Page 111 of Burning Embers
“You fucking stay. Relax. Take a damn break!” he barks, as if I’ve been working ten days and not ten minutes.
“I’m not even tired?—”
“Sit!” he orders, turning to face me. He jabs a finger in my direction. “Stay.”
I stomp after him. “I’m not a dog. I know that’s hard to believe?—”
“I never said you were a dog.” His brows bunch together. He seems genuinely confused by my comment.
“Sit. Stay. What’s next? Come? Good girl?” I mean for my words to be scathing and teasing, but I know I made a mistake the second they leave my mouth. I wish desperately I could scoop them up and throw them away.
Come.
Good girl.
Reid growls something I can’t hear, points a trembling finger at my face, and then drops it with a huff. Tiny red blotches unfurl on his cheeks.
“You’re ridiculous,” he snaps, throwing his hands up in the air. “Just take it fucking easy!”
“I am!” I give him the finger.
He opens his mouth to retort but immediately shuts it. His face drains of all color, and his gaze homes in on something behind me, directly over my shoulder.
I turn to look and come face-to-face with a gorgeous woman with light-brown skin, honey eyes, and glossy black hair.
She bites her lower lip demurely as she takes a step towards us.
“Hello, Reid.” Her voice is soft. Lovely, even.
I hate it.
Reid looks as if he’s going to be sick. “Michelle.” He swallows. “What are you doing here?”
Thirty-Seven
IZZY
Ithought I knew what it meant for Reid to hate someone on a visceral level. The scowls he hurls at me are capable of withering flowers and encasing freshly bloomed buds in ice.
But that glare isnothingcompared to the one he’s currently sporting now.
The girl—Michelle—shifts from foot to foot as she wrings her hands uneasily.
Why does that name sound so familiar?
She’s certainly beautiful in a delicate, angelic sort of way. Her hair is so straight and smooth, I’m not sure even a single strand overlaps with another. Almond-shaped brown eyes are framed by long, dark lashes. She wears skinny jeans and a pink top that offsets her golden-brown skin.
“Reid, you haven’t returned my calls…” She nibbles anxiously on her glossy lower lip.
I expect Reid to make a witty retort or an acerbic jab the way he just did with me. But he remains silent, glaring at her.
“We need to talk about this,” she continues. “About us.”
Michelle…
Wait a minute.
Didn’t I hear that Reid has an ex-girlfriend with that name? And that he fell apart when they broke up?