“You don’t owe me anything. Like I said, I am over everything that happened. But yes, we can grab that coffee sometime.”
“Perhaps you could plan that coffee date when I am not paying you by the hour,” I heard a different, angrier voice say. Zayden was standing in front of us, looking about ready to commit murder. I had never seen him this angry before. Not even when he was yelling on the phone the other day. My knees trembled and I looked over at Rick. He looked petrified, his face turning pale white.
“I’m sorry,” he was saying in the voice of a mouse. “I did not mean to distract her from her job.”
“You know who I am?” Zayden said, his eyes almost red.
“Duh. Most people do around here. I’m Richard Kruz. A friend of Aria’s.”
“I don’t care if you’re the mother of Jesus. If you need to flirt with my employees, do it on your own time. Now please leave the premises of my building before I call security.”
Rick looked like he was about to throw up and muttered another “sorry” before strutting out of the building. If I wasn’t so terrified myself, I would be laughing hard at the look on his face. He definitely deserved this.
“You,” Zayden snapped. “In my office. Now.”
He had never spoken to me like that, and now my amusement and fear was starting to turn into anger. God, he was being an ass. I followed him to his office, rage spreading through my body.
“Close the door behind you,” he said in the same angry tone.
I complied, if for no other reason than to avoid a scene. There was never a good time to be chastised by Zayden Sinclair, but the worst time ever would be during the middle of the day at both our workplaces with everyone listening as they pretended to work.
It would be difficult to continue to keep my cool if he kept acting this way though.
Chapter 6
Zayden
I couldn’t justify the intense anger I felt in that moment. Just looking at her face was making me want to throw something out the window, and it had taken all the reserve I could muster not to punch that college punk in the face for daring to flirt with her right in front of my eyes.
“Who the fuck was that?” I snapped bitterly.
“I won’t answer until you ask again,” she said defiantly. “More politely.”
The nerve she had to tell me what the fuck to do was pissing me off! I closed my eyes and took a few deep breaths. She wasn’t going to make this easy, and the angrier I got, the more I needed to find out who that kid was, so he could be banned from the bank premises forever.
“Aria, who was that guy that you agreed to go on a coffee date with??
?
“First of all, if you had been listening without the intention of hearing whatever you wanted to, you would realize it’s not a date. We specifically had a conversation about just being friends, and I very calmly and nicely rejected all his other advances.”
“Too nicely. You should have told him to fuck off. I’m going to ask again, who was he?”
She sighed. “Calm down, Zayden. It’s nobody important.”
“It obviously is if you are making plans with him.”
“I make plans with Nick all the time. You know, my roommate, who you thought I was also screwing. That doesn’t bother you.”
“He’s dating your friend. I hardly have anything to worry about there.”
“And you hardly have anything to worry about here either. You heard the whole conversation!”
“I saw how he was looking at you. I know that look… it’s the same one I give you all the time.” I tried to keep my voice from sounding betrayed and pathetic, but I suspected I wasn’t doing a superb job of it.
“Rick is the very last guy on Earth I would ever get involved with, I promise you.”
That name sounded familiar. After our first night she had said something about a Dick… I was half passed out from cumming, but I had heard her say something about something about a guy named Dick… Rick. And then it hit me.