Page 17 of Rich and Bossy

“You think it’s unfortunate? Please, feel free to tender your resignation. Then I won’t be your boss anymore.”

She blurts out a laugh. “That’s not happening.”

“Hilarious.” I sit there, still smirking at her.

“What?”

“You. This whole thing.” I wave a hand at her papers.

We stare at each other for what feels like an eternity but really is only as long as it takes a box truck to pass by on the road. Big surprise, the truck bears my company logo. By the time it has moved on, Hazel has gathered herself enough to snicker.

“Just fire me, if that’s what you want to do. But stop following me around.”

“I could make that happen, if that’s what you want.”

It’s not what I want. Not at all.

“Do it then.” She turns to look over her shoulder, and I follow the direction of her gaze. “See that security camera up there over the front door? There were tons of cameras inside the store, too. You’re in there with me, on video. I could just as easilysay you wrongfully terminated my employment after entering an office supply store and discovering me printing fliers with the intention of unionizing the employees at the Minneapolis warehouse. You’re on camera swiping the fliers, too. Not to mention I told you to stop, and you didn’t, so there’s that aspect of it.”

Her head swings slowly around, triumph glittering in her eyes. “Your move.”

I shouldn’t even play her game, but now I can’t resist. I can’t remember the last time I felt this—alive. All it took was a mouthy-ass hot twenty-one year old to do it for me.

“How about I walk in that store, pay off everyone, and walk out with all recorded footage?” I waggle my eyebrows at her a few times.

“What if I told you I’m recording this conversation on my phone?” She holds up her phone, her smile widening.

“Are you actually recording?” I lower my brows at her likereally?

“Maybe, maybe not.” She lifts an eyebrow. “You going to roll the dice on that?”

I know she’s not fucking recording, and this is starting to get boring. “Are you always this stubborn?”

Her eyes go wide for a second, like she wasn’t expecting that sudden turn. “Stubborn? More like determined.”

“Fine. Are you always this determined?”

“I was taught not to take crap from anyone. I guess the lesson stuck.” There’s a natural defensiveness in the way she says it, but something else as well.

There’s some kind of vulnerability there. I can’t tell what it is, but something is driving her to be this way.

“Hey, something we have in common. I was taught the same lesson.” I hold up her fliers. “Now, unless you want me to have a bonfire with these, you’ll get in the car and let me take you fora drink. So we can have a rational, adult conversation and find a solution to these problems.”

What the hell is wrong with me? This is the worst idea in history, but I want to be around her. I want to know more about her. Everything about her.

Maybe it’s her actions that are making her so attractive to me.

The stakes involved. No lie, if she manages to get unionization rolling across my warehouses, I will be out of a job. There is no doubt in my mind about that. The board will flip their shit and vote me out.

Maybe it’s the fact she’s threatening everything I built that makes her so attractive to me. The stakes can’t get any higher.

It’s taking too long for her to make up her mind.

I lift the fliers a little more, shaking them to get her attention. “I spy a trash can, right around the corner. Wonder who’s gonna want them after they’ve been in there.”

“You’re a jerk.”

“You’re neither the first, nor the last, to have reached that conclusion.”

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