wrong with you now?” Callie pushed the door open and then banged it shut as hard as she could behind her.
Ben slowly turned around. Something rumbled around inside him and it wasn’t happiness. Tension radiated off him, pulling every part of his body tight. For the first time all afternoon he glanced at her.
An apology for his grumpiness was in order. He should have been embarrassed for flirting with her while his true love Emma sat only an office away. Instead, his brown eyes smoldered with…was that fury?
“Don’t do that again,” he said through a clenched jaw.
“What?” she asked, mystified about the cause of his sour mood.
“Slam my door.” He threw his files against his desk with enough force to send a few flying to the carpet.
She sure as hell hoped he didn’t think it was her job to race around and pick those up. Just to be clear on that point she didn’t move. “But I like the sound.”
“Well, I don’t, and since I run this office I decide what happens here. It’s about time you realized that.”
Looked like they were back to the me-boss-you-stupid-girl routine. “Care to tell me what crawled up your ass?”
“Excuse me?”
“Up. Your. Ass.”
“I’m not in the mood for your attitude or a shadow.”
“You don’t get that choice.”
“Yes, I actually do.”
To be fair, the day had been an absolute pisser. When a threatening note turned out to be the highlight, a shit storm of bad news was inevitable. Mark wanted to beef up security. The courtrooms had to be locked down during business hours. And there was that whole hand-holding thing she witnessed.
But Callie still had a job to do. If that got in the way of his office loving with Emma, then tough shit. “After this morning, I’m not going anywhere.”
“Don’t remind me.” Ben stripped off his robe. The jacket came next, leaving him in a white dress shirt and tie.
“What is that supposed to mean?”
His hands dropped to his sides. “Did it ever dawn on you that I didn’t want to share the note with Mark?”
Callie realized they were talking about two very different things. She worried about Ben’s safety and assumed he was tired of having someone with him at all times. He got stuck on the chain of command. Looked like a case of Ben being knocked flat by his oversized ego.
“Mark is trying to protect you,” she pointed out for what felt like the three hundredth time.
“I don’t need my big brother to rescue me.”
“Is that what this is about? You’re having a crisis of male self-worth? If so, snap the hell out of it.” She grabbed Ben’s arm and forced him to look at her. “For God’s sake, you’re smarter than this.”
“I told you once that I don’t accept a belligerent tone from employees.”
“And I ignored you.”
“I’ve earned the right to expect more respect than you show me.” His voice stayed sharp, but he didn’t pull away from her touch.
“First, as you pointed out, I don’t work for you.” She eased up on her grip because he didn’t seem to be running away. Well, not physically. Mentally he had left the building. “Second, you have to earn respect, and stomping around and acting stupid is not the way to do that.”
“Did you talk to your supervisors at the FBI like this?”
“No.”
That was the truth. Even though it killed her inside, she had shown deference and played by the rules. She took crap from her boss and refrained from pushing him out a window, because that’s what she had to do to keep the job she worked so hard to get. When all of that reluctant patience backfired, she learned a hard lesson. Now she refused to hide and stay quiet. No longer would she wallow in false obedience. If someone needed to be called a jackass, she would do it.
Which probably explained why she had been unemployed for almost two months before Mark came knocking and offering odd jobs. Then came the Ben gig. Callie said yes but attached some strings. She didn’t have to toe the line or cut through bureaucratic bullshit. She could say what she needed to say as long as Ben stayed safe, and it was up to Ben to figure out how to deal with her truthfulness.
“Why did you get fired?” Ben asked.
He was fishing. If he had the facts he would have chosen his words more carefully. “I didn’t, and my life is not your business.”
“That goes both ways.”
“No. I need you to listen and follow my lead.”
His teeth slammed together hard enough for her to hear the click. “This is my fucking office.”
He delivered his observation in a resounding yell. The grating sound brought Rod running. He knocked once, not waiting for permission to come in before opening the door. “Is everything okay?”
“We’re fine,” she said as she dropped her hand from Ben’s arm.
But not before Rod’s gaze went right there. “Sir?”
Ben shook his head. “You can leave.”
Rod’s face fell at his boss’s abrupt tone. Callie almost felt bad for the poor little sycophant.
“I’m just outside if you need me,” Rod said.
Callie waited until the clerk left again to say anything. “You didn’t have to scare the hell out of the poor kid.”
“Since when do you care about Rod?”
The man made a good point, but the nastiness was way out of proportion for the situation. Callie knew she should drop it and let Ben fester in his male stupidity, but a voice inside her head told her to keep digging.
“What’s really going on here?” she asked, fully expecting another screaming match.
“I just told you.”
They stood a few feet apart. If she reached out she could touch him again, which was exactly why she kept her arms strapped to her sides with invisible tape. “You had to know what would happen with the note.”
“Excuse me if I’m ticked off that my work life has turned into this load of crap.”
She guessed she was the “crap” in that description. The guy could be a little more appreciative that her sole purpose in life at the moment was to keep him alive. Some hours, like now when he spent most of the time snapping at her, she debated taking him out herself.
But she did understand the panic that rolled over you
