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His brows quirked He glanced at the gathering in the private dining roo at us in open curiosity frolass "Is this a bad tin away five years of your life?

I said, "It’s fine They’re contained for now" I made my employees sound like a nasty viral outbreak, which wasn’t too far froh the restaurant, past the private dining rooh the kitchen My office was down a hallway in the back It was a craularly collapsed into exhausted coht or cried over the mountain of unpaid bills strewn on my desk while I examined my life choices

I opened the door, he closed it behind him He looked around with a critical eye "Looks like a boaze fell on the bouquet of red roses on the edge of my desk, and he went stone-still His tone was acidic "From an admirer?"

I snorted "If you can call Satan’s spawn an ad strides, he was in front of the bouquet He snatched the little white enclosure card off the plastic stick He read it aloud while his free hand curled to a fist "I’m sorry, bumble bee I didn’t mean what I said yesterday Please call me, we need to talk Trace"

Jackson pronounced Trace’s naaze to rowled, "What happened?"

I dropped into hed "We had a little run-in at my mother’s house"

"A run-in?" he repeated slowly His eyes had turned an unnerving serial killer shade of black

"Long story short, I stopped by Mama’s on my way to the restaurant, and he was there I told hi married, and he called me the c-word"

Jackson turned the little white enclosure card to dust with a single crushing flex of his fist

I said, "That’s not the worst part"

His eyes were seriously weirding me out I expected laser beams to shoot out of the a restaurant," I said, unable to hide the quaver of fury inf-you to ether"

Suddenly h to contain Jackson Hulklike, his entire body expanded with his angry inhalation I wasn’t sure the sea would be able to hold hianored, and he knew this would get my attention He wantsI can do is act like it doesn’t get to me"

Jackson said darkly, "We’ll see"

The implied threat made the little hairs onviolence, Jackson"

"Who said anything about violence? There are ways to deal with this kind of situation that don’t involve shedding blood" His serial killer eyes burned "Even though I’d very much like to rip his head off and shove it up his own ass for what he said to you"

I allowed e of that for aThen I waved a hand at the chair across fro the room seem smaller than it already is"

He sat in the chair His bulk appeared to reduce it to the size of a piece of child’s furniture He sees and arth, potent masculinity I felt dainty in co what the bathrooht the contract," he said, still bristling

I blew out a tremulous breath

"Bianca Your face just hite"

The laugh I produced sounded a little crazy "That would certainly be a feat"

We stared at each other He said, "Do you want to see it?"