Bastard Boss

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER SEVEN

Tyler

The exchange between myself and Bella lingers in the air...

Her: You okay?

Me: I'm just fine. Are you?

There's a flicker of something in Bella's eyes that I cannot name with that rebuttal question I've handed her one moment and dashed away the next with what appears to be sheer determination. My gut feeling is that whatever she wants to say to me has been set aside. As if proving my assumption, she dismisses the question and in a typical Bella move, does exactly what I did to her. She turns the topic back to me. "This isn't about me tonight. It's about you," she declares. "It's a big deal to take over the family empire. But I want you to know that everyone here tonight, and everyone I've communicated with since your father's death, seems relieved to have you officially steering the ship's wheel."

"Even Dash?" I ask because I believe that is who she is talking about, reassuring me that I'm right with her brother, who was more than a little put off by me only months before. I'd not only pulled him from an underground fight, but I'd also used Bella and the woman he's now marrying to help me with the process. He'd been embarrassed, but he'd kept his film deal, and his woman.

"Dash knows you were there for him."

"He didn't at the time."

"No," she confirms, "but that was then, and this is now. He's reached out to you for a reason. He's officially over his anger. Just as you're officially the captain of this ship."

The reference to my position being "official" punches me in the gut, but I manage not to flinch despite the voice of concern nagging at my mind, telling me my father hated me. He will never make my takeover easy, no matter how inevitable it is. I skip this reality check with Bella. It's Thursday night. My concerns will no longer be concerns at all come Monday morning. "And I'm not polarizing?" I challenge, interested in how she dodges this bullet, not how I dodge my own.

"I'd label you as demanding and arrogant," she replies with no hesitation in her answer. "You can also be sharp and intolerant."

I narrow my eyes on her. "You know no one else talks to me like that, right?"

"You asked, and if I'm the only person you believe will really answer, then the staff must not know that you value honesty and directness. You really should fix that."

"Should I now?"

"Yes, you should."

"And how do you know I value honestly and directness?"

"Because that's how you operate, no matter how uncomfortable honesty and directness might make everyone around you."

My lips curve. "Are you talking about the night you came to my apartment?"

Her cheeks turn pink and there is a bristle to the air. That something in her eyes is back but, in a blink, she erases her emotions. "Or perhaps the time you told me that being a woman could be an advantage or disadvantage and I had to choose which. In that situation, you said I was being a scared little girl when I let a Hollywood studio walk on me. I wasn't offended. You were not gentle, but gentle is not what I needed."

She has no idea how much I want to prove those words right.

She continues with, "You can be a bastard when you so choose to be, Tyler. But you are not a bastard. Those are two different things. Just as one can be bad, but not be a bad person."

My eyes narrow and I ask, "Am I bad, Bella?"

"It depends on how you define bad," she replies.

"How do you define bad?"

"Privately," she replies shortly. "And based on my previous reprimand, I'll keep that to myself, but I've been keeping way too much to myself now."

"Ah," I reply. "Now it seems we're going to get to the real reason you found me in the crowd."

Her spine stiffens slightly, and her eyes meet mine. "I need to talk business with you tomorrow and I don't like that I should have done so three days ago and did not. I hesitated."

I arch a brow. "Why, exactly, did you hesitate?"

"Perhaps expectations got the best of me," she replies in a statement colored with hidden meaning. "But now my own desire for perfection wins. We need to talk this out."

In other words, she was forced to tear down the wall between us despite every effort to leave it firmly in place. "If the topic you wish to speak to me about is three days old, talk now."

"It's a long debate on some of the final film negotiations for Dash's Hollywood contract. A topic worthy of time and privacy, and while I doubt either of us appreciates those things right now, both are necessary."

"I have always opened my door for you when you needed me."

"Just not when you need me, right?" she challenges softly, and the heat of her cheeks tells me the words have slipped out. "Forget I said that."

My eyes narrow on her and I say, "Me wanting the time and privacy with you was never the question, Bella. I told you—"

"I remember exactly what you told me quite vividly." Her tone is unquestionably tart.

Which tells me that she's thinking about me suggesting her legs would end up around my neck. "Bella—"

She cuts me off, "I'll buzz your secretary when I get in tomorrow and get on your schedule." She starts to turn.

That intolerance she credited me for is alive and well, as I say, "Bella," my tone crisp and authoritative. It's a command that she not walk away from me.

She halts and hesitates a beat before she complies with my wishes and turns to face me. I close the two steps she's placed between us and say, "I made you leave because—"

"You're a bastard?" she challenges.

"I am a bastard, Bella. You wanted to be my friend. I wanted your legs around my neck. I wanted my mouth all over your body. I wanted my tongue in the most intimate part of your body. Don't push me, or that's where we'll end up and that's not good for either of us." I catch her elbow with my hand and the charge I expect darts between us, a message in and of itself. My hand falls from her arm, and I say, "Don't walk away. Run away. Understand?"

Her eyes lower and then lift. "Yes, sir," she replies softly, but she doesn't cut her stare, nor does she ever call me sir. It's almost as if she's intentionally showing me a submissive side meant to tempt me into testing her. If she was anyone else, I'd think it was an invitation.

But Bella would never bow down, not even in play. This is no invitation. It's punishment.

And while my sins might come in many different forms in her mind, in my mind, it's pushing her away, instead of fucking her.