Page 112 of Twisted Knight

Just fucking no.

Tears threaten. Burn behind my eyes and in my throat.

I don’t bother to knock. I simply barge into Holden’s office without warning and slam the door at my back. And, of course, he’s sitting behind his desk with a broad grin on his face and an arrogant glint in his eyes.

“How dare you?”

“How dare I what?” He chuckles, dismissing my anger. “Take too long to get back here? Sunshine, if you were that desperate for me we could have met offsite and—”

My laugh sounds on the verge of hysterical. “This was all a game to you, wasn’t it? Occupy my time, my head, my bed,” I whisper yell, “to distract me while you were professionally fucking me over. Congrats, it worked. You just played me. Lesson learned. I won’t make the mistake again.” I can’t stand still. I move, pace, too restless, too angry to do anything else.

“Rowan. What are you—”

“Whatever we had is done. Over. Fucking finished.”

“Enough.” His voice thunders around the space but falls dead on my ears.

“My whole department?” I shriek. “Every single one of them?”

It’s the first time Holden’s expression falters as he rises from his seat and moves across the room to me. “I like a riddle as much as the next guy, but you’ve got to give better clues because I’m sitting here thinking I’m going to get laid one minute and now I’m fucking lost.”

“Laid? After the backhanded shit you just pulled?”

He reaches out to put his hands on my biceps, but I immediately jerk my arms from his grasp. “Don’t touch me.” I glare, my chest heaving and heart hurting. “Just when I started to really like you. Just when I thought you were a decent human being—”

“The two aren’t mutually exclusive.”

“Go to hell.”

“Watch your step, Rowan.”

“Watch my step? You’re the one who sabotaged my long-term graphic designer. You’re the one who just fired the four people in my department. You’re the one—”

“The one who has no fucking clue what you’re talking about.”

For the first time his words register through my anger. His lost expression finishes selling the point.

“Rowan.” The force with which he says my name breaks through my haze of fury. “Start from the beginning. Explain. Now.”

“I came back from a meeting to find my department empty. Not just empty but desks packed up, personal belongings taken, employees gone. Like, never coming back, gone.”

The disbelief is still fresh and shocking. The high I was riding after our sexy text exchange, then my very productive meeting offsite vanished when I walked in and was blindsided by the news. The emptiness.

“What?” he all but shouts.

“Don’t act so fucking shocked. According to Alicia, she said Rhett’s explanation was that orders came from the top. That we were making cuts and my department was the first to get hit.” I glare at him, my arms crossed over my chest, and my stomach twisted in knots.

Marjorie is eight months pregnant. Michele works her ass off all day to run home and take care of her sick mother. Ralph just bought a house. They all need their paychecks and benefits. They all did a phenomenal job.

Holden stands there with the muscle pulsing in his jaw and his teeth gritting. His eyes flash dangerously dark, and his tone, when he speaks, has me drawing back. “And you believe Alicia?” he asks. “You think I’d go back on my word from that first meeting when I said the day-to-day staff is safe?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore,” I whisper.

“I had nothing to do with this,” he states.

I study him and worry if I’ve convinced myself Holden Knight is the man I want him to be and not the man he really is. That I’m jaded by the good sex and softening feelings toward him.

I want to believe him.