Page 19 of Loathing My Boss
Everything hurts, and I’m dying.
But at least my sleep paralysis demon is an angel.
Aching, exhausted, half alive, I lift my hand toward the beautiful face hovering over me, graze the soft cheek, and realize I’m not dreaming anymore when Crisis recoils—disgust blatant, sharp,devastating.
“Mr. Bachelor,” she says, aghast, blinking rapidly.
I groan. Pain. Suffering. Crisis in her pajamas, near me, sexy as all get out. And sickened by my touch.
I grumble, “Mr. Bachelorcould be any of my fourbrothers.” I try to roll; I fail to get anywhere close to upright. “And it was myfather. Please, call meViktor.”
Hearing my name on your lips will end my life, and put me out of this misery. Do it now. Quickly. I beg of you.
Perching her chin in her hands, she pouts at me. “Do I need to call an ambulance?”
“No,” I grumble, attaining something like a seated position. Hunched, I fight through a sore crick for a breath. This. This will not work for multiple days, much less multipleweeks.
Something very near genuine remorse settles momentarily in Crisis’s eyes. “We can share the bed tonight,” she says. “This is going to kill you.”
That. That also will not work.
My eyes close, willing a stray gunshot to locate me through the small windows above the short headboard of the bed. “I’ll talk to someone. It’s not…proper…to share a bed with you, Crisis.” Lifting my attention, I find her jutted lip. It’s good I can’t move, because every sore muscle is desperate to frame her round cheeks in my hands and kiss her.
“Proper,” she echoes. “You’re thirty-five, not eighty-five, Mr. Bachelor. Proper is a pretense made up by our elders to control the youngin’s. Your geriatric state does not allow forproper, even if your body is over eighty, your mind should maintain something closer to youth. I think. This place is booked solid; they said as much at introduction yesterday. This is something you want to do. So, either I go back home to my little fish, or we share the bed. I’m sure we can ask for or buy some extra pillows to create a purity wall for your feeble, ancient sensibilities.” She puffs a sigh and sinks down against the tops of her knees. “You’re hurting yourself over something stupid. Please stop it.”
“Something…” My eye twitches as I look at this woman. This beautiful, beautiful woman. In a thin black camisole, baring her soft pale skin. “I’m aman, Crisis.”
Her mouth drops. Sarcasm thick in her voice, she says, “No. You don’t say?”
“Crisis,” I mutter.
“You’re not adangerousman, Mr. Bachelor.”
“Viktor. It’s been two years. Can’t you call me by my first name? You call my brothers by theirs.”
“You’re my boss. They aren’t. Also, like you said, you’dallbe Mr. Bachelor.”
Something within my body pops. Loudly.
Crisis shrinks. “I feel terrible,” she whispers, sounding…genuine.
The part that gets me the most is that sheshouldn’tfeel terrible. This isn’t her fault. It’s Kyran’s. And she isn’t even wrong. The place is booked solid. My options were either to lose the opportunity of us both staying here without work hours binding our proximity, or sleep on the floor.
Therefore, I’m going to kill Kyran in one way or another. If not in real life, in one of my books will have to suffice. The one time I rely on my younger brothers for something, and this happens. My childhood really should have taught me thatfamilycould not be trusted. I guess I never quite learned the lesson where it concerned the people I love most in the world.
Beyond our bedroom door, casual chatter strikes up, other guests heading toward the continental breakfast being served at the ranch house right about now.
Food sounds great.
If I can ever walk again.
I really don’t want Crisis to go home. The last thing I want is to stay here, at aregularwriter’s retreat, withouther. She knows me well enough to have already said this isn’tsomething I’d do. And it really, really isn’t. All the extra activities planned are nothing but a distraction and a waste of time if she’s not here, with me. I don’t have kids. I’m not making three dollars a month. I didn’t need to scrounge up the money in order to flee my family for a chance to be aroundlike-minded individualsandactually get some work done.
I have a personal assistant who manages every aspect of my life so I have time to work. And so then I just…do. I sit down, with my carefully-curated-to-the-market outline, and I put words in the right order, making sure my actions and dialogue balance correctly while my sentence patterns have variety.
It’s a science.
A dull, dull, agonizingly boring science.
