“That was funny.”
“No. It wasn’t.”
Being driven in an armored limo with bodyguards—three in the limo with me and three in a car behind me—I tried to ignore them on my way to work and figure out a way to end mine and Daniil’s feud. I learned last night when we fight…well, we really fight. He doesn’t like to change his ways and I didn’t like changing mine. So, the battle of wills lasted all night.
My stuff was delivered close to nine o’clock, and I had unpacked my clothes in his closet—more like banged around, throwing stuff—while he scowled from his desk in his living room. At ten, I was tuckered out emotionally and psychically, and seeing him still there glaring at me, I closed the door and locked it, pushing his heavy as sin dresser in front of it.
He heard me grunting, and banged on the door and hollered for a while, but honestly, I hadn’t wanted to sleep with the growling sourpuss. I set the alarm clock and lay on the bed. I knew there were no hidden staircases or hidden doors in his bedroom since he had shown me all of those the middle of last week. After about an hour of curses and Russian spouts, he shut up and left me alone.
I woke up to puke all by myself. Showered all by myself. Even ate breakfast without him since he was passed out on the couch with a tiny blanket over him. I felt like shit now, but I didn’t really know how to end it. And the bad part was I knew I couldn’t until after tonight with the guy who threatened me on the phone. I had to make sure Daniil saw I was serious. And…well, it sucked.
I sighed, lost in my own thoughts. I blinked when I recognized we had pulled up to my work. Daniil had growled through the door last night I would be having three guards with me at all times while the other three hung back.
Right now, I was grateful.
There was a mess of reporters—some I even worked with—in front of my office building and there were also news crews. God, I wasn’t enjoying having a sure-to-be-fired conversation with my editor. I was pretty sure my mom wasn’t the only one getting canned today.
I straightened my navy suit jacket, and pushed some curls behind my ear, and nodded to Trofim—the only guard I thought I’d had previously—and he spoke into an earpiece. The three guards who were driving behind us got out of their car and pushed some of the reporters back before Trofim got out in front of me, the other two, which I hadn’t caught their names yet, following behind me.
I kept my head down as flashes went off and questions were zinged at me from everywhere. I was jostled, but it was only from the bodyguards keeping me on track to the front door, the other three doing a damn fine job of keeping the pushy reporters at bay. And then I heard Micah’s voice as he shouted, “Is it a boy or a girl?”
I glanced in the direction of his voice, tapped Trofim’s shoulder, and pointed to Micah. I wanted a word with him. Trofim made way for Micah, who quickly stepped beside me as we made our way into the building. The only reporters who followed were the ones I worked with.
I stayed silent, and so did Micah, until we got onto the elevator, squeezed between all six bodyguards, and that’s when I stated, “I hope you’re happy, Micah. I’m sure to lose my job today.”
He cocked his head at me. “You don’t need to worry about money with Daniil as your baby’s daddy.”
I turned toward him, pissed off, the bodyguards making room for me. “Don’t even expect to get a word out of me to confirm your fucking article. And I don’t want anyone’s money. I love what I do. I wanted my damn job! I didn’t do a thing wrong, and I’m about to lose it because some snot nosed little upstart decided to make his career from my personal life. I hadn’t realized this before, but I do now. A little word of advice, Micah—not everything should be in print when you ruin someone’s livelihood all because of who they might or might not be sleeping with.” I shook my head at him. “You fucked up and you don’t even realize it.”
His eyebrows rose in a bored manner. “So, are you or are you not pregnant with Daniil’s baby?” He completely ignored what I had just said.
And I was smart enough to know a thing or two. Glaring, I glanced over his shoulder at two of the guards before we hit my floor. Each of them grabbed one of his arms, and he started struggling, but I ignored that and reached inside his jacket pocket, pulling out a tape recorder that was running, recording our conversation. I clicked it off and dropped it to the ground, slamming my heel into it, shattering the thing all over the short gray carpet.
And then ground it in for good measure, hissing at him, “You can go fuck yourself and your damn article. Any possibilities of friendship or contact that we might have been able to start, you just ruined by not listening to someone with a helluva lot more experience than you have. You make friends with the people you write about, not act like they’re an adolescent twit because that gets you nowhere. Get a fucking clue, you dipshit.”
I glanced over his shoulder and nodded at the guards, thanking them for their efforts since he was pretty damn squirrelly in their holds. “Don’t kill him, please.” I had to make sure they knew I wasn’t into that.
One smirked, but they both nodded. I wondered how much bodyguards talked and if they knew about Daniil’s and my argument. They had been standing outside the door to the study like freaking sentinels.
Micah’s eyes went wide at what I said, and I smirked, tapping my temple as the elevator dinged and opened. My three standing bodyguards moved out first and I followed, only one coming out behind me, the other two going to dispose of the ‘trash’ I assumed. My editor was leaning against the wall outside the elevator—not good—and cocked his head glancing through the bodyguards and me, more than likely seeing Micah being restrained inside the elevator.
His lips twitched and he stated, as the doors closed, “I never liked that little bugger. He actually applied here before taking his current position.” His eyes twinkled at me, glancing around at the guards. “You’ve got some interesting friends, I see.”
I cleared my throat. “Clifford, I can explain.”
He nodded, crossing his arms and ankles.
“Can we go inside, perhaps?” I gestured toward the double glass door on our right where tons of activity was already in motion.
“Elizabeth. If we go in there, all of those reporters are going to surround you. You know this.”
I bit my lip. “You aren’t even going to let me clean my desk off, are you?”
He jerked his head to the right.
There, off to the side under a water fountain, was a box full of my personal effects. Feeling tears spring to my eyes, I lowered my head to hide them and stated, “I can work from home. Revise articles. Edit them.”
Clifford snorted. “You’re wonderful at reporting, but I always have to review your work before printing it. Your editing skills are not exactly up-to-par.” I heard him sigh and saw him take a step forward, bending a little to see my face. “Look, Elizabeth, I’m not firing you. I’m just putting you on a temporary leave of absence. There’s no way you can work effectively with this type of upheaval going on.” He cleared his throat. “Things should cool down in a few months.”
