From me.
Okay. Go easy. Don’t freak.
I stare at him for a long moment, repeating that mantra in my head, but he won’t even look at me.
Wonderful.
I hate how badly I want to march across the room, grab him by the shoulders, and shake him with a shrill, terrible question flying out of me. Can’t you see you’re killing yourself?
You’re killing me...
“Okay, Dad,” I whisper. “Fine. Let’s just finish dinner and we can talk about it later.”
He glares away from me mutinously. After a tense moment, he reluctantly picks up his fork and starts stabbing at bites of roast.
Good. A little food can help fortify his beat-up body. Anything helps.
I know it’s just a Band-Aid on a gushing wound, but it’s better than nothing.
I can hardly taste my own dinner now. It’s gone sandy in my mouth.
And I almost welcome my phone buzzing from my purse like a hornet. I reach over to the arm of the couch to dig it out of a side pocket and see who it is.
I’m sorry, Miss Landry.
Yeah, who else?
I don’t know if I’m ready to breathe fire or to curl up and cry, but I can’t stop the bitter sting of frustration in the back of my throat.
For what? I fire back, stabbing at the screen. That’s a pretty vague not apology.
I expect something smarmy, mocking, superior.
What comes back is oddly...gentle.
That’s the only way I can describe it.
Roland: I let my problems overshadow your right to privacy. I put you in potential danger with Vance Haydn, and then let my concerns over that threat make me act like a juvenile.
That’s what led to my intrusion into your personal life. No excuses.
I was afraid for you, Callie. And I was a reckless asshole because of it. I’m sorry. I’ll be staying out of your life going forward. You—and your father—have nothing to fear.
Holy hell.
Too many feelings riot through me.
Anger, fury, frustration that he couldn’t just...let me do my job.
Relief, because he recognizes why I was so mad that he came anywhere close to Dad.
Mistrust, wondering if he’ll keep his word or if he’s just trying to yank my guard down.
And the oddest wish, that I could believe him.
That he could be something besides an egomaniac with the bedside manner of a sleep-deprived tiger.
That he could care about my well-being. My safety.
Enough that it made him irrational, made him do things he normally wouldn’t.
I can’t.
I can’t go all damsel in distress, falling for my so-called hero when he’s antihero incarnate.
Jesus. He’s the one who put me in that situation to start with!
Since I can’t settle on a single emotion, I decide to punch in a response that still feels like an anvil on my shoulders when I hit Send.
I’ll hold you to that, Osprey. We’ll discuss my sources when I’m back in the office.
There’s a pause before my phone jumps in my tensed fingers again—and ugh, I’m breathless the whole time.
Yes, it’s pathetic.
But misery loves company and today’s agony could fill a stadium.
Roland: Take the rest of this week off. Focus on your work. Next week, block out an afternoon to meet with me. The new features from the gala event are launching on Tuesday, so perhaps Wednesday would be best.
I squint at my phone suspiciously.
Who is this lunatic ordering me not to work and what has he done with Roland Osprey?
What’s this about? Really? I text back.
Roland: Not Haydn. I promise. We’ll look at metrics and discuss how it shapes reader engagement—and your future at Just Vibing.
I know it’s not a threat.
I know it’s just a strategy meeting, an assessment of how my content resonates and what we should do with the results.
So why does it feel so ominous?
Why the hell does it feel like this raging bosshole could care about my career, my well-being...about me?
10
Easy to Play, Harder to Feel (Roland)
I’d like to say that the better part of a solid week away from Callie Landry restored my equilibrium.
It hasn’t.
I’d like to pretend I don’t feel lower than an absolute shitheel for barging into her private life.
I can’t.
I’d definitely like to believe I can break my new addiction to jerking off to her every night when I’m showering, remembering how she looked that night with my spy pin in her hair—good enough to devour in one bite.
Good fucking luck.
She hasn’t sent me so much as a single fuck you message.
Without her mouth, her sass, her color, my mornings have gone monochrome.
Perhaps I grew too accustomed to knowing where she is like the stalker lunatic I am, this brightness I could always catch in my peripheral vision as I move through The Tea’s offices.
Dammit, I know.
I know it was the right thing to do, to end her time shadowing my staff. It was high past time to sever my growing obsession with her mouth and everything that comes out of it.