Page 73 of Crash Course
"Dad!"
Fuming, he pointed to the door. "Get out." Then he jabbed his finger again. "When I’m ready to talk to you, I’ll call you. In the meantime, keep your ass in your office and out of my business."
Herass? She let out a huff. "Are you hearing yourself?" Before he could holler, she slapped up a hand. "No. You know what? I’m finally seeing it. After all these years, Iseewhy Mom left you."
"You shut up!"
She’d come this far. Might as well keep going. It wouldn’t hurt to inform him she knew all about the PFOA and little girls with cancer.
"No. I’ve done your bidding for years and this is how you treat me? I’m done."
She glanced down at the e-mails, folded in her hand. No sense tipping her hand that she’d used his login to access the system.
"By the way," she said, "while I was in Morgan. I met Brittney Tate. How convenient that you offered to help with their medical bills since your company probably gave that child cancer."
"Get out!"
Final blow leveled, Cilla spun and headed for the door. "Gladly!"
Hurricane Cilla came storminginto her office, slamming the door behind her. From his spot on the couch, Cruz looked up from scrolling through his e-mails.
Call him a shithead becauseobviously,with the way she barreled in, hands balled and those green eyes the color of a Caribbean sea during a thunderstorm, her meeting with daddy-o hadn’t gone well.
Obviously. Yet, in this moment, everything about her screamed power and rage and passion that made him immediately think of a bed and bare skin and . . .
What in the hell was wrong with him?
He cleared his throat, tried to ignore the start of an erection.Jeez."Didn’t go well, I take it."
She stalked the room, her blazer flapping open while long legs effortlessly ate up the space. Day-am, those wicked spiked heels didn’t slow her down a bit.
Cilla threw her hands up. "He threw me out."
That was unexpected. At leasthedidn’t expect it. Cruz stood, tucked his phone into his front pants pocket and stepped around the coffee table. Giving her a wide berth, he paused beside her desk. "No shit?"
"No.Shit!" She stopped pacing, flapped her arms again and huffed so hard it should have blown him back a step.
"At the risk of sounding condescending," he said, "you need to breathe."
Fire shot from her eyes. "Totallycondescending!"
But she bent at the waist, bracing her hands against her thighs and . . . breathed. Her silky hair fell against her cheeks and he focused on the top of her head. Wrong.Wrong, wrong, wrongthing to focus on because that got him pondering different angles he’d see the top of her head from.
"Holy cow." Still bent over, she inhaled again and blew it out. "I’ve never seen him like that. Not with me. He has a brass paperweight on his desk. I gave it to him for his birthday when I was in high school. All these years, he’s kept it."
"And?"
"He threw it."
A nasty throb banged against Cruz’s temples. Made him want to put hands on someone. Someone like Darren Randolph.
"He threw it," Cruz said. "Atyou?"
Finally, Cilla stood tall. "No! If I’d gotten hit with that thing, I’d be dead. It hit the wall."
"Oh." Cruz nodded and flexed his fingers a few times, ridding them of the urge to pound the shit out of Darren Randolph. Even if the guy was thirty years his senior.
Cilla propped her hands on her hips. "It took a chunk out of the wall. That’s how hard he threw it."
