Page 79 of Tell Me Why
“I should just kill you,” he said. “Show up here with that attitude, keep all your secrets and try to take over my house. I was doing just fine before you got here.”
Tell looked at Isabella, and Tina wondered if he wasn’t trying to figure out what the woman saw in Daryll. Isabella cleared her throat and stepped forward, resting her fingertips on the desk as she looked Tell in the eye.
“He’s brought us another opportunity, Daryll,” she said. “It is a path of communication with one of your competitors. He can bring us clues about how things are going with Perceval. I didn’t even know that hecaredabout the trade.”
“Of course he does,” Daryll said, finally pulling out his chair and sitting down. “He decided five years ago that it wastrendyand he jumped in. Probably hasn’t even made aprofityet, from what he paid to get everything up and running. Trying to shoulder me out ahead of time, now. How did he know where you were?”
Tell shook his head.
“I haven’t the first idea,” he said. “Clearly your organization has a leak. I haven’t spoken to him…” He shrugged like he didn’t even know when he’d last seen him.
“Is his hair always that color?” Tina asked, and Isabella turned her face away as she tried to contain the abrupt laugh.
“I have no idea how he does it,” Isabella said. “It’s been that color as long as I’ve known him.”
Daryll looked mildly infuriated that they were able to laugh about it.
“Is that all?” Tell asked, bored. “I’m late to start, and I’ve got people waiting on me, I’m sure.”
Daryll shook his head, too angry to just let it go.
“Go home,” he said. “I’ll double your guard. I need to think. And I don’t want you here while I do it.”
Tell sighed, then nodded and stood.
“I have people getting on planes this week,” he said. “Ones who know how things work. I would rather you not embarrass me by leaving me behind schedule and unprepared for their arrivals.”
“You let me worry about that,” Daryll said. “They work for me, not you. You’re just here to go show your fancy face where I say we’re going to go sell.”
Tell was an attractive man. He had good bone structure, if nothing else. But Tina found it laughable almost to the point of uncontainable that someone would call him fancy-faced. He was scruffy on purpose.
Defiantly scruffy.
His face didn’t wiggle, even as Tina struggled.
Instead, he sighed.
Looked at Isabella.
“You thought we’d run away,” he said. “That I had betrayed you, whether to someone else or just by being bored andunreliable. It’s making you irrational and short-witted. I’ll give you time to recollect yourself.” He looked back at Daryll. “But please understand that there’s only so much foolishness I’ll put up with before I really will just leave.”
“That isn’t… you leave, you’ll regret it,” Daryll said. Tell raised an eyebrow, then stood.
“Please give my apologies to my appointments today,” he said. “This level of unprofessionalism is not how I want to be perceived.”
He went to open the door, and Daryll stood.
“You be where I can find you,” he said.
“Your guards failed,” Tell said. “I was taken under plausible threat of violence.”
“You don’t just leave,” Daryll said. “You can go when I say you can go. I get any idea that you’re going to try to vamoose, I’ll bring her back here to stay until you’re done.”
Oh, good. Tina was the hostage again.
That seemed about right.
Tell had made it to the door, his hand on the doorknob, and he turned back, his fingers lingering on the door as he considered Daryll.
