Page 11 of Under Your Scars

“No,” he purrs, as if he’s seducing the inside of my wrist. He looks up at me like a puppy and it makes me want to fall to my knees. He moves his eyes slowly to Neil, still fuming at his desk as Christian’s gaze darkens, and the entire room crackles with tension. “She’s not fired.Youare.”

Neil’s mouth falls open, and for the second time, so does mine. My wrist is still in Christian’s firm grip, like he’s afraid I’ll make a run for it if he lets me go, and honestly, I might. I want to be anywhere other than in this room right now.

Neil scoffs in shock. “You’re really going to fire me over this airhead? How good is her pussy?”

Protest is on the tip of my tongue. I’ve never even met Christian Reeves, let alone been in the same room as him before today. Where is Neil getting the idea that I would have found the time to sleep with him?

Christian flicks the butt end of his cigarette at Neil, and the ashes spread across his suit, burning a small circle in the expensive fabric. “If you don’t stop talking about her like that, I’ll break your nose,” Christian threatens, and his voice is filled with so much venom that I believe it. “And for every minute it takes you to get the hell out of my building, I’m going to break one of your fingers. I’ll give you a thirty second head start.”

Neil begins to laugh humorlessly. Christian releases my wrist and I breathe a sigh of relief. He reaches into his blazer and pulls out a golden pocket watch with a monogrammed ‘R’ engraved into the metal.

“Sit,” he commands, and the last thing I want to do is get on Christian’s bad side, so I take a seat in the chair next to him again. He leans over and hands me the pocket watch, opening it for me and wrapping my fingers securely around it. It’s heavy. It must be solid gold. “Elena, every time the small hand passes the twelve, tell me.”

I tremble as I look down at the watch, my eyes following the small hand as it clicks around the clock. “It passed,” I say quietly, looking up to Christian, who’s stuck in a staring match with Neil.

“That’s one finger,” Christian says, taking a sip of his coffee.

I look back down at the watch just as it passes the twelve again. “It passed.”

“Two. Better hurry, Mr. Hayden, or I’ll have to move on to toes.”

“You’ve got to be shitting me!” Neil says. “You can’t do this!”

“I own this company, I assure you, I can do whatever the hell I want, and what I want is you off of my payroll.”

“It passed.”

Neil must begin to worry that Christian’s threats towards his fingers aren’t hollow. He stands, muttering expletives about Christian being a ‘rich prick’ and loudly announcing that he’s calling the police. His office door quietly shuts itself, and Christian and I are left alone in the room. Christian takes another long sip of his coffee and sighs contently.

“I was worried I was going to have to get security to drag him out,” he says with a sexy smirk, brushing off a piece of lint from his pants. He’s so collected, like the last ten minutes didn’t happen. The corners of his mouth quirk into a smile as he turns his head to look at me. “I was never going to break his fingers.”

I don’t believe him for a second. I sit, frozen in place in the chair. Christian leans over, clasping his hands around mine and freeing his pocket watch from my stiff fingers. He rubs over the monogram on the front and smiles softly down at it. “I’m not a fan of gold. I think it’s a harsh, ugly color, but this was my father’s.”

“Yeah, I’m more of a silver girl myself,” I reply nervously, thankful I managed to form a coherent sentence as I look anywhere but him. My foot bounces with nervous energy, and Christian’s large hand comes to rest on my knee, halting my movement.

“He won’t bother you again.”

I look up at him through my lashes, slowly, like he’s a snake and I’m trying to avoid sudden movements.

I chew on my bottom lip. “You just fired your best attorney.”

He chuckles. “He’s not going to make accusations like that to my face and get away with it.” His tone comes out nonchalant and suave, all the while I’m strung tighter than a drum. “The way he spoke about you made me want to throw him off the roof.”

“I don’t understand why you’d do something like that for a nobody like me.”

His answer is immediate, like it’s been rehearsed. “You’re so much more than a nobody, Elena.”

“I should get back to work.”

I quickly leave with my hands crossed over my chest so he can’t catch my wrists again.

Today was an absolute shitshow.

Mondays, am I right?

I’m out the door of the building at exactly five and get home as quickly as possible. Flopping on my bed, I take a long breath and stare up at my ceiling.

I instinctively go to pull out my phone, to text my brother, but then I remember that my phone is, in fact, broken and sitting in a bag of rice on my countertop. I stand up and make my way over to it, and I stand there, in shock, unable to breathe when right next to the rice bag is a brand-new phone, sitting neatly in a factory-sealed box. I blankly read the sticky note resting on top of the box.