Page 111 of By A Thread

I nearly bit my tongue in half but did as the shithead commanded.See? I could pretend.

He gestured toward one of the chairs in front of his desk. I expected him to sit behind his desk. Keeping large objects between us had been his MO to date. So I knew I was in trouble when he leaned against the front of his desk instead.

No barriers.

In a defensive move, I stepped behind the wingback chair.

His lips quirked, and he crossed his arms.

I tried not to look at the sexy ink on his forearms. Dressed-up and classy on the outside, but dig down a few layers, and Dominic Russo was a primal, rough-around-the-edges sex god.

“Thank you for filling in,” he said.

I blinked and shook my head, certain I hadn’t heard him correctly.

“Filling in?” I repeated.

“She speaks.”

The man just couldn’t go five seconds without pushing my buttons.

“It’s not going to work,” I told him haughtily.

“What’s not going to work?” He had the sheer stupidity to look amused.

“I’m not quitting. Do your worst, Charming. But I’m sticking it out. No matter what strings you pulled to get me here when I expressly told you I never wanted to see your stupid face again—”

“You think I just what? Sent Greta off for a two-month vacation?” he scoffed.

“You hand-picked me for this ridiculous farce of a job.”

“I did,” he admitted.

I’d expected more of a denial and had to scramble for the next point in my argument. I came up dry.

“You’re the only one I trust.” He said it as if it were a normal thing to say.

“You trust me? What kind of fucked-up relationships do you have, Dom?”

“We’ve shared several intimate… moments,” he said, choosing his words carefully. “And you’ve never once divulged that information or used it to gain an advantage over me.”

I was suddenly and overwhelmingly exhausted. My shoulders slumped as gravity increased its pull on me.

The observant bastard caught it and pushed away from his desk. “Sit down. You’re dead on your feet, and it’s only Monday morning.”

He manhandled me into one of the chairs. I put my face in my hands and focused my energy on slow, calming breaths while he made some kind of a racket in the corner of the room.

“I’m not doing this to make you quit,” he said quietly.

“You’re doing it to control me. I saw the outside employment clause in the contract. If I work a bar shift or decide to take another stab at amateur night, I’m fired for breach of contract.” I wanted to believe in my bones that he was doing this as some stupid mind game, that he got off on playing puppet master with my life. But deep down, I was worried that it was something much, much worse.

Dominic Russo was trying to take care of me.

“You can still teach dance,” he said.

That controlling, caring, manipulative son of a bitch.

“I can, can I? How magnanimous of you.”