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“Well. The gossip of the reception may have made rounds.”
“Of course,” I say with a dry laugh before schooling my features. “It’s sweet of you but rest assured, I know how to handle advances of unwanted men. Just send him in.”
I have half a mind to ask for the privacy shutters but it will only raise suspicion as I can see from my peripheral vision that Dash hasn’t done the same. He types away on his laptop with his infamous concentrated mask. This is the intimidating businessman who ruthlessly runs his company.
“Mrs. Stern.”
I stop my ogling at the new voice and stare at none other than Aditya, head of operations. My smile is reserved when I speak to him. “Just Bianca.”
“Ahh… No formalities.” He grins and I realize he was aptly described. “I like that.”
In retrospect, I should’ve stuck to Mrs. Stern because now he's staring back at me as though I gave him an opening. Unlike others, I won’t be letting my guard down around him. I blatantly ignore his last remark. But again, he remains unruffled.
“Why don’t you have a seat and we’ll begin.”
I have to hide my shock when he boldly grabs the chair right beside me. Not wanting to be rude since he is technically a client, I sit down and subtly shift so there’s an appropriate amount of distance between us. Casually flicking my gaze behind him, I sigh in relief to see Dash is busy on a call.
“I have to say,” my companion drawls while resting his arm on the table. “You’re as pretty as everyone described.”
Is this guy for real?Since when did it become sexy to flirt with a married woman? If it were any other circumstances, I would give him an earful on how to treat women. Seems a lot of men need lessons on chivalry these days.
“How about we focus on making your office attractive instead?” I reply in a firm tone that I reserve for difficult clients. In his case, with no sense of boundaries.
“Of course, Bianca. I trust your beautiful mind to create magic.”
Swallowing the nausea at his terrible flirting skills, which I bet only works half the time because of his decent-looking face, I pull open the 3D plan on my tablet and bring us to the agenda of the meeting, which he apparently assumes is a date.
For the first few minutes, I’m able to keep us on track and he answers me genuinely. Of course, not without throwing a few innuendoes here and there. However, tension slams into me when he not so subtly shifts closer to my chair, his leg touching mine. He disguises the move as wanting to peer closer into my tablet when I point at something.
“I would like the portrait to be hung on this wall,” he says, leaning into my personal space. I almost jump out of the skin when he subtly grazes my thigh, right above my knee. I’m about to push him away when a loud bang startles us.
My head snaps at the dark sound while Aditya flinches away from me. Dash enters the room with seething calmness. His razor-sharp eyes zooms on me and he doesn’t miss the slight trepidation shadowing my features from one of his employee’s touch. The restraint and serenity he’s portraying is far scarier than threatening.
“Out.” One word and he sucks all the oxygen out of the room.
“Boss,” Aditya laughs awkwardly.
“You’re fired.”
So much silence that you can hear a pin drop before a frazzled Aditya finds his voice past the initial shock. Yet again, I’m left stunned and speechless. However, this time Aditya deserves Dash’s wrath. There’s no way this man doesn’t have a single harassment complaint against him. This was no harmless flirting.
“What for? You can’t just fire me,” blurts out Aditya, his face red with embarrassment and shock. He pretends as though he is a victim. “I deserve the right to three strikes and a valid reason.”
“Here’s your strikes,” Dash says, crossing the distance to him. “You walked into this room. You made my wife uncomfortable. And you dared to lay a finger on her.”
“I didn’t touch her!”
Dash switches his gaze to me. “Bianca?”
“He did.”
“You have two seconds before I call security,” Dash warns threateningly.
Aditya points his finger at Dash and growls, “This isn’t over. You will hear from my lawyer. I’m going to sue your ass for wrongful termination.”
Dash ignores his rambling, completely unbothered by the threat he issues as he storms out. When I glance outside, the whole office is raptly watching the debacle and a fuming Aditya walking out. I begin to panic and second-guess if I made a bigger deal and overreacted. I wouldn’t want to jeopardize Dash’s position and reputation because of me. He must sense it because a second later, his palm cups my cheek and forces my gaze to his.
“Don’t.”
