Page 13 of Grumpy Boss in Love
Anger sparked inside me and quickly flared, spreading through my veins. He was playing golf? Poor Jane could very well be at home crying her eyes out and the fucker was playinggolf.
“You know what, Oliver?” I snapped. “Forget I called.” Whenever I tried to let go of my resentment to reach out to my old man, he reminded me of why I detested him. I ended the call with a violent jab at my phone screen.
“Uncaring bastard,” I grumbled.
Well, in all fairness, maybe Dad coped by shutting off his emotions… kind of like I did in most situations. However, when it came to Ryan, I still allowed myself to feel that cutting pain of loss because I didn’t want to forget him. I wanted to keep him alive in my memories.
I turned to stare at the red and white framed photo of a man smiling from ear to ear. Ryan Westwood. He was the opposite of me. Charming, outgoing, and hilariously sarcastic. He was always the one to drag me out of my shell. When he died… Well, I crawled right back into that shell, reinforced it with a few more layers of emotional stonewall, and stayed in there.
“Goddamn it, Ryan.” I sighed. “You just had to leave me here.”
Just then, someone sashayed into my office. A lifetime of putting up an emotionless facade automatically had me locking away my sadness and returning my expression to a stony mask. Realizing that it was no other than Ruby Bennet, my irritation rose several notches.
“Don’t you know how to knock?” I growled.
Ruby stopped in her tracks and clutched her chest dramatically. Just five days of her working here and I’d already learned what a drama queen she is. Monday to Thursday, I’d been amused by her penchant for melodrama. Today, not so much.
“Where the hell is Simone?” I asked. My assistant should know better than to allow anyone in without calling.
Ruby’s eyes narrowed to slits. “Don’t you dare chew Simone’s head off.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Are you her protector now?”
“Yes.She figured that after four days of me bringing your coffee up at the same freaking time, she could stop announcing my arrival.”
“Next time, knock,” I seethed.
“I didn’t knock yesterday,” she challenged. “And you didn’t lose your head over it.”
I stared at her in disbelief. Anyone else would have run out of here already, not wanting to face my wrath. Not Ruby. There she stood, giving me lip.
“You know, Ruby, I never imagined working with you would be worse than having you as a student.”
Fire practically gashed in her eyes. “And I never imagined that my dream internship would turn into me becoming your personal delivery girl,” she shot back.
“That’s right, you’re anintern,Ruby. Act like it or you’ll lose the damn job. I’m sure another college graduate would appreciate the position. Oh, and you’re late.Again. The coffee should have been brought up ten minutes ago.”
The room went quiet as we had a stare-down. The color seeped from Ruby’s face and her eyes widened a little. She visibly swallowed and glanced at the paper cup in her hand, which had the logo of my favorite cafe on it. “I’m sorry, I’m running late. By the time I got to…” She shook her head. “It doesn’t matter. It won’t happen again.”
Her shoulders drooped as she took hesitant steps forward to place the cup on my desk. It was then I realized that something was different about her. I’d been so caught up in my misery and taking it out on Ruby that it slipped my notice.
“What happened to your suit?” I asked. As I assessed her further, I also spotted the dark circles under her eyes and did they look red… like she’d been crying?
She ran her palms over her black jacket. “Nothing. What do you mean?”
“It’s dull.” Plus, she wasn’t wearing a pair of those ridiculous high heels that looked like stilts. Her shoes were flat and boring today. Something wasn’t right.
Ruby scoffed, and the color returned to her cheeks. “Seriously? You’re insulting my clothes now? Isn’t that like a human resource issue or something?”
“I…” What excuse could I give for noticing such details about an employee and commenting on it? I gave myself a mental kick in the ass.
She harrumphed in dramatic Ruby-like fashion, wheeled around, and walked out. However, her stride wasn’t her typical energetic one. The door closed, and I stared at it for a while. Employees running out of here with hurt feelings was a usual thing here at Westwood Collective. Incompetence was something that irked me to the extreme and I didn’t shy away from calling it out no matter who it was.
But seeing the look on Ruby’s face earlier made me feel guilty. She had eyed me with wariness like everyone else who worked for me, and I hated it. I knew what people said about me. They said I was a callous bastard who only cared about work. I once overheard my assistant calling me a robot while she was on the phone.
The board members were all afraid of me and everyone else kept their interactions with me to a minimum. Usually, I didn’t care because everyone was right. I could be frigid sometimes… all the time, and I hated having to socialize with too many people at once. The muscles in my face might have forgotten how to form a smile and laughter wasn’t a thing in my life. There hadn’t been much to laugh about since I was a kid.
At the moment though, I cared what Ruby thought of me because it just struck me how much Ilikedour back and forth, even when things got a tad hostile. She was the only one who had the guts to challenge me about anything. She had since she was my student, and I needed that.