Page 108 of Love, Academically
“Thank you,” she said, with such trusting sincerity it made his blood burn in his veins. He wanted to rage at the world which had made her believe that she wasn’t worth caring for. Sheoffered him a wan smile before sitting at her desk and answering the phone.
He kissed her on the cheek and headed out of the door and to the department kitchen.
Fuck.
The anger was burning him inside, forcing his pulse higher and higher. His hands balled into fists as the kettle boiled for his black coffee. The corporate businessman in him reared its ugly head. Sue was unprofessional, inappropriate and truly a bad manager. He’d had run-ins with her before, but nothing he couldn’t handle. It took a bit of force, a bit of guile, a bit of hard-nosed pressure for Sue to do the job that she was paid to do. He’d met people like her before and he could deal with them in his sleep.
So why couldn’t Lila? It was so easy, all she had to do was talk to Sue, point out her obvious mismanagement of this situation, and all her troubles would be fixed. Rhys forced himself to breathe evenly and think.
Lila was soft-hearted and had low self-esteem, so that was probably a tough thing to do for her. Really tough. The worst thing was that she didn’t want his help. He could have this nipped it in the bud in ten seconds flat, but he wouldn’t, because she didn’t want him to. Even though it killed him inside.
“Hello, Rhys.” Sue bustled into the office, huffing and puffing, setting her mug next to his. “Mine’s black, two sugars.”
Fucking hell. The world could piss right off with this test of his willpower and self-restraint.
“I am having the worst day,” Sue said, leaning her portly ass against the small kitchen cabinets. She was obviously wanting some kind of response.
“Oh?” he said, his voice clipped.
“I’ve just had to tell Lila to buck her ideas up and not letdisappointment affect her work. It’s so tough getting people who are resilient, you know?”
Resilient. Buck her ideas up. Disappointment.
Rhys made a non-committal noise at the back of his throat, because if he saidwords, he would say much more than Lila wanted him to. How fucking unprofessional of Sue to be gossiping about Lila’s work which, he might add, was pretty damn good.
“I mean, she’s good. She is. But she couldn’t possibly keep everything running and do a Master’s course as well and it’s not like I have time to do her job as well as my own.”
“Isn’t personal development part of the University’s guidelines?”
“Yeah, but not at the expense of a well-running department. Come on, Rhys, she wants to do a Linguistics Master’s? Lila Cartwright couldn’t linguistic her way out of a paper bag.” Sue gave a very not attractive snort laugh.
What did that sentence even mean? Either way, Rhys got the derogatory drift. The vein in his temple pulsed and his jaw ached from clenching it.
Nope, no. Cannot do.
He could not stand there and listen to this dreary old woman who sat on her arse all day, having Lila do her own jobandSue’s job so she would look good, crow about how she was stifling someone’s dream, all because she knew full well she wouldn’t be able to cope without Lila.
That’s what he heard when Sue opened her stupid, insipid, manipulative mouth.
“Sue.” His voice was cold and quiet, a trick he had learned from his father.
Don’t shout, boy. Don’t let your emotions get the better of you.
Rhys folded his arms across his chest and pinned her with hiseyes. He waited just long enough for Sue to shift on her feet, looking slightly uncomfortable.
“Firstly, do you feel it appropriate to discuss a colleague’s professional development, and your opinion on the same? And to do so in such a public setting?”
“Uh, well, it’s just you and me, Rhys.”
“Yes it is, and I find it highly inappropriate.”
Sue blanched. Her shoulders stiffened.
“Secondly, your inability to grasp why someone would want to take a course to further their career, to possibly branch out into something new, demonstrates your extreme lack of motivation and ambition. Frankly, it’s embarrassing the scorn you show for anyone who does demonstrate such qualities.”
Fuck, this felt amazing.
“Thirdly, your vindictive and soulless managerial skills have ensured that Miss Cartwright can never progress, because you will constantly keep her under your thumb doing both her workandyours, when she is capable of so much more than you ever will be.”
