My mother’s assistants were glued to whatever was going on in her office and didn’t see me approach.
I muttered a greeting, startling the guy so badly he sloshed water down the front of his checkered shirt.
“Oh, Mr. Russo, your mother is in a meeting,” the less terrified assistant—Gina or Ginny—said, rising as I reached for the door handle.
My mother laughed at whoever was sitting across the desk from her.
I frowned. “Who’s in there?”
“Uh. Um. A new hire,” the damp assistant squeaked, patting himself dry with napkins.
I hadn’t heard Mom laugh like that in a long time.
They were standing now, and I decided it was as good a time as any to interrupt.
“Speak of the devil,” Mom said when I stepped into her office.
The other woman turned around. She was smiling.
She was… here?
“No,” I growled.
I heard a thud behind me and assumed the nervous assistant had fallen over trying to eavesdrop.
“Oh. Yeah,” FU pizza girl said smugly.
“No,” I said again, shaking my head.
“Dominic, meet Ally. Ally is joining our admin pool. Ally, Dominic is our creative director here at Label.”
“A word, Mother,” I said. She couldn’t just dole out jobs to people who were too rude to keep them. She’d already hit her quota with me.
“I’m sorry, darling. I don’t have time. Be a dear and show Ally to HR,” she said, picking up the phone. “Get me Naomi.”
We were dismissed. But I was going to have several words with my mother at her earliest convenience.
I stopped by the assistants’ desk and took a stab at her name. “Gina, schedule me an appointment with my mother at her earliest convenience. Tell her it’s a budgetary meeting so she doesn’t try to cancel it.”
She blinked at me. Her mouth opened and then closed. Shit. I should have gone with Ginny.
“Is there a problem?”
“You know my name.”
“Of course I know your name,” I snapped, secretly relieved.
“You’re a real man of the people, Charming,” Ally said dryly behind me.
I turned on her. “Don’t bother getting comfortable here,” I warned her.
“Or what? You’ll ruin another job for me?”
“You and I both know that you deserved to lose that job,” I insisted. “You can’t be that rude to customers and then be surprised when you’re called out on it.”
“And you can’t be that rude to people and not get called out on it,” she countered.
“You started it,” I snarled.
“And you thought you were above the rules.”
Okay. She may have had the thinnest, most microscopic point.
“It was an important call,” I lied.
“Was it?” she asked, wrinkling her nose in theatrical disbelief. “Everyone else in that restaurant had no problem following the rules.”
“The rule is bullshit.”
“Of course it is!” she threw her hands in the air. “George also had rules like servers can only have half a slice of pizza per six-hour shift. Toppings were extra! And you could only take one pee break per shift!”
“If it was so miserable, why are you so upset he fired you?”
“You got me fired,” she yelled. “And I need the money, you buffoon!”
No one in my entire life had ever called me a buffoon. At least not to my face. I would guess it hadn’t been bandied about behind my back either. Asshole, yes. Motherfucking bastard, definitely.
“Buffoon?” I repeated, smirking.
“Shut up. I’m mad.”
Good.
“You should be thanking me,” I insisted, pushing the button I knew would set her off.
“Are you completely delusional, Charming?”
My mother’s easily startled assistant whose name I definitely did not know gasped behind me, reminding me that we had an audience.
I gripped her by the elbow and pulled her away from the office and our audience into a small conference room. It was the same feeling as when I’d held her wrist in the restaurant. An awakening, a hum in my blood.
“Are you dragging me in here to dismember me?” she demanded, swatting at my hand.
Reluctantly, I let go.
We were toe-to-toe just like we’d been in the restaurant. I could smell lemons again. And as angry as I was, I realized it felt pretty damn good to have someone looking me in the eye even while they hurled insults my way.
If I had to have one more conversation with a woman in this office while she spent the entire time looking at her shoes or at some distant spot over my shoulder, I was going to freak the fuck out.
“Because of me,” I explained, “you landed a full-time job with benefits that doesn’t make you smell like garlic and allows you as many restroom breaks as you require.”
“Gee. Thanks, Charming.” Her sarcasm was so thick I was surprised it didn’t drip onto the floor.
“You’re welcome,” I shot back.
She leaned in. “I really don’t like you.”
“I’m not a fan of yours either.”
We were too close. Much too close for boss and employee. And I wouldn’t put it past her to produce a knife and stab me with it.
I took two self-preserving steps back.
“Good,” she said.
“Great,” I agreed. It looked like Ally, the disrespectful pain in my ass, was the only woman in the building besides my mother who was brave enough to make eye contact with me.
Lucky me. And what in the hell was my mother thinking?
“Listen, Charming. How about you try acting like a grown-up? It’s a big company. We’ll probably never see each other.”
I tapped out a staccato rhythm with my thumb against my leg. “You’re fired.”
She smiled evilly at me, and I was taken aback by how attractive I found that. “That’s something you’re going to have to discuss with your mother. I don’t believe you have the authority to fire me.” She tapped a finger to her chin.
“That’s something I will be remedying, Maleficent,” I promised her.
“See how well we’re getting along already?” she said. “We already have cute nicknames for each other. We’re practically mani-pedi buds. Now, if you can point me in the direction of human resources, I’ll get out of your hair, and if we’re both very, very lucky, we’ll never see each other again.”
I would have liked to point her in the direction of an open window.
At least, that’s what I thought that urge was. I was confused by the fact that my dick seemed to be waking up.
“You stick to your ring of hell, and I’ll stick to mine,” I agreed.
“Perfect solution.” She yanked the conference room door open.
“HR?” she said, in a much friendlier tone to my mother’s assistants who just happened to be lurking outside.
“I can show you,” Gina volunteered. She ushered Ally away but not before the woman shot me a look of pure contempt over her shoulder.
