Amber shrugged. “Does it matter?” she asked flatly. “I mean, it’s over now. There’s no reason to fight about it any longer. I think we can just put it behind us and move on.”
“Amber,” he said, “I want you to feel comfortable around me. You don’t need to tiptoe or pretend that everything’s all right. Trust me, I know a thing or two about hiding your real feelings. I know how easy it is to do. But I don’t want you to have to do that in your own house.”
“It’s not my house, though,” she said, and that fighting spirit he admired reemerged. “It’s yours.”
Then the fight died again. She glanced away. “Sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”
Cillian shook his head. “No, you were perfectly fine to say it,” he said. “But I hope that you think differently someday. I want you to like it here, and I want you to feel at home.”
She gave a strained, uneasy smile and glanced away. “We’ll see,” she said.
Chapter 10 - Amber
“Unbelievable,” a harsh voice spat. “I would expect better service from the staff here, especially considering how much I had to pay for this. At those prices, I expect perfection. I would have assumed you knew how to follow specifications, but apparently that’s beyond you.”
Amber slowed as she walked past the counter with the bouquet of roses, her ears pricked. The customer wasn’t exactly being quiet, but she had to strain to hear Alex’s nervous stammering. Glancing over, her brow furrowed in concern when she noticed how uncertain Alex looked, how nervous and unhappy. Frowning, Amber slowed, tilting her head to listen better.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” Alex said to the woman. “But I thought you wanted purple.”
“Are you blind?” the woman snapped. “These are clearly blue. They aren’t purple. If you can’t do your job, then you should at least have the decency to find me someone who can.”
Hurt filled Alex’s eyes. She swallowed and glanced away. Amber watched with growing ire as Alex began to flush.
“These are labeled as purple, ma’am,” Alex murmured.
“I don’t care. You have eyes, don’t you? You should be able to tell the difference between the two.”
Alex bit her lip. Her eyes met Amber’s, then moved away as if she were embarrassed. Amber’s lips tightened, her eyes narrowing. If anyone should be embarrassed by this, it was the woman currently berating Alex, feeling safe on the customer side of the counter, entitled to bully whomever she pleased.
Well, Amber wasn’t going to have any of that. Marching around the counter, she plopped the flowers onto the counter, then nudged Alex to the side to take her place in front of the woman.
The customer looked Amber over with a disdainful glance. That smug certainty faded when she took in Amber’s expression. She didn’t shrink back, but a stony harshness spread across her face as she realized she was about to face an opponent she wouldn’t be able to push over as easily as Alex.
“Excuse me,” Amber said, glowering at the woman. “But out of curiosity, ma’am, what planet are you from?”
The woman’s jaw dropped; her eyes narrowed. “I beg your pardon?”
“It’s just that these are definitely purple, and so I’m wondering if maybe there’s been some misunderstanding. Maybe blue and purple are different from wherever you came from, but here, these are purple. ”
The woman frowned. She began to speak again. Amber held up her hand, her eyes burning. She was tired of people bullying defenseless people they knew couldn’t fight back. She wasn’t going to put up with it. Not today.
Amber’s smile grew wider at the woman’s indignant expression. “Or maybe it’s that you wanted to push around someone who isn’t going to fight back, and now that someone with a backbone is talking to you and you realize they aren’t going to put up with your bull, you’ll decide to back down.”
The woman gaped like she’d just been slapped. Pink flickered across her cheeks. “You can’t speak to a customer like that,” the woman stammered.
Amber adopted a confused expression. “I can’t?” she asked, her voice going an octave higher. “Goodness.”
Splotches of pink flickered across the woman’s face. “Where’s your supervisor?” she demanded.
“I am the supervisor,” Amber said.
“Not for long.” The woman drew herself up in righteous fury, a smug smile spreading across her face. “If you don’t apologize in the next thirty seconds, then I’m going to report you.”
Instead of responding, Amber took a step back, twisting her head to glance up at the clock ticking over a shelf of planters.
“What are you doing now?” the woman hissed.
“I’m waiting thirty seconds before responding,” Amber said, and her smirk changed to a frown, eyes burning again. “Because I’m not apologizing for standing up for a coworker when someone chews them out for no reason. I don’t know what made you wake up this morning and decide to antagonize a random woman at work when she can’t stand up for herself, and I don’t particularly care. You’re not going to get away with that here. So either go report me to the boss, buy your obviously purple flowers, or get out.”
