Page 28 of Billionaire Boss's One Night Stand

“I don’t micromanage.” I glared at her, daring her to repeat that accusation.

“Yeah, no,” Eli said. “He doesn’t. I mean, this is your first project with us, but it’s his style.”

Loren didn’t seem to hear him. She locked into a stare down with me.

“If your ‘style’ is to demand the final word in every single thing, I’d call you more of a?—”

“A word, please,” I bit out, gesturing to the door.

She furrowed her brow. “We’re having words in here.”

“Now,” I ordered.

She huffed out an exhale but obeyed, sulking out of the room with me.

“You’d call me a what?” I demanded as soon as the door closed.

She didn’t speak up, glowering at me almost like a petulant child. She wasn’t. She was a grown, brilliant, and capable woman. It ate at me that she’d have any room to criticize me while I was tempted to admit how much I was awed by her first performance in front of a future client.

“Nothing, Mr. Richards,” she quipped.

I gritted my teeth, annoyed that she’d revert to that formal bullshit.Thatwasn’t my style, either. We were a team here, and even though I was the leader, I didn’t need to be spoken to like I was separate from them.

“You want to suggest that I’m being too harsh?” I taunted, leaning closer.

She didn’t shrink back. Nor did she flinch or scowl. Staring straight back up at me, she kept her expression cool and calm.

And it pissed me off. It pushed me over the edge and snapped the thin thread of patience I had left.

Why couldn’t I get any professional, polite smiles from her? Why couldn’t she bend and cave to the obvious frustration she had to have for me with this bickering?

I knew how passionate she was. I felt it. I heard it. She gave it all to me that night. Her smiles, her laughter. Then her moans and slight grimaces of pleasure-pain as she came.

Since we encountered each other here at the office, though, I got nothing but a shell of the woman I damn well knew she was.

“You want to nag me for being some kind of an asshole of a boss?”

Still, she didn’t react. This woman wouldnotshy away or wilt under pressure from me. If anything, she tipped her chin higher, defiant.

“Tell me!”

“I have nothing to say to you, Mr. Ri?—”

I stepped closer, forcing her to retreat before she’d fall into me. Inches remained between us. Scant inches that I could cross with one swift reach. Our faces were a breath apart. I felt the soft heat of her exhales and wanted to pull her closer to feel the warmth from her soft, lush body.

Fuck.I wanted to kiss her. I wanted to grab her by the arms and haul her up against my chest to ravish her until I got a goddamn reaction.

Glittering in those jade eyes was desire. She stared up at me with stubborn resistance, but I didn’t miss the longing she couldn’t completely mask with us standing so close together.

One more move. All I had to do was tilt my head down and?—

Knocks sounded on the door.

NowIreacted. I jumped back. Reality returned, and I blinked at the crash back to where we were. It was too easy to assume we were in our own little bubble. That it was just the two of us lured together under this spell of lust. We had been instantly aware of each other from the first moment we laid our eyes upon each other. And that fire hadn’t sizzled out between us.

Not here.

I took one more step back, needing a buffer between me and the now-blushing Loren. We were at work, right outside the conference room where our team was sitting, watching us through the glass walls.

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