“Oh shit!” I threw my hands over my mouth and stared at him in horror as his other eye started to swell.
“What? Miss Granger?” He looked at me suspiciously out of his one eyeball.
I shook my head, my hands still placed tightly over my mouth. I didn’t want to have to utter the words. My heart was racing, and I’d broken out in a cold, panicky sweat.
“What have you done?” he asked again.
My heart thumped in my chest. “I am so, so, so sorry. I spilt some coffee on the collar. I tried to get it out and Juniper knew someone who had some washing powder and I used it and—”
“You what?GGHHAARRGGHH!” He made that terrible sound again. His face seemed to be going redder now and white spots had broken out across his neck.
Oh my God, was I going to kill him?
“Are you going to die?” I suddenly blurted out.
“Die?” He looked surprised at my question, albeit a little panicked. Seeing him like this was so unsettling that I felt I was losing my grip. He was usually so cool and calm and . . .
“I don’t want you to die,” I suddenly blurted out, and then burst into tears.
He grappled for the seat belt, unbuckled it and then climbed out of the car.
“What are you doing?” I asked, as he opened the passenger seat from the outside.
“You need to drive me to the hospital. Move over . . .” He started pushing me over to the driver’s side.
“Shit! Shit!” I was in a total flap now. Just because I was used to getting myself into dramatic situations, it didn’t mean I was any good at handling them. “I can’t drive this car!” I howled loudly. But he ignored me and continued to push me. I climbed over the handbrake and my leg got stuck. Without thinking, I yanked at the handbrake and then . . .
“AAAAAHHH,” I squealed as the car started rolling back. Ryan reached out and pulled the handbrake back up. The car stopped with a hard jolt.
“For God’s sake,GGHHAARRGGHH, just how many ways do you want toGGGGHHHHHAAAARRRGGGGG. . . kill me today?”
“I don’t want to kill you,” I wailed, even though the thought had crossed my mind at least three times a day since I’d started working for him.
“Drive, drive,” he commanded, tapping his hand loudly on the dashboard. The noise grated against my already shattered nerves.
“Okay, okay.” I looked around at the complicated thing and then couldn’t help it, but I burst into tears again.
“Why are you crying?” He sounded very displeased.
“I can’t help it. I cry when I’m stressed and you are stressing me out—”
“Iam stressingyou?” He sounded indignant and then ended that sentence with anotherGGGGHHHHHAAAARRRGGGGG. “You are the one who has done this to me, I should be stressed with you.”
I cried even louder and started wiping the tears away as I tried to figure out how to drive this beast of a car.
“It works like any other car in the fucking world . . .GGGGHHHHHAAAARRRGGGGG!” He was shouting at me now. It wasn’t helping.
“Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright,” I suddenly sang.
“What the hell are you doing?” he asked as I tried to pull out gently. But this sporty SUV was anything but gentle, and it jerked forward so fast I almost gave myself whiplash.
“I sing when I’m nervous, okay!” I yelled at him. “I sing and I cry, okay? So let me sing and goddamn cry!” I shouted back as I managed to pull into the traffic. The car was huge, like driving a fucking tank, and it was fast. In fact, the engine growled and screamed loudly at me as if it didn’t want to be driven slowly. His car was just as disagreeable as he was. Trust him to drive a car that actually roared at you.
“You sing Christmas songs when you are nervous . . .GGGGHHHHHAAAARRRGGGGG?” he asked, his throat sounding even worse now.
“YES!” I spat. “And sometimes I sing ‘happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you, happy birthday . . .’ Oh my God, why do you have to drive such a large car?” I was trying to keep it inside the lanes but the huge car seemed to want to spill all over the road and ram people out of the way. (Again, how typical that he would actually own a car like this!) I looked over at him again. “OH MY GOD! Your ear is huge!” I started crying even more and then sang another song. It was all I could do to stop myself from having a complete freak-out.
I was going to kill my boss! Then I would probably go to jail for the rest of my days for culpable homicide or something like that, and if he didn’t die, he would most certainly fire me for this and then I would probably still go to jail for not paying back my bank loan!
