Happily Enemy After (Hawthorne Brothers 2)

“Bullshit. You’ve been treating me like an outsider, like an amateur, like crap, like—”

“A bug that needs to be squished?” he finishes the sentence. “Or is that too harsh?”

I frown. I knew it. This is personal.

“I’m going to report you to HR,” I tell him.

Asher doesn’t look the least bit perturbed.

“Say hi to Gina for me, will you? She’s the woman in her fifties with the red hair, eyeglasses with cords and the crazy earrings. Looks like your stereotypical librarian. But don’t get fooled. She’s very good with computers. And very sweet.”

My eyebrows furrow. Why is he telling me this?

“Oh, and while you’re there, why don’t you hand in your resignation?”

“What?”

“You’re clearly stressed, overwhelmed even, by your job. Like I said, if you can’t handle it, you can just quit. I think you should.”

I glare at him. “It’s not my job that stresses or overwhelms me, and you know it. You’re the one who’s making everything difficult for me.”

He grins. “I’m the boss. It’s my job to make things difficult for everyone.”

“I don’t see you yelling at anyone else about how to do their jobs.”

“That doesn’t mean I don’t or didn’t. Maybe this is just how I treat anyone who’s new to my department. An initiation. A baptism of fire, so to speak.”

I shake my head. “I don’t think so. This is personal and you know it, Asher.”

“I believe you’re supposed to call me Mr. Hawthorne,” he says. “And no. It’s not personal, Ms. Cleary. Is it?”

“You know it is,” I answer through gritted teeth.

There’s no way he can convince me it isn’t.

Asher taps his fingers on the table. “You think I’m doing all this to punish you for something you did in the past? I would never do that, Ms. Cleary. I would never let something that happened in the past mess up the present. Or the future.”

And yet he’s doing exactly that.

“I haven’t done anything wrong. You were the one who left me at that party. No. You left me in a gazebo. I could have frozen to death.”

“And I said sorry.”

“Which you didn’t mean.”

“I did mean it,” he argues. “You just didn’t want to accept it.”

“So you’re punishing me? I refused to forgive you, which isn’t a crime. In fact, it’s my prerogative. You’re the one who can’t accept that. You can’t even respect it. Instead, you decided to make my life here at work hell.”

I scratch my head. Can’t Asher see how stupid that sounds?

He crosses his arms over his chest. “Like I said, I’m not punishing you, Ms. Cleary. But if you feel like you’re being punished, if you personally feel like you can’t get along with me, if you feel like you can’t take all this anymore, you’re free to go.”

Why does he keep saying that? I don’t want to quit. If I quit, I lose everything. He wins.

“I’m not going anywhere!”

“Right. Because you want to be CFO eventually.”

I draw a breath to calm myself down. “Is that a crime? So you’re punishing me for that, too?”

“If that’s the case, Ms. Cleary, then I suggest you stick to getting your job done. Perfectly. As long as you do, I will have no complaints.”

Yeah, right.

“I might even be convinced to give you a reward. See. I’m an excellent boss. You should be glad to be working under me.”

He gives me a final grin that makes my stomach churn and my hands clench into fists. Then he leaves. As soon as he’s gone, I grab my pen and throw it at the door. Then I sink into my chair and grip my hair in frustration.

That… that… fucking jerk! I don’t know why Stella said he’s a good person, but I definitely don’t see it. He’s a scumbag. He’s a monster. He’s the devil.

Du lusche! Du hurensohn!

I should never have come here to work for him.

I let out a deep breath and bury my face in my arms on top of the desk.

This is the worst.Chapter ThreeAsher

“This is the best martini you’ve made so far, Glenn,” I praise the bartender after gulping down the last of the gin and dry vermouth in my glass.

Then I grab the toothpick and let both of the olives slide into my mouth.

“And these olives are just divine. Are you getting them somewhere new?”

“From a jar with a different name on it,” Glenn answers.

I chuckle and turn to Ryker, my younger brother, who’s seated beside me. “Did you know our bartender was so funny?”

“Well, he does need to shake things up every now and then,” Ryker answers before taking a sip of his gin tonic.

“Haha. You’re funny, too.”

He narrows his eyes at me. “You only noticed that now?”

“Well, you always seem so serious.”

“No, not always. I just have to act like the adult when I’m around you.”

I laugh and signal to Glenn to make me another martini. He nods.