Page 483 of The Parkers' Handsome Holiday
“About?”
She stood up and walked out in front of my desk to lean against it. She nodded at the chair in front of her. “You should sit.”
Uh oh.
Not a good sign.
“I’ll stand,” I said.
Her lips pressed into a fine line and she looked away from me. “I think… I think we both need to take a step back from this.”
“This?”
“Us,” she clarified.
“Oh.”
She crossed her arms and her ankles and looked down at her feet. “The whole office knows about us.”
I frowned. “They do? Since when? How?”
She studied me for a moment, and I wondered what she was thinking. For some reason I had the impression that wasn’t the reaction she wanted from me. She looked away again.
“Aleena told someone when she was wasted at the staff party on Friday night. Obviously, the news spread quickly.”
“I…” I trailed off. I didn’t give a damn if the whole office knew, but then again, I wasn’t the one who had as much to lose by our “thing” being public knowledge. Tinsely was the one who worked for me, and I understood how that might make her feel scrutinized by her colleagues. “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I don’t want you to say anything.”
“You just want what? A break?”
She nodded. “I think it’s for the best right now.”
I don’t. “Okay,” I said.
“Okay?”
I shrugged. “Okay.”
She looked like she was about to say something, or potentially yell at me, when my office door suddenly swung open and Hugh rushed in with his cellphone clutched in his hands. “Sir! Sir, you need to see this. I’m so sorry to interrupt. Tinsely, you might want to see this as well… better yet, maybe not. Maybe you should go.”
Her eyes narrowed. She pushed off the desk and came to stand beside me as Hugh moved to my other side, held his phone up with a paused video filling up the screen, and pressed play.
I knew exactly what I was looking at. It was the recorded video of me going after Armie barely an hour ago. Luckily, his friend stopped filming before I actually grabbed him.
When the video ended, Hugh put his phone in his pocket and tugged anxiously at the collar of his shirt, fanning it in and out as he began to perspire. “This isn’t the kind of media attention we need right now, Mr. Bamford. Your father… your father isn’t going to like this one bit.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “My father knows Armie Bishop is a snake. Speaking of which, Hughie, I need you to cancel all of our contracts and accounts with the Bishop’s.”
Hugh’s mouth fell open. “Sir, a breach of those contracts will be expensive.”
“Do I look like I’m asking or telling?”
Hugh nodded. “Right away, sir.”
He scurried out the door.
Tinsely stared at me, and I stared calmly back at her.
