everything she needed to get her own fucking job done.”
“Sounds like an issue with her and not with me.”
“Are you trying to lose your job right now?”
I perched on the edge of my mattress. “Mr. Ryker, I get that you and my sister--.”
But he cut me off with a hiss. “You listen here, and you listen good: get your ass into work and finish what you started or so help me God, I will fire you and blacklist you across every industry and every company that might even someday need your services. You got that?”
I was much too tired to keep arguing. “Tell my Director to come in as well. I want her walking me through everything that has to be done so that I can get it done tonight, because if I hear about this again in the tone of voice you’re using I will most certainly be reporting you to the B.B.B. Do you hear that?”
I heard him typing on a keyboard in the background. “Done. Get in here and wrap up the mess you left.”
And once he hung up the phone, all of my frustration and anger and anxiety came rushing forth.
“God fucking damn it!” I roared.
I stood up and threw my phone at the wall, only to watch it shatter into a million pieces. I sank to the floor in tears, placing my head in my hands as I sobbed. With my work phone in tatters and my body literally dragging against the floor because of my exhaustion, all I wanted was to quit, run away, and live as a bartender in Italy or some shit like that.
But, after a good cry, I picked myself up off the floor, gathered my things, and headed into work.
* * *
I figuredBecca would’ve come up here and poked her head in before getting to work, but after over an hour of no one coming to visit my office, I decided to make my way downstairs. And with God as my witness, if she wasn’t in her fucking office she’d be done for.
However, when I peered through the small window of her office door, I saw much more than I bargained for.
“Jesus, she looks like shit,” I whispered.
Bonnie sat at her side while the two of them poured over the last of the file folders she had left stacked on her desk. My personal accountant kept looking over at Becca with this sorrowful look on her face and I wondered where the hell she had gone on her vacation. I mean, sure, I signed off on the paperwork, but I didn’t exactly look it over.
Shit, maybe she went to see her family.
The second Becca lifted her head to look at Bonnie, however, my gut leapt into my throat. Her eyes were red and puffy, and I’d laid enough women in my lifetime to know exactly what that meant. I mean, not that they cried after fucking around with me. But it wasn’t like I hadn’t tried dating them at one point in time or another. I knew what it looked like when a woman kept trying to hold back tears long enough to get something done.
And that’s exactly what Becca looked like.
“Shit,” I murmured.
I slid my hands into my pockets and made my way back to my office. The last thing she needed was more pushing from me, and with Bonnie at her side I knew they’d get through the work before they left. So, I took the stairs back up to my floor and kept my nose to myself.
And a couple of hours later, a knock came at my door.
“Mr. Ryker?”
I whipped my head up at the sound of Becca’s voice. “Come in.”
She eased the door open with a stack of files tucked beneath her arm. “I have everything you need.”
I grinned. “You do, now? Come in. Close the door behind you.”
She did as I asked before she came to drop the folders onto my desk. Then, she flopped back into the chair in front of me and let her head lean back. And for a split second, she was no longer my co-worker, or some stain on my memory.
She was just a person in need of some comfort.
“Sorry, I just need to rest my eyes for a second,” she said softly.
I leaned back. “No worries. I appreciate you coming in to get this done.”
