Page 29 of Bossy Trouble

Big mistake.

A pissed-looking Donovan Dresden was standing at my doorstep.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” he asked. “What is your problem?”

I didn’t respond. Fear seemed to have seized my body, including my vocal cords. I barely heard what he was saying. All I could think of was the fact that Avery was upstairs taking a nap. She didn’t usually sleep long, and she hadn’t finished her dinner yet. She could wake up at any moment and come downstairs hungry.

And then I would be doomed.

12

DONOVAN

Georgia visibly paled when she saw me at her door, but I didn’t care. I’d had it up to here with her.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” I threw out the question again as I strode into her house. She didn’t answer. I turned to look at her, and she looked even more horrified.Good,even though I wasn’t entirely sure why.What I did know was that she frustrated me the entire day.

I’d been trying my hardest to get a rise out of her today. Even after she came back from the office tour looking as if she had swallowed lead, she said nothing to me about Ellen’s treatment. I knew the woman was probably exceptionally bitchy toward her, but Georgia was mum, irritatingly zen.

I decided to push her even more and have her run some errands around the office, mundane stuff like going from office to office and asking the employees if anyone had seen my special stapler. Then I made her cater lunch from three different restaurants for me and send one back because the meat wasn’t rare enough. And then she went to fetch me a specific plate from Neiman Marcus so I could put my perfectly rare steak on.

Still, nothing. Not a single squeak of protest.

Sure, she glared, and at one point, it looked like she would like nothing more than to stab my eyes out with her pencil. But nothing beyond that, not even a moment of hesitation before she jumped on each asinine task I gave her.

It was starting to look like she would never crack.

And I fucking hated it.

I wasn’t sure why it bothered me so much. I thought about it on the way here, why I felt so restless and irritated at the fact that Georgia Peyton refused to stand up for herself. And then it irritated me even more that I couldn’t figure out why I was irritated. So by the time I parked my car outside her home, the anger had grown into a waiting fuse.

This wasn’t Georgia.

Whoever the person was in my office today, the one who obeyed all my orders and did exactly as I asked, wasn’t the Georgia Peyton I knew. That person was a stranger, and I wanted to know what that stranger had done withmyGeorgie Peyton.

I stared at her now, still waiting for her answer, but it seemed like her mind was far away. Her eyes were wide and a little panicked looking, her fingers fidgety at her sides. She looked as if she saw a ghost, and she didn’t seem aware that I was even speaking.

“Hello?” I snapped my fingers in front of her face. “Anyone home?”

She blinked at me; then, her face turned red.

“What on earth are you doing here?” she hissed, her voice low. I wondered why she was whispering in her own home. Sure, there were probably about a hundred people in this tiny apartment complex, but the walls didn’t look that thin.

“I’m here to find out what your problem is,” I gritted out.

“My problem?”

“Yeah,” I said. “You’ve been acting strange lately. What gives?”

“Strange?” If anything, her spine stiffened even more, and she looked even more scared. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Am I making you nervous?”

“No.” The answer was automatic, but then she seemed to reconsider. “Honestly, yes. I don’t want you in my house, bothering me after I already spent the past 14 or so hours with you. I’m exhausted.”

“None of that explains why you’re nervous.”

“Maybe it’s because you’re a big, strong man in my home who refuses to leave.”

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