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Turning on my heels, I walked to the door, threw it open, and marched out of his office with a smile on my face. I needed to show these people I had the confidence to walk out with my head held high. I’d worry about a job, rent, and how I was going to apologize to Bryson, and beg if need be, for him to let me design his house. The rest of it all, the feelings and the insane desire to feel him inside me again, would have to be ignored.
After cleaning out my office, which was basically emptying a few drawers and carrying out the plant my grams had given me, I walked through the third floor and said my goodbyes. The news had reached my floor even before I had stepped off the elevator.
When I passed by Duke’s office, he grinned. “I’ll be expecting your call, Rose.”
“I wouldn’t be holding your breath while you wait on that call, Dick…I mean, Duke,” I smoothly said as I walked to the elevator, stepped inside, and rode it down to the first floor. I handed Jeffery, the security guy at the front desk, my badge and walked out of the building.
Once I was safely in my car, I turned it on, dropped my head back against the headrest, and let out a long sigh.
“My mother and father are going to kill me.”
And besides the obvious anxiety I was inundated with at the moment, I actually let out a laugh because even amid the chaos, I’d just turned a corner in my career…and that sort of excited me.
I swallowed hard as I watched my parents closely as they took in the news that I had quit my job.
“You just quit?” Josh, my younger brother, asked with a wide smile on his face.
“Yes. I didn’t want to be fired, so I quit before he had the chance to fire me.”
Laughing, Josh replied, “Yaasss, that is serving cunt!”
“Joshua!” my mother scolded as my father attempted to hide his smile.
“What?” Josh asked, looking oh, so innocent.
Pinching the bridge of her nose with her thumb and index finger, my mother calmly said, “I don’t even know what that means, but do not use that word.”
“I think,” my father stated, “it means he thinks his sister is a badass.”
My mother’s head snapped in my father’s direction, and she glared at him while I attempted to hide my laugh with a cough. Looking at Josh, I winked.
“Moving on,” Mom said, focusing back on me. “Let me see if I have this right. Because you refused to design a house for a very important client and called that client an asshole, you were about to be fired, so you quit instead. Then told your former boss that you’d be designing the house for the asshole anyway and pocketing the entire design fee. Is that right?”
Dad cleared his throat. “Not gonna lie, Rose. I feel like a lot has been left out of the story.”
I nodded. “Oh yeah, a lot. But yes, Mom, you have it right. There is more to why Bryson asked me to design his house, but he asked for me, and I couldn’t do it. I mean, everyone at the office would think I only got the job because I was…”
Turning to look at my brother, I choose my words carefully. “They would think I was dating him. Which I’m not.”
“Who is this important client anyway?” my father asked.
I felt my cheeks burn. “Um, you probably don’t know him.”
Good Lord, was that a lie. My father was a die-hard baseball fan, and I knew for a fact he knew who Bryson was.
I chewed nervously on my lower lip, and prayed he wouldn’t ask who it was.
Giving me a grin and a wink, he replied, “Try me.”
I set my fork down, wiped the corners of my mouth with my napkin, then said, “Bryson Robinson.”
“What!” my father and brother said at the same time as my mother had asked, “Who?”
“You know Bryson Robinson?” Josh asked.
My father slowly shook his head. “I mean, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. You must have met him when you went to Seattle.”
I nodded.
“Who is this Bryan Robins?”
“Mom!” Josh said with an exasperated expression on his face. “It’s Bryson Robinson, and he’s only the best pitcher in the MLB. Nathan is going to freak!”
Flailing her arms around in front of her, Mom asked, “Wait a minute. How did you meet this boy?”
I smiled as I answered her. “Trust me, Mom, he is not a boy.”
“I’m going to kill him,” my father growled.
“Josh, I think you should finish your dinner in your room,” my mother stated as she motioned for him to leave the table.
“Are you kidding me? This is why I love it when Rose comes over to eat dinner! I want to hear how she and Bryson Robinson hooked—”
