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Her voice gets softer, retreating. She’s going to get my coffee. The email I was going to write seems impossible now. I’m not sure how I was going to start the damn thing.
It’s more pressing to decide what I’m going to say to her when she walks in, smelling like sweet citrus and borrowed time.
I feel her at the door the instant before her movement registers. Bristol crosses the office with the same brisk pace she always uses and leans in over my desk.
“Morning, Mr. Leblanc.” The coffee mug makes contact with the coaster.
And she turns it, putting the handle exactly where it should be for me to pick it up with my busted left hand.
I follow her fingertips from the mug to her wrist and up her arm. I have to apologize for more than being a jackass this time. I probably got blood on her sheets. I probably scared her.
It wasn’t the way I wanted to scare her.
“Bristol, I—”
Her lovely green eyes are set off by the embarrassed flush on her cheeks. Bristol’s lower lip is caught between her teeth. But what stops me dead and punches out my completely inadequate apology is the bruise on her face.
It skims her temple and goes down to her cheekbone.
I’m only aware of standing up because my perspective changes. I find myself looking down at the bruise, leaning all the way over the desk to reach for her. Take her chin in my hand. Turn her so more window light falls on the place where someone hit her.
My head pounds, but it’s nothing to do with the concussion and everything to do with rage spiking my blood pressure.
“Bristol.” She closes her eyes, and I don’t let go. “Who hurt you?”
I get a breath of citrus as she turns, pulling herself out of my hands. She goes to the door and closes it. I go around to the other side of the desk, but Bristol stops just out of my reach and draws herself up to her full height.
Two can play that game. I tower over her, arms crossed. In another minute my fists will be vibrating with fury.
“It’s just a bruise.” Her voice is soft and calm and reasonable. “Mind your own business.”
My hands flex. I ball them back up. “Thisismy business.”
“I’m a temp.”
“A temp who owes me fifty thousand dollars. A temp who’s mine for the next two days. You’re my business, Bristol.”
She lifts her chin, tears bright in her eyes. “You never told me how you gotyourbruise. You didn’t tell me how you got the new bruises, either.”
“That’s totally different.”
“No, it’s not.”
I can’t do this. Can’t keep my distance. I take one big step and force her to look up at me. I’m an inch from her skin and her heat and her cheap, pretty skirt suit. “Who the fuck did this to you? They’ll be dead by sunset.”
Her eyes go wide, and it reminds me of her brave terror during the performance review and the way she cried afterward. Maybe it’s still me she’s afraid of. Or maybe she’s afraid for whoever’s going to die as soon as I learn his name.
Bristol takes a wavering breath. “Please don’t. Murder isn’t good.”
Murder is the only good response to the darkening bruise on soft, delicate skin. I’d love nothing more than to murder the bastard who did it and twenty of his closest friends. Right here, where Bristol can count their last breaths.
I won’t even come close if she doesn’t tell me what happened.
You never told me how you got your bruise.
That faint nothing of a bruise I had on her very first day. I couldn’t find it now if I tried.
Fine. I’ll make a deal with her. If I get the asshole’s name out of this, it’ll be worth telling her who I am.
