Chapter 10
“Hey? What’s a boss got to do to get a fresh round of coffee around here?”
The oddly unsettling, gravelly voice of our guest, Mr. Loper, forces my head up while I’m operating the printer.
This behemoth of a machine can do everything from print, fax, scan, and copy, possibly CPR too, but Brexton hates how loud it is. Honestly, understandable, so it’s tucked away in a smallish room conjoined to his main office.
I try to ignore the shiver tiptoeing up my spine. Loper kind of has the look of death, and it takes everything in me to keep eye contact with him. My jaw locks at the lifeless, murky brown gaze clashing with mine.
Flashes of Lonnie pass before my eyes, though thankfully, it’s quickly whipped away.
“The coffee shop on the main floor is where all our employees go.”
“And…?” He swaggers forward, allowing his question to dangle in the air.
“Uhh, it’s good coffee.” I plaster on a smile since he’s a visitor of Brexton’s and here trying to arrange business.
Not that I want to smile right now.
I’m an aggravated mess today, and I’ve jammed the printer a few times because of it.
Mr. Franz hasn’t gotten back to us about anything, ghosting us so hard, I’m questioning if the man even existed. Brexton say’s he probably crunching numbers and weighing pros and cons, but I have my doubts.
We failed, and my contribution is more than I’d like to accept since I picked the restaurant. That thought, plus end of the month paperwork, and getting my period, all has me in a tailspin of a mood.
The tailspin takes a nosedive as our guest sneers, and the deadness in his eyes morphs to a glint that sends my skin crawling.
“You’re newer here.” Loper’s voice coos in a way I don’t like. It’s borderline ominous.
I direct my attention to the buttons on the printer. Lack of interest might encourage him to leave. “I am.” My reply is droll.
“Well, you should know that when I’ve been here before, I never got my own coffee. It’s the darlings like yourself that service me.”
Stopping my brows from pulling together in near annoyance is impossible, but at least I’m able to keep my head down and level my tone. “Unfortunately, I’m very busy.”
SLAM.
His hand smacks down on the edge of the printer, the offensive flirtation burning away until I feel hatred emanating from him.
I jump, my palms becoming clammy as I come face to face with him. The glint in his eyes shifts to a malicious glower, sending me reeling away.
A creak from the plastic siding is the one sound in the room as he tightens his knuckles around and steps closer—so close, cheap fumes of cedar body spray permeate my space. The skin on his cheeks flashes burgundy as he grinds his teeth and glares. “Why does Brexton pick the most disrespectful cunts to work in his office?”
His volatile explosion sends a terrified gulp down my throat, my saliva so thick I nearly choke. Both my shoulder blades hit the back wall when he steps closer. Shit. Forming another thought is impossible.
“I’m fucking Richard Loper, and you’ll get me that fucking coffee. Now.”
I open my mouth, hoping something—anything, comes out, but it’s not my voice I’m greeted with.
“And you’ll stop disrespecting my staff if you don’t want your fucking tongue cut out with a butter knife.”
It’s Brexton. His appearance in the frame of my office door is almost miraculous. And the unwinding of my muscles is even more of a godsend. He looks more beautiful than from dinner the other night, and I have no problem allowing my eyes to linger on his wide chest. But he’s not relaxed like he was with Mr. Franz. He looks so pissed, no, silently enraged, and I swear I sense his body heat colliding with mine from across the small room.
Loper spins around, and his whole body tenses. “Your staff member is rude, Brexton.”
“Is she?” Brexton raises a brow and tilts his head. “From what I heard, it was the other way around.”
“You don’t think her saying she’s too busy is a problem?”
“No.” Brexton’s eyes hood over, becoming dark, and dare I say, pretty. I’ve never seen them like this, dilated with half of the blue burning away. I kind of like it. “I think you calling her derogatory names is a bigger problem. I’m tempted to rip your disgusting mouth off and nail it to the wall as a warning sign for the next “visitor” who dares to talk to my staff like that.”
If I could melt at this man’s feet, I would. The threat is brutal, harsh, and violent, but how can I not love it, just a little bit, when it’s in my defense? The base of my stomach erupts with a cage full of butterflies, and my spine peels away from the wall.
Mr. Loper bristles back, his shoulders pulling upright. “You can’t fucking talk to me that way. I own the biggest engine plant here in Seattle.”
“Ha.” Brexton’s brows wrinkle, and he looks legitimately amused. “You’re a washed-up piece of shit. A worthless and entitled trust-fund baby with a factory on the verge of bankruptcy. You’re about to ask me for investment money at any moment.”
That gets Loper’s face to whiten, and his body tenses.
“You think I wouldn’t keep tabs on your current operations?” Brexton moves closer to the man. “Your secretary set up an appointment and told us it was for joining you on a ‘new investment’ for a special type of solar powered engine.”
“This engine is different than the last one you and Alan saw.” Our guest dabs at his brow and nods. “That-that’s exactly what I’m here for.”
“No, you’re fucking not,” Brexton growls.
A bomb of silence implodes in the room. The faint buzzing of the fluorescent light and the fan of the printer are like bullhorns blaring in my ears, and Brexton isn’t in a hurry to override the noises.
He takes a long pause as his mouth curls up, and my body hums at the sight. I end up leaning forward, resting my elbows on the lid of the printer.
Brexton moves forward, dwarfing our visitor in his shadow. “I checked, ensued on some serious digging. This is the same engine as last year’s. All you did was change the patent numbers and factory paint the battery to give it a different look. Same shit on the inside when I refused you last year. Only now, you’re broke. You pissed off your last investor after shoving your cock down his daughter’s throat. I agreed to meet you because I wanted to buy you out.”
His eyes widen, almost impossibly so, and his frame trembles. “No-no one knows about that girl … I-I settled.”
“I know everything,” Brexton counters in a hard-laced tone, his shoulder pressing against our visitor. “You don’t cross through my office doors unless I have enough information to smother you to death in your own shit.”
My fingertips curl at his words. I feel it—I’m witnessing the side everyone whispers about. The ruthless, cruel bad guy who does button-ups and makes men quake in fear. The one that even the HR director is scared to come across and walks on eggshells with.
It’s happening right before my eyes.
A small voice tells me that I should be nervous—but I can’t be. Each second I watch Brexton, I find myself sinking deeper in awe. My veins brim over with admiration and respect. There’s even a murmur in my heart telling me I want it for myself—that I want to be sucked into what he does. It’s the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen.
Power. Pure power.
No.