Page 12 of Crazy In Love
I was turning to walk away when the door pulled open.
He wore a pair of gray joggers and a white tee, stretched across his broad shoulders.
His dark gray eyes didn’t hide his surprise that I was standing on his doorstep, and he certainly didn’t look pleased.
He glanced around, I wasn’t sure why, and then glared at me. “Did you walk here at night?”
“Hello to you, too, Bridger,” I said, fumbling for the paperwork in my purse. “I came to deliver something to you.”
“And you couldn’t do it in the daylight?”
“What? Why does it matter what time of day I’m here? It’s not like you were sleeping,” I hissed, because now he was derailing my reason for being here. I shook the paper in front of his face. “Take it.”
He looked at me and reached for the papers in my hand. His fingers grazed the side of my pinky finger, and chills ran up my arms. It was just like the other day, when he’d stopped me from falling on my ass at the pumpkin patch.
I hated that he had such an effect on me.
I couldn’t stand this man, so why did my body react when he touched me?
He stared down at the paper, and I didn’t miss the way his lips turned up just the tiniest bit before straightening again.Most people wouldn’t have noticed, but Bridger Chadwick had been scowling at me for years, so I did.
“You took a polygraph test?” His voice was devoid of all emotion, per usual.
“I sure did. And as you can see, I am not the author of ‘The Taylor Tea,’ as I’ve told you numerous times. But now, it’s time you got that through your thick skull and stop treating me like enemy number one.” Why did my voice sound wobbly? Why were my hands shaking?
Emotion was getting the best of me.
He’d never been nice to me, and I didn’t know why. I also didn’t know why I cared, but I was a people pleaser, and I didn’t like being hated for no reason.
“Well, good to know,” he said, folding his hands over his chest. “I’ll read through this in detail tonight.”
“And I’ll expect a formal apology tomorrow.” I squared my shoulders and met his cold stare head-on.
“Why would I formally apologize to you?”
“Because you’ve been cruel. Because you’ve accused me of a crime I didn’t commit. Because you’ve had a public outburst in my place of business, which has ultimately cost me business. I’ve had eggs slammed against my windows, and that obviously doesn’t help business,” I said, my voice louder than I meant it to be.
“For the record, whoever you paid to clean those windows did a shitty job. I saw the remnants of egg still there. I’d get my money back,” he said, his voice calm and smooth.
The thick lump in my throat made it difficult to swallow.
He is never going to apologize, is he?
I took a step back, throwing my hands in the air in frustration. “I didn’t pay anyone to clean the windows, you jackass. I cleaned them myself, and egg is not the easiest thing toget off of windows, so I had to order a special cleaner to remove it, and it’s not here yet.”
“Why the hell did you clean it yourself?” he barked at me.
“Well, let’s see. We aren’t all billionaires. I’m running a small business, one I never even wanted to run.” I was full-on shouting now, and I could feel the tears welling in my eyes as I continued to walk backward to get away from him. I would not cry in front of this man. “But sometimes you do what you have to do. And sometimes that means scraping egg off your place of business because some pompous ass accused you of something you didn’t do, and now half the people in this town are mad at you about it.”
Was that a sob that just left my throat?
“I see. So this is all my fault?” he asked, the sarcasm thick and impossible to miss.
“Yes. It’s your fault. And until you apologize, you are not welcome in my store.”
“That’s your threat?” he chuckled. The man had zero sense of humor from my experience, so it was clearly a fake laugh.
“My threat?”
