“Going somewhere, Miss Stone?” Harrison called out to me from across the room.
“Yes,” I said. “Home.”
“Do you see anyone else going home?”
I didn’t have the energy to look around.
“I need to get some sleep,” was all I could say. “My eyes are burning and my back needs a break.”
“Have you ever heard someone say, Pain is merely weakness leaving the body?”
“No one with actual compassion or brain cells…”
The room somehow fell even quieter, and I could feel everyone staring at me.
Not wanting to wait for whatever came next, I walked out of the café and headed straight for the exit doors.
My hand was on the push bar when Mr. Cross grabbed my waist from behind and spun me around.
“I don’t recall giving you permission to leave, Miss Stone.”
“I’m aware.” I glared at him. “I don’t recall asking for it.”
“This is a two-week project—at minimum—and you’re required to stay as long as everyone else,” he said. “You’ll be dismissed at my discretion.”
“We’ve been on the clock since sunrise.” I refused to back down. “If we keep going much longer, we’ll pass out and accomplish nothing. It’s best to cut our losses now.”
“Have I missed an announcement where you’re the CEO instead of me?”
“You’ve missed being a decent person, but I haven’t held it against you.”
Silence.
He tightened his grip on my waist, narrowing his eyes as the vein in his neck swelled.
“Miss Stone,” he said, his voice terse, “this is a serious project—and you’ll be required to work on it whenever you aren’t doing your usual things for me.”
“You can’t seriously think I’ll be able to handle assistant tasks and do this for weeks…”
“If I didn’t, I wouldn’t have said it,” he replied. “You did say that you were days ahead of everything…unless that was a lie.”
My right hand twitched—ready to give this man the slap he’d long deserved.
“Just so you know, Miss Stone—” He leaned closer, lowering his voice. “The only reason I’m so hard on you is because I believe in you.”
“Don’t patronize me.”
“I’m just repeating a quote your old boss used to say,” he said. “If that’s what it’ll take to get the best out of you, I’ll pull more of those quotes off Pinterest.”
“My old boss believed in human decency, lunch breaks, and compassion.”
“Is that why he never promoted you and left you working out of a cubicle?” He finally let me go. “Get back to the room and get to work.”
“After you tell me thank you.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’ll go back to the room after you tell me thank you.”
