Page 30 of Bria and the Tiger
“I’m so sorry. I feel unbelievably stupid. She was upset that you knew she liked Lincoln and that he knew and -”
“Yeah, okay.” He started to leave, and Bria stood up hurriedly.
“Jace, wait! Let me talk to her, please?”
“I think you’ve done enough.”
She flinched, and he muttered a curse under his breath. “Sorry. That wasn’t fair. I didn’t mean it, I just… I’m fucked if Rosalie quits.”
“Let me talk to her. I’ll fix this. I promise.”
He studied her for a moment. “Okay. Go talk to Rosalie.”
“What about phones?”
“I’ll answer them.” He moved behind the desk.
Bria gave him a look of surprise. “You’ll answer them?”
“It’s my company. Why wouldn’t I?”
“Right.”
“Go on. Talk to Rosalie and convince her not to quit.”
“I will,” Bria said.
She hurried away and Jace sunk into the reception chair. Christ, what a shit show today was turning out to be.
* * *
“Nothing you can say will convince me not to quit, Jace.” Rosalie was staring out the window with her back to the door. “Just be happy that I gave you two weeks notice.”
“Rosalie?” Bria said tentatively
She swung around. “What are you doing in here?”
“I asked Jace if I could talk to you.” She shut the door and sat down in the chair across from Jace’s desk. “Will you sit and talk with me?”
Rosalie stared out the window again before turning and dropping into Jace’s chair. “Yeah, okay.”
“I’m so sorry about yesterday. I feel really awful for upsetting you. I shouldn’t have said what I did. It’s none of my business who you like.”
“I don’t care if you know that I like him, okay? Don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re just the receptionist. I don’t give a shit if you can smell my – my,” her face flushed, “arousal for Lincoln.”
She pounded her fist on Jace’s desk. “Do you know I was going to talk to Jace about getting my real estate license next year?”
“That’s great,” Bria said.
Rosalie laughed bitterly. “Except I just found out that he knows I’m nothing more than a horny human who can barely think straight when his goddamn best friend walks into the office.”
“He doesn’t think that.”
“You don’t even know him,” Rosalie said. “I have spent the last two years trying to prove to him and everyone else in this office that I would make an excellent agent. It was for nothing because they all know I – I want to screw Lincoln! That’s not exactly professional work behaviour.”
Bria grabbed a tissue from the corner of Jace’s desk and handed it to her. “Rosalie, I know you don’t want to believe this, but it is no big deal to shifters. We smell all sorts of things every single day about other shifters and humans, and we just learn to ignore it.”
Rosalie wiped her face and Bria leaned forward. “Sam has a crush on someone in the office.”
