Page 9 of Fierce-Hyde

“If you’re not a doctor and it’s not an emergency, then it’s rude to be talking to someone and stop mid-sentence to look at your phone.”

“So you’re schooling me on manners now?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said, her straight back making another appearance. “I was taught manners and professionalism. Not sure if you were.” Though he was dressed as if he worked in an office environment, she just didn’t know where.

She hoped not here, but then she still didn’t know how he knew her name or where to find her.

She prayed to hell he wasn’t stalking her.

She still didn’t even know what he was trying to say to her when he called her name.

He stared at her and then just laughed and shook his head. “You know, I was coming over to say I was sorry and then you started to act like a bitch again. Not sure what I was thinking.”

Her jaw dropped and she watched him walk to the elevator and hit the button to go up. She hoped he wasn’t going to her floor, so she raced to the stairs and went up them quickly to see if that was the case.

Nope, the elevator was still going up, which meant he was on the floor with Fierce Engineering since they took up the third and fourth levels.

She marched into her office, right past everyone saying hi to her with her just lifting her hand in a wave.

She left some frowns in her wake, but she wouldn’t be concerned over her slight rudeness just now.

She’d never been around anyone that made her lose her cool as much as this man did.

The minute she was in her office, she closed her door, pulled her cell phone out and called Raina.

“Please pick up. Please pick up.”

“Hi, Tori. What’s going on?”

“I just ran into that jerk again,” she exclaimed, then took a deep breath to calm herself.

“Which jerk is that?” Raina asked.

“The one who insulted me at the bar over a month ago.”

“Where did you run into him?” Tori asked.

“In the lobby. He knew my name. Hecalledmy name. He started to talk to me and then stopped to look at his phone mid-sentence.”

“You hate that,” Raina said. “I guess I do too. It’s like society has turned into this place where it’s okay to put a device first for no reason.”

“That’s right. I nicely asked him if he was a doctor.”

Raina laughed. “Is he?”

“No, but he looked up as if I was some clown in church breaking out in song for asking him that. Then I asked if it was an emergency and he didn’t know why I did that.”

“I bet you explained it was rude to do what he was,” Raina said.

She heard the humor in her friend’s voice. “You know, if I hadn’t had a run-in with him in the past, I wouldn’t have. I would have impatiently waited for him to finish and maybe made a somewhat joke about it to get my point across.”

“But he rubs you the wrong way,” Raina said.

“Like sandpaper on a paper cut,” she said.

“Then what happened?” Raina asked.

“I hear you wanting to laugh,” she said.

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