Page 31 of The Rogue and His Flower

“That was called customer service,” she snaps, cutting me off. “It’s my job to resolve issues.”

“Your job is to check people in and man the reception area,” I remind her.

“Andto deal with customer complaints, but I don’t expect you to know that given you’ve never taken an interest in my role before now.”

“I stand corrected, but in future leave those kinds of decisions to me.”

She huffs out an angry breath. “What’s really the issue here? Are you still pissed at me for not wanting to talk last night?”

“No,” I lie, hating the way she’s so easily able to read me.

“Because if that’s the case then just say so, and stop acting like a?—”

“Dicksplash?” I offer, my eyes narrowing on her.

“I was actually going to saytwat,but given you’re being both it really doesn’t matter either way.”

“If you’re just going to sit here and insult me, then you can leave.”

“If you’re just going to ignore the fact that you acted out of line, I think I’ll stay until you apologise, thank you very much!” she counters, her voice rising in frustration.

“You’ll be waiting a very long time,” I retort, turning my attention back to the screen.

“I don’t understand you,” she says, throwing her hands up in the air.

“There’s nothing to understand,” I reply with a shrug. “I’m your boss, and what I say goes.”

“Fine, you need to have final say on how I choose to accommodate unhappy guests, I hear you loud and clear, but that isn’t what I meant, and you know it!”

“I don’t,” I reply, leaning forward on my desk. “Care to enlighten me?”

“Dalton!” she snaps, but despite the anger in her voice, it’s the way her eyes glisten with tears, which she furiously blinks away, that keeps my attention. “I don’t understand why you would get those arseholes to apologise to me, and then treat me with the same contempt. Make it make sense.”

Dragging in a deep breath, I pinch the bridge of my nose. She’s right. If I were in her shoes, I’d be fucking confused, and angry, too. “Look, it just threw me, that’s all.”

“What, the fact they pretended to know your father?”

“No, the way they spoke to you. It pissed me off.” I admit, surprising myself with the confession, because up until right now I didn’t actually realise that was the issue. I thought I was still pissed off about her reaction last night, but I see now that’s not the case.

“You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

“It’s the truth,” I admit.

The way they looked down on her, like she was shit on their shoe, angered me, just like the way my father spoke to her last night pissed me off. Both times I let her down. Instead of telling those arseholes to get the fuck out of the hotel, I’d allowed them to give her a half-hearted apology and keep their fucking freebie. I was more angry at myself than her, and rather than explain that, I took my anger out on the one person who didn’t deserve it because I’m incapable of communicating my feelings.

“And yet you spoke to me in the exact same way,” she points out, shaking her head in frustration. “Can you see why I might be confused?”

“I was out of line, I’m sorry. There, feel better?” I offer.

Jesus fuck, I can’t even apologise without being an arsehole.

“Not particularly, no.”

“What do you want me to say?” I question.

“I want you to communicate with me because you aren’t making any sense!”

“Like you communicated with me last night?”

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