She watched through the glass as he broke eye contact and stared at a stack of papers on his desk. His expression was mostly unreadable, but for a brief moment, Sophie had the sensation that he was almost human.
“See if you can manage to be in my office within the next two minutes, Ms. Dalton. Surely even you can handle that.”
Nope, definitely not human.
Sophie hung up and tapped her home-manicured nails against her fancy new desk.
The morning was not going as planned. He was supposed to be cool and indifferent, and she was to be polite and professional until she’d figured out a plan of attack.
Instead he looked ready to explode, and she hadn’t even been trying to annoy him.
And already she was itching to see what was beneath that icy surface. That was so not part of the plan.
Sophie assessed her two options:
Stick it out and figure out how to work with Mr. Holier Than Thou, or…
Quit.
Quitting was the obvious choice.
The whole point of this respectable-job thing was to be, well…respected. That was pretty much out the window considering the one person who was now supposed to save her ego was the very same person who’d crushed it in the first place.
Even the luxury of working in a place where nobody spilled beer on you or “accidentally” brushed your boobs wasn’t worth working for a man who’d seen you wearing little more than a bandanna tied around your waist.
Especially one whom you also had to face at family functions.
And the drive-him-out-of-his-mind revenge plan still held appeal, but she wasn’t sure how to do that and be a competent employee at the same time. Her two goals were working against each other.
Something you should have thought about before getting into this mess, she chided herself.
So quitting it was.
Or…
Sophie contemplated a third option.
Leave the ball in his court.
It wasn’t her usual course of action. She liked to be in control. But this way, Sophie couldn’t be accused of being a quitter. More than likely he was already thinking of ways to get rid of her. And then he could be the jerk, and she could be the poor fired victim.
Mind made up, Sophie took her sweet time reapplying her lipstick. Not because she wanted to look her best, of course. At least, not just that. Mostly it was because the thought of making Grayson Wyatt wait on her was rapidly improving her mood. She added a dab of shiny gloss to her lower lip to make it look fuller. Then she checked her mascara and blush.
Primping complete, Sophie strolled over to his office, taking care to let her hips sway just a bit. If this was going to
be her last day on the new job, she at least wanted to get the most out of her brand-new outfit. Gray definitely seemed like the type who would prefer everyone to knock and await permission. So she barged in.
And blanched.
The office was horrible.
She didn’t know how she’d missed it the first time she’d come in. Probably because she’d been too busy trying to avoid her new boss’s death ray gaze. But she was getting a good look at it now. It was creepy. Even for Gray.
“Whooooo-eee!” she turned in a full circle. “I love what you’ve done with the place. Did you decapitate all these animals yourself? I’d ask if they were dead first, but I know better. Destroying creatures you deem beneath you is a hobby of yours, am I right?”
He looked up from his files, and the eyes that met hers betrayed nothing. Not even annoyance.
“They’re not mine,” he replied curtly. “The former CEO left the, um, decorations when he retired,” he said finally. “I’d prefer something less cluttered.”