Page 35 of Wrecked By You
But that was beside the point.
Who the hell took it upon themselves to come intomyoffice and touchmythings?
I strode into the bar, where Stan was making the final checks ahead of the doors opening in thirty minutes. Anger bubbled in my stomach, expanded into my chest, and spewed from my tongue.
“Who the fuck has been in my office?” I roared.
Stan jumped and whacked his head on the underside of the bar. He stood up straight, rubbing the offending spot.
“What?”
“Oh, I’m sorry. Was I speaking fucking Mandarin?” My voice oozed with sarcasm. “Someone has been in my fucking office and screwed up my filing system.”
I didn’t have a filing system. Until now. Whatever. I still had a system of sorts. And it was mine.
Stan scratched his cheek, frowning. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, boss. I haven’t been in your office.”
“Well, someone has. And I want to know who.” I set my laser-focused attention on Tiffany. “Was it you?”
Tiffany raised her palms on either side of her head. “Wasn’t me. I don’t even clean my apartment all that often, so there’s no chance I’d volunteer to tidy up your office.”
I jabbed a finger one at a time at the rest of the bar staff. “You? You? Or you?”
“It was me.”
I spun around. Ella stood behind me with an armful of napkins. She must have been in the storeroom when I’d barged in here shooting my mouth. She chewed the inside of her cheek and rocked on her heels.
“I did it. I filed everything away.”
A nerve thrummed in my jaw like a jackhammer. I ground my teeth and glared at her, summoning a vitriol that caught in my throat. I breathed in through my nose, letting it out slowly.
Somehow, I steadied my voice. “Give the napkins to Stan and come with me.”
I retraced my steps, Ella’s soft footfalls keeping pace with me. I waited for her to enter my office, then slammed the door closed. She flinched.
“Who said you could poke your nose into my personal and business affairs?”
She gave me her eyes, luminous green, like the leaves on a tree after a deluge of rain. Something shifted in my chest, a feeling of empathy. I cast it aside. I knew all too well how an odious agenda hid behind a pretty face and big, beseeching eyes.
“You did.”
Whatever I’d expected her to say, that wasn’t it. “Me?” I pointed to myself as if she needed a signpost of whom I’d meant when I’d said me.
“Yes.”
“And when exactly did I say this?”
“Yesterday afternoon, right before you left for San Francisco.”
Puzzled, I rubbed my forehead. The conversation remained stubbornly out of reach. I had zero recollection of giving her permission to tidy my office. I blamed Douglas and his stupid stunt, although he’d rue the day he’d threatened my staff and my business. I’d make sure of it.
“What exactly did I say?”
Her eyes shifted up and to the left. “If I remember correctly, I told you that whatever you were searching for would be easier to find if it was filed away. And then I offered to do it, and you said ‘Whatever.’” She shrugged. “So I did.”
I blinked, stared, blinked some more. “Let me get this straight. You took a throwaway comment I made while I was distracted as approval to come into my office and go through my fucking things?”
Her lips flattened, and she crossed her arms. Defensive mode activated.