Page 7 of Rosabel and the Billionaire Beast

And I wouldn’t quit no matter what he did. Because I was hot for him, too.

Ridiculous.

So I let him have it.

Me:I thought that fancy degree of yours meant you were educated.

Duncan:I am.

Me:Your use of one-word commands implies otherwise.

I pictured an orangutan in a suit, grunting and pointing for what it wanted. Did the man have no notion of what it meant tobe polite? He’d brought out a derisive side in me, one I’d had to brandish in order to keep up with his snarky quips.

(For the record, Charity, THAT was how I’d kept my job for over a year. Not my irresistible attraction to this man.)

Duncan:Something came up. Coffee.

Laughter trickled from the breakroom’s open door. Sure. Coffee. It wasn’t that hard. I could waltz in. Retrieve a mug, fill it, and scurry back out again.

Or better yet, Starbucks wasn’t far. Only about five blocks. I could dash down, drive across town, and make it back in about twenty minutes. That amount of effort was preferable to plunging headfirst into the sarlacc pit.

Duncan:Why are you not moving? Get moving, Astor.

I choked my phone, fantasizing about saying everything I wanted to the man who put theoleinbosshole. Ole, as in I wanted to wave a red flag around him, see him charge like the bull he was, and then count myself the victor when he realized his target was nothing more than fabric fluttering in the wind.

I’d strut in. Hand him an empty cup. Tell him it magically fills when he uses the word “please.”

Duncan:This day isn’t going to get any better with you standing around. Do your job.

My teeth ground. I peered up to find him parting the blinds of his office window and leering at me through my window like a meerkat. Dad’s advice trickled through, pushing through the frustration shouting at me to let Duncan have it.

“You gather more flies with honey than vinegar,”he would have said.

Ugh. Like it or not, he was right—I was his assistant. I’d agreed to assist with whatever Duncan Hawthorne needed, and right now, he needed coffee. It was the same reason I took the time to tidy his office and water his plant—because I was a reliable person who did the best I could no matter what.

Which meant I had to brave the gossip cesspool.

From the way noise died way down the instant I stepped inside, I could tell—I’d been right. They were talking about me.

“Afternoon, ladies,” I said, nodding my head to them and not waiting for a reply. “Just getting Duncan his coffee.”

“Hi, Rosabel,” Charity said.

As nice as anything. As though she hadn’t just lured me to her desk to dish up her latest spoonful of slop and fling it in my direction.

Ice broken, their chattering built once more. I tried hard not to eavesdrop as I reached toward the cupboard for one of the mugs. I tried not to hear anything as I ran water to rinse it out. Or as I noticed that the coffee pot sitting on the counter was currently empty.

Greedy, ungrateful beggars.

As I replaced the filter and measured the grounds, their words seeped toward me. They were hushed, quiet, and yet they carried on some kind of amplifying strain in the otherwise quiet room.

“Did you see the way she blushed when she came back out again?”

“I know. His office door was closed a little too long if you ask me.”

My blood heated. I filled water in the pot, praying the sound of running water would drown anything else out.

“Why else does he keep his blinds closed all the time?”

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