Page 55 of Elevating Eve

“Not a good time,” the other woman answered in a distracted tone.

Undeterred, Eve said, “Why is there a door on room 206?”

Lainey’s hands stilled, and after a moment, she sighed. “Mr. Hale texted me last night. He asked me to have some workers come in early to install the door and lock before you got here.”

An icy cold spread through her, starting in the center of her chest.

How. Fucking. Dare he.

“Give me the key,” she demanded.

“I don’t have one.” Lainey fidgeted with the wire stripper on the top platform of the ladder. “He told me to only make one copy and put it in his office.”

“Goddamnit, Lainey!” Eve shouted, so loud that the two men on the second ladder jumped, almost dropping the absurdly expensive chandelier. “This is bullshit, and you know it!”

Looking down at her for the first time since she entered the room, Lainey at least had the good grace to appear remorseful. “I’m sorry, Eve. He explained what happened, and I know how much you want to get in there. But he owns the damn building. I didn’t have a choice.”

With a disgusted sound, Eve whirled around and hurried from theroom, heading straight through the front doors and outside. As she stormed through the garden, she looked up at the third-floor window of Jonathan’s office. It didn’t surprise her in the least to find him standing there, looking down at her with no expression on his face.

Eyes narrowing, she ran the rest of the way into the house, sprinting straight past a startled Remy, who called out after her. Ignoring him, she went through the house as fast as her legs could carry her, bursting through the office door without knocking. “Give me the fucking key,” she demanded between gasping breaths.

By now, Jonathan sat rigid behind his desk, hands folded placidly on the desktop in front of him. “Why don’t you sit down,” he said, voice as devoid of emotion as his face.

Not moving from her spot by the door, Eve took several moments to get her breathing back under control. In a low, dangerously calm voice, she said again, “Give me. The fucking. Key.”

With a soft, almost inaudible sigh, Jonathan stood and walked around the side of the desk. “I’m doing this for your own good,” he said once he stood a few feet in front of her.

“You don’t get to decide what’s for my own good,” she spat. “Only I get to do that.”

Frustration flashed in his eyes, but he repressed it immediately. “I’m not being unreasonable here, and deep down, I think you know that. You’re hurt, Evie. Wait until you’ve healed, and then you can destroy that bathroom to your heart’s content. Just make sure you wear protective gear next time.”

Eve wanted to start yelling. To pound her fists against his chest. To call him every horrible name she could think of and, unlike last night, actually mean every word of it.

Breathing slowly through her nose, she counted in her head until the most violent of those desires subsided. She made it all the way to a hundred and fifteen.

“If you had talked to me about this, maybe I would’ve been okay with it.” Probably not, but she may have gone along with it anyway just to appease him. “But you pulled this shit behind my back. That’s fucked up, Jonathan. That’sreallyfucked up.”

“You’re hurt,” he said again, as if that excused everything. “I?—”

“I have a few cuts,” she said, flinging her bandaged hands up in the air. “The nurse said I didn’t even need to be there. Don’t pretend you didn’t hear him.”

Jonathan didn’t answer, his face as stony and unreadable as ever.

“I freaked out last night when I realized the emerald was missing,” she said. “I admit it. But I’mfine. Give me the key and let me get back to work.”

Pity entered his dark eyes then. Fucking pity. “I know this is important to you, but it’s not worth injuring yourself even m?—”

“You don’t understand,” Eve interrupted.

His lips compressed into a tight, angry line. “Of course I understand. Or did you forget that my father died last week.”

“Oh, it must have slipped my mind,” she shot back, laying on the sarcasm as thick as she could. “How silly of me.”

Lips thinning even more, he took several seconds to compose himself before responding. “Be careful. You’re on very thin ice right now.”

“Oh, fuck off,” she said, glaring. “You still have the rest of your family. You have a million things that belonged to your dad—two fucking houses full of his shit.” She knew that had been a low blow, but as pissed off as she was right now, she didn’t care. There would be time for regret later. “But this ring is the only fucking thing I have left. So do not sit there and tell me you understand what I’m feeling right now.”

Anger burned bright in his eyes while she spoke. But he tamped it down by the time she finished, his face so devoid of expression, it looked like he’d had one too many injections of Botox. “I’m trying to protect you,” he said in a robotic voice.

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