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His eyes darkened and she knew she’d pushed the anger button Crossed the insubordinate line Dread curled in her stomach How many times had she let this happen? How et the better of her and then have to pay the price for it? All the lessons she’d learned flew out of her head when he glared at her

“In ritted out

“No” She nearly choked on the word, and backed up a few steps But the thought of following him into his office to be called to the carpet for her actions was , like she had so many times before And then she’d hate him for it

“Ms Ross, unless you want this to happen in front of your staff, you’ll coerously low and smooth Sweat pooled at the base of her spine as she rose and brushed her hands down her trousers

She could handle this She could Luca was not Robert He couldn’t be Robert

She followed him into his office and while he sat in one of the chairs, she stood by the door A ically she knew this was just an argument It didn’t ht-or-flight response And she knew her choice was always flight

“Mari, what is going on with you?”

“I don’t knohat youwith her hands

“You’ve been out of sorts all week Tense, irritated Short with the staff What happened today was an accident, and you blew it out of proportion The sa room It was easily fixed”

“What happened today was staff being careless And I know I snapped at her, and I apologized”

“And the Mari I o, the one so concerned for her people, wouldn’t have handled it by shouting at them”

She looked away He was right She was so tired of hi him the truth—that the man who had terrorized her was out on parole—that just wasn’t an option

“We need to be able to work together, Mari We need to be on the sae”

She took a breath and exhaled, glad of the diversion from the real probleether You’re giving orders and expecting thele input into what’s happening here other than writing the memo to staff”

“You’ve been at everyDean and I have held”