Page 12 of Out of the Shadows

He shook his head. “You’re staying here tonight.”

She pursed her lips. There was no way she’d heard that correctly. “Sorry. What was that?”

“On the way over here, we talked?—”

“Youtalked,” she interrupted. “I ignored you.” His eyebrow arched, and she rolled her eyes. “In a very polite and respectable way, of course.”

“Of course.” The edges of his lips twitched. “Well, since you didn’t protest what I was saying, I assumed we were in agreement.”

She racked her brain for any hints of their conversation in the car and came up blank. “You’re going to have to refresh my memory again.”

His eyes narrowed as he stared across the room, as if pondering the meaning of life. “Is it really refreshing your memory if you never bothered to hear what I said in the first place? I suppose a bit of what I said must have seeped into your subconscious, right?”

Good. Freaking. God. “Gavin Frazier,” she said, putting as much annoyance as she could muster into the two words.

He chuckled. “Damn. Full name. You mean business.”

The man wasn’t wrong. She rarely called him by his given name. It was always boss man, boss, or Frazier. “That’s right,Gavin.”

He smirked. “Well,Sabrina, you’re here because I don’t trust you. At all.”

In the span of a heartbeat, the blood drained from her face. All humor vanished, and her gaze dropped to her lap. Ouch.

“Holy shit, B. I didn’t mean it likethat,” he said in a rush, grabbing her hands.

She stilled. Completely. For the life of her, she couldn’t take a breath, and her chest squeezed painfully tight. It was as if he’d punched her in the gut.

“Bean, look at me.”

She shook her head, gaze fixed on her knees, still unable to breathe. Then his hands were framing her face, and he tilted her head up. Her heart knocked hard in her chest. Physical touch wasn’t something she was accustomed to. Especially not from her boss.

“Breathe, B, or you’re going to pass out.”

Meeting his gaze, she sucked in a breath. Shaking her head, she tried to pull away, but his hands held firm. His gray eyes were intent and imploring. “I trust you with my life, B. I trust you with the lives of every member of our team.”

Confusion swirled in her brain. Then what did he mean?

He ran a thumb gently over the edge of her bruised eye before pulling away and raking his hands through his already disheveled hair. “What I meant to say and completely fucked up is that I don’t trust that you’ll follow Doc’s orders. Your place has all your computers. Hell, your home workstation is identical to your office setup.”

She shook her head—Holy. Moly. Overreact much, B?—and tried to inject some levity into their conversation. “I have one less monitor at home.” His eyebrow arched, and that I’m-not-impressed look crossed his face. She cleared her throat. Right.Hello, awkward.“You were saying?”

“If you’re at your place, I don’t think you’ll be able tonotwork. You have a concussion?—”

“A slightpossibleconcussion,” she clarified.

He scrubbed his hands over his face as he muttered something she couldn’t decipher. Most likely a curse given the frustrated glare he was now shooting at her. “I don’t care how slight or possible it is. You have a concussion. You need to rest. And I know you won’t do that at your place.” He waved a hand at his living room. “Here, I have a laptop. That’s it. And you’re not getting on it.”

There was no use arguing with him. “Fine, but I need to swing by my place to pick up some stuff.”

“Like what?” he asked, rising from the couch.

It took everything she had to not roll her eyes. She knew he was trying to help—and, yes, he did have a point since she’d planned to hop on her computer the minute he drove away—but he was being a bit over the top. “Clothes, contact lenses, tampons... You know, those kinds of things?”

He crossed the room and picked up a bag. Her eyes narrowed once she recognized it was the emergency bag she kept in the trunk of her car. “I assume this has all the stuff you need for one night?”

This time, her rolling eyes won the battle. Of course he had an answer for everything. “I knew you were bossy,” she muttered, “but you have to admit that this is a lot. Even for you.”

“Deal with it.” He shot her a smile that was more smirk than grin. “Honestly though, I wasn’t lying earlier.”

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