Page 39 of Charmingly Obsessed
She turns away abruptly, towards the stainless-steel sink, her shoulders rigid. I take a step closer, drawn by an irresistible force.
Just as I open my mouth to speak, to apologize, to explain, to beg, the realization crashes down on me with the force of a physical blow: she’s my subordinate. My employee. I just fucking assaulted her.
At the exact same instant, Hugh, one of my VPs, appears out of nowhere, slapping me hard on the back, his laughterbooming. “Was just about to say something myself, boss!” he guffaws. “Damn, dude! Didn’t waste any time, did you? But the rest of the plan… that’s still a secret! Tonight’s gonna be epic!”
A jumble of nonsensical words. The prank, probably. I have no fucking idea what he’s talking about. And I don’t care.
Diana is tense enough to snap.
I can feel the vibrations of her fear, her anger, across the small space separating us. I lean in closer, needing to be near her, needing to fix this. She’s standing slightly sideways now, her face averted, hidden from my view. And that, that deliberate denial of her gaze, is infuriating.
Steam hisses aggressively from the coffee machine beside her.
Diana grips her empty mug so tightly her knuckles are white.
“Diana,” I say. I savor the sound of it. “Let me make you… Are you having coffee? Or tea?”
She flinches at the sound of my voice. Visibly.
And my nerves, already frayed beyond recognition, finally snap. I move to her other side, positioning myself between her and the rest of the kitchen, the laughter still echoing in the background. Probably at me. My public humiliation. Doesn’t matter. Nothing matters but her.
“Let me,” I say again, my voice softer now. Trying to soothe. Trying to atone.
She’s about to pour hot water from the machine’s dispenser. So, tea. Of course.
“No,” she says sharply.
But my fingers are already there, brushing against hers.
Too much steam, thick and scalding, billows from the machine’s nozzle. Something’s definitely off with it. Defective. Broken. Just like everything else today.
Diana suddenly touches my hand, a quick, instinctive brush of her skin against mine, and I lift my gaze from the faulty machine to her flushed, beautiful face.
And I’m too captivated, too mesmerized by the storm in her eyes, to put two and two together. To see the danger.
I move to take the mug from her, the one she’s just filled with boiling water. She protests, a small, sharp sound. The cheap ceramic is scorching hot. And I burn my hand.
I yank my fingers back with a hissed curse, but hers are still there, tangled with mine, trying to stop me, trying to regain control of the cup.
It tips. Overflows. Spills. Directly onto the back of her hand.
Diana screams.
A high, thin, tearing sound that slices through the ambient kitchen noise, through the laughter, straight into my gut.
I lunge forward, desperate, unthinking, needing to do something, anything, to help her, to undo what just happened.
And in the chaos, my flailing arm knocks hard against the coffee machine’s stainless-steel front panel.
And the panel – light as air, barely fucking attached, a testament to cheap corporate procurement – detaches. And falls. Directly onto the back of her already scalded hand. Pinning it against the hot dispenser.
The burst of escaping steam is nothing compared to the inferno of horror and self-loathing that sears through my brain.
Diana tries to yank the metal panel off her burn, her small, delicate hand trapped beneath it. But it’s stuck. She has to peel it away. Slowly. Agonizingly.
Her scream, I think, mixes with my own. A raw, guttural sound of pure agony.
“Help me,” she breathes through clenched teeth, her body rigid with pain, in between hitched, gasping sobs. “Please… take it off. Help.Help.Rip it… rip it off.”
