Page 7 of The Wrong Boss

“No?”

“No.”

“Some hero you are.”

“I’m taking you inside.”

“You are an arrogant, overbearing?—”

“Quiet, woman.”

“Ex-c-use me?”

“It’ll take two minutes for me to take you inside, and you can yell at me from there.”

“My car window is smashed! All my things will get stolen if I go inside.”

“I’ll handle it.”

“Oh, you’ll handle it!” I scoffed. “Great! Wonderful! Just what I needed. For you to ‘handle’ another one of my issues, because you did such a good job the first time.”

“Didn’t I tell you to be quiet?”

“You are unfathomably rude.”

“Guess we’ve got that in common.”

I spluttered and tried to squirm out of his arms. By this point, we’d made it under the hotel awning where taxis circled to the front door, the man’s long legs eating the distance to the entrance. He had one arm around my back, his hand cupped around my upper arm, and the other cradled below my knees. He moved like I weighed nothing, which I resented. I didn’t want to get manhandled by a handsome man with a savior complex. I wanted to rage at the world.

We made it inside, and I caught the startled glances of the workers behind the check-in desk before the man turned me toward a small seating area.

Then I was unceremoniously dumped onto a two-seater sofa from the great height of my hero’s arms. While I bounced on the cushions and made wordless noises of outrage, he brushed his hands off, put his hands on his hips, and said, “Keys.”

“What?”

“Give me your car keys. I’ll go grab your stuff. You stay here and try not to get yourself into mortal danger in the next five minutes, if you think you can handle that.”

I would gouge his pretty, dark eyes out and feast on them.

Through clenched teeth, I said, “I’m not giving you my keys. All my stuff is in my car. You could drive off with it!”

The look this man gave me needed no words. It was a look that said,Would a man dressed in clothes as expensive as mine care about your rust bucket full of junk?

Clenching my jaw, I tried to resist. I hadn’t won our first little stare-off, but I’d win this one. I woulddamn wellwin this one, because I wasn’t going to let this jerk?—

“Ma’am? Is everything okay?” a woman in a hotel uniform asked. Her name tag told me she went by Beth.

I opened my mouth, but before I could tell her to kick this overbearing, presumptuous asshole out of her fine establishment, he said, “We’ll need the security footage from your parking lot. And someone will need to call the cops to make a report. This woman’s car was broken into, and some items were taken.” He pointed to the luggage trolley by the entrance. “I’ll need one of those to load up all her things. The car is unsecured. And she needs medical attention.”

“Right away, sir.”

“Now hold on a minute?—”

He turned to me and pointed at me with his index finger like I was a mutt and he was my master. “Stay there and try not to get in trouble while I deal with your shit.” Then he grabbed my purse, opened it, and took out my car keys.

Unbelievable. Un-be-freaking-lievable!

“Who evenareyou?” I yelled at his back, but he didn’t answer. He strode to the luggage trolley while one of the porters trotted after him, and the two of them disappeared outside.

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