Casual Affair

His head whipped around, his feet halting their paddling. She was surprised he looked so taken aback.

“I admit I can be a bit high-handed at times, but—”

“High-handed!” she said on a mirthless laugh. “Zane, I can’t so much as answer my phone at the store without you hovering over me, ensuring I’m not making any decisions without you.”

His eyes narrowed, his expression turning uncertain. “What are you saying? That I’m overbearing?”

“Maybe not overbearing so much as controlling.” He started to shake his head, but she waved him off. “You insist on overseeing every minute detail. It makes me wonder why you bother hiring employees at all if you end up doing all the work yourself. It’s no surprise all you’ve done is work since you moved here. With the way you check on everything and verify it twice, it’s shocking you have a life outside of work, at all.”

“I call it managing,” he retorted.

“Yeah, but there’s a thing called delegating. Besides, you hired Felicity and me to do a job. That’s why you brought us on, because you supposedly trusted us with the task. But every time we turn around, there you are disagreeing with me about something, or throwing in your opinion after we’d already gone in another direction.”

His jaw ticked and he looked away. But not before his eyes had grown thoughtful. She hoped she hadn’t overstepped her bounds. But seriously. Had no one ever told him this stuff before?

“So, you’re saying I need to back off?” he asked in a subdued voice.

She tucked her hair behind her ear as she pondered how to answer. “Maybe a little. Part of being a good manager is trusting the people around you to do their jobs. I’m just saying your micromanaging makes it a little difficult—and a lot frustrating—at times to do our job the way we feel comfortable.”

“Why haven’t you said anything before now?”

A couple standing by the water’s edge taking a kissing selfie caught her attention. A feeling of longing swept over her as she watched them, one she couldn’t explain.

“Every time I tried, I just ended up getting mad at you,” she said. “Felicity kept telling me to let it go because she didn’t want me to piss you off enough that we would lose the account. I think I’ve mentioned these paychecks are really helping us pay off our business loan. But the point is…” She thought about her choice of words for a second. “You just don’t always have to control everything.”

He turned back to her, an eyebrow raised. “This coming from the woman who stomps her foot anytime she doesn’t get her way?”

Her spine stiffened, her defenses rising. “I do not. I just have strong opinions.”

His loud laughter was annoying. She wondered how mad he would be if she pushed him into the water.

“And an independent streak a mile wide,” he said. “Did you ever consider that maybe you also need to let go a little and trust in others?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

He angled his head toward her, and the sun caught on the natural golden highlights in his hair. “Just that you’re so bound and determined to do everything yourself—to prove that you can do it all by yourself—that you forget to ask for help when you actually need it.”

“I do n—”

“And then you get angry when someone tries to step in. We’re actually quite similar in that regard, if you think about it. We just have different motivations, I suppose.”

The one thing she was not in the mood for in that moment was psychoanalysis. She wanted to get off that particular subject immediately. And the brilliant way she did that was by reverting to her fifteen-year-old self.

“You’re annoying, you know that?” she muttered.

He grinned as he resumed paddling. “So I’ve been told. But I think you’ll agree there have been a few particular instances when I was anything but annoying.” He looked over and winked at her, laughing at her instant scowl. “I thought so. Women go insane for the Zane. It can be a curse, really.”

She gaped at him. “You did not just rhyme.”