“Shall I say it again? I don’t have a problem repeating myself. And just so you know, I’m damn good. My candids earned me the spot.” She starts to walk away and then stops. “Better yet, I will call Rafe. I’ll ring him right up and let him know how emotionally unstable you are. How you refuse to perform the song and dance for the brass by taking me under your wing. We’ll see how long you last before they yank you out of here for being the goddamn liability that they fear you are.” That victorious smirk of hers returns with a vengeance, and she turns on her heel and stalks out of the office before her words hit home and take hold.
My feet remain rooted in place as I watch her ass sway from side to side down the hall until she turns the corner. Even when she’s gone from sight, I can’t move. My thoughts collide together with her words to shake the sarcasm from them so that I can really hear what she said.
And as much as it pains me to admit it, she’s absolutely right. If I was pissed a minute ago, I’m livid now. I start to move on reflex, pacing without thought because I need to work off some of this anger while I process my thoughts.
The men controlling the strings are actually testing me. Making sure I’m not a liability because I refused to take the time off they requested. I believe sabbatical was the term they used. Well, fuck that.
Do they really think strapping me with some damn rookie and having to teach her the ropes is going to prove my stability? That it will keep me out of the trouble that they obviously believe I caused when everything went down with Stella? And if that’s the case, they’re contradicting themselves by saying I’m fucked up in a sense but meanwhile putting me in charge of teaching a newbie the minefield of reporting out here on what feels like the fringes of civilization.
Damn, it’s like they’re not sure what they want from me. They won’t let me go to CNN because they’re afraid to lose me and my reputation, but at the same time they think I’m about as stable as a fault line.
Yes, what happened to Stella and everything else that went with it messed with my head. She was my best friend, for fuck’s sake. If it didn’t affect me, then they should be worried. But just because I’m having a hard time with it doesn’t mean I can’t do my job effectively.
I went through their circus hoops to get back here. I retrained in all of the protocol I first did what feels like a hundred years ago when I started this career: captive training courses, first aid certification, ethics classes. I did them and then some. Even went to the fucking shrink they asked me to see so she could ask me the same question ten different ways from Sunday to just get the same answer I gave the first time.
Well fuck them. Fuck them and the horse they rode in on weighted down with all their asinine reasons for treating me this way. I’ll prove each and every one of them wrong. I’ll take this babysitting job and still get the best goddamn story out there. Break it first. Prove to them that I’ve still got my mojo.
Decision made. I can play the corporate bullshit game with the best of them. Now I just have to wrap my head around chasing after a woman I’d much rather let run out the damn door. She’s sassy and haughty and she was a one-night stand, but damn it to hell, I’m a man with needs.
I just don’t want one of them to be her.
“This is utterly fucking ridiculous,” I mutter under my breath as I stride down the hallway to try to find the rookie.
I look in the obvious places first and can’t find her. I’m about to walk up to the front desk of the lounge area of the hotel to ask if anyone knows where Beaux’s room is so I can lay down the parameters of this partnership, when something catches my eye across the street from the hotel.
“Fucking hell, woman,” I growl as I shove the entry doors open. The heat hits me like I’m in the center of a furnace, but I don’t give it any reaction because in a few weeks’ time I won’t even notice it. Still, I grumble, pissed that I instantly feel protective of her. While I might try to shrug it off as being a good person, somehow I know it’s more than that.