I push myself to standing from the chair, and I don’t miss the way her eyes go a bit wider with fear, a sort of desperation surfacing that I know too well. She knows I’m about to dismiss her. That our meeting is over.
I have to. It’s the only way to get her buy-in, to make sure she’s as committed to our team as everyone else. If her place here is hard-won, I’ve got one more chance at ensuring her loyalty.
“Go home, Miss Price. Send a formal resumé to the address I’ll give you. I have your contact information because of the accident. Now if you’ll excuse me—”
The T-shirt of mine she’s wearing billows in a gentle breeze from the water. She’s a woman cut from marble and tough as nails, somehow made vulnerable in borrowed clothing. A gust of wind whips her hair around her face, the windswept look nearly shaking my resolve to dismiss her.
I don’t want her to leave. She belongs here.
She shakes her head at me.
I blink in surprise.
“No?”
I don’t realize I’m clenching my fists until I see her eyes quickly dart to where my hands curl by my sides.
“No, sir.”
I’m so surprised I don’t respond at first.
No?
I fully expected her to push back, to fight for what she wants. Hell, it’s exactly why I’m giving her shit. But I didn’t expect flat-out defiance. My voice sharpens.
“I don’t hire people for my team who don’t know how to respect authority, Miss Price.”
I take a step toward her, and to her credit, she stands her ground.
“I know how to respect authority.”
The waves behind her whip in a frenzy, whitecaps rising and crashing against rocks. Clouds roll in, the sky quickly darkening. A storm’s brewing.
I don’t have the time or patience for this.
“Bullshit. Words are cheap, Miss Price. You don’t know the meaning of the word respect.”
Her lips thin, as a wispy piece of hair crosses her vision. She pushes it impatiently out of the way. “I respect the authority of the people who earn it, Mr. Master.”
Ah, so we’re playing that game.
“If you think this is how a job interview is conducted, I’d suggest you go back to school.”
“Job interview?” She shakes her head and actually laughs. “That was never in question. I’m no one’s employee, Mr. Master. I’m suggesting I work for you as a paid contractor. Barter and trade, the very building blocks of modern-day free enterprise.”
Well played.
She wears her defiance well, and it makes me goddamned hard.
What I wouldn’t give to strip that all away from her, one stroke at a time.
I will.
“No.”
She shakes her head from side to side. “No, what? No, bartering isn’t a cornerstone of free enterprise? No, you won’t work with me?”
When I was her age, I’d kill a man for less than this. I was paid to. I built my business on the back of those early days.
“Come here, Miss Price.”
I don’t forget the way it felt with her wrists trapped between my fingers, her pulse racing. I loved the feel of her beneath me, pinned under my weight and heaving for breath. She thought she’d best me, and she did catch me off guard, but not for long.
The first time I saw her, I knew that she was the one we’re after—no, the one we need. I need. It was written in the way she held herself, in the rigidity of her spine, the tightness in her jaw.
I watched her fight.
Her hair caught back in a tight, merciless bun, she wore little to no makeup. It didn’t matter. I knew I was looking at a goddamn masterpiece.
There’s a slight scar across her left eyebrow, the only imperfection on her otherwise flawless face, the type of scar one gets from a street fight. There’s a story behind that scar. I mean to find it out.
Violet Price is five foot even and one hundred ten solid pounds of muscle. Petite, but powerful, like tightly packed dynamite.
My T-shirt blows about her slight frame. The cool breeze from the ocean warns us a storm is coming, and fast, but she ignores her hair whipping around her with wild abandon. Her stunning eyes, a deep, mesmerizing hue, are like nothing I’ve ever seen before, so much more brilliant when I see her up close.
I want her closer.
Violet.
Amethyst caught in light. The color of magic.
It’s both her name and her most distinguishing characteristic.
One of the few colors labeled by Newton when cataloging the spectrum of visible light, violet’s the rarest of any eye color, so rare many believe violet eyes to be mythological. But no. Her violet eyes, those singular gems of beauty, are no myth, and they’re staring straight at me. “Yes?”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to offer half my kingdom for one night with her. One blessed, glorious night, and she’d be mine. All mine.