A Deal with the Bossy Devil by Kyra Parsi

9

“Good morning, sunshine,”Adrien practically purred, absolutely unable to contain his glee at the sight of me in cuffs.

He looked like a toddler discovering the joy of Christmas morning for the first time.

I kept my expression neutral, shoulders relaxed. “Good morning.”

He leaned a shoulder against the doorway and crossed his generously muscled arms. He was wearing a black running tee and matching trousers. It was the first time I’d seen him in something other than a suit.

So I guess we are still going running at some point.

“Rough start to your day?” he mocked cheerfully.

I lifted a shoulder. “Just a misunderstanding, I think. The security doesn’t believe I’m a resident here.”

Adrien’s gaze dipped to my scuffed runners. “Makes sense.”

My middle finger twitched, but I kept my hands down and gave him a small smile instead. “Sure.”

“And I guess I did forget to give them a heads up,” he mused lightly. “That’s the type of stuff my assistant usually takes care of, but I’m short one of those right now. I’m sure you understand.”

I slanted my head to the side and gave him a sympathetic little pout. “Must be so hard to have to do the little things yourself.”

Adrien’s attention cut to my mouth and the smug smile he was wearing faltered just slightly, the amusement fading from his eyes. He decided to try again. “You know, this wouldn’t have happened if you weren’t such an eager little go-getter. Why did you come down here so early?”

Ah, so the plan hadn’t been to stand me up. He’d lied about the meeting time to make me wait.

I bit back a chuckle. He caught it.

“I must have misheard you last night. I thought you said to meet you down here at four.”

He clicked his tongue. “Five.”

“That’s my mistake. I won’t let it happen again… sir.”

Narrower and narrower went his eyes, the arrogant smirk he’d walked in with fully gone. He studied me for a few silent seconds, and I could practically hear the stiff gears struggling to turn in his massive head. “Did you take an edible or something this morning?”

I wish.“No. I just finally… understand.”

He glanced down at his watch and straightened his back. And for a second, I didn’t think he was going to take the bait—he looked like he knew it was bait, and that he didn’t want to ask. But he just couldn’t help himself, could he? “Understand what?”

“This.” I gestured to the both of us with my bound hands. “I finally understand what this whole thing is about.”

He let out a breath and leaned his head back as if he was trying to talk himself out of further pursuing this line of questioning. He’d wasted enough time on me already this morning.

He was a busy man with a busy schedule. He had shit to do and a company to run, damn it.

But I didn’t give him enough time to back away.

“You’re in love with me,” I revealed.

Smacking him across the face with a dead rodent would’ve earned me a less severe reaction. His entire face twitched.

And. It. Was. Delicious.

“What.”

“I’m sorry I didn’t see it earlier,” I said, my voice laced with as much genuine-sounding sincerity as I could muster. “And clearly you’re not handling it very well, so… we can talk about it if you’d like.”

Adrien’s gaze was darting all over my face, no doubt trying to figure out whether I was just pulling his leg or if I was actually a crazy person. The skin under his eye feathered.

“I mean… there are better ways to handle your feelings than…” I held up my cuffed wrists. “First you send your entire security team to track me down, then you lock me in your office, then you find a way to force me to spend as much time with you as possible, and now this.”

His visible disgust was soup for my withered soul. I could live off his hatred.

So I forged on ahead. “Like… this is the second time you’ve had me locked in a room, and this time with real handcuffs. Combine that with the fact that you made me beg the other day, and this whole thing is starting to read like a generic mafia romance book. And, like, to each their own, but that’s not really my genre of choice. I like fuzzy blue aliens with big horns and bigger d—hearts. And I really like cinnamon rolls. Both the food and the dudes, but especially the dudes that can bake the food from scratch.

“So, in conclusion, I’m gonna have to ask that you relax and take it down a notch. And if we want to stop by the bakery down the street after our run for some cinnamon buns, I wouldn’t complain. Unless they had raisins in them. Then I would complain a lot.”

Adrien did another one of his slow lizard blinks, trying to figure out what the fuck I was rambling about. In his defense, my expression had been kept smooth, serious, and appropriately concerned. I hadn’t broken character once.

“You could have just asked me out on a date,” I told him. “I mean, obviously I would have said no, but at least it would have saved us both a bunch of time. I never really understood the whole ‘boy likes girl so he pulls her pigtails to get her attention’ thing.” I crossed my legs, smiling back at him.

I thought I’d managed to stump him. Because for a solid ten seconds, he didn’t so much as blink. But then he said, “You know your left nostril flares when you bullshit?”

Um… since when?

“No, it doesn’t.”

“It does. And you tilt your head to the other side.”

“I don’t—”

He waved a hand and cut me off. “I don’t care. We’re running late, let’s go.”

The pun hadn’t been intended, and he ignored me when I pointed it out.

* * *

I was offered a string of embarrassed apologies by bearded Thing One and Thing Two as they fumbled to take my cuffs off.

But I wasn’t feeling all that forgiving this morning.

As promised, Adrien’s one-liter water bottle was handed over to me the second we stepped outside, and then we were off.

It was brutal.

I despised every painful, breathless second of the twenty-six-minute run.

But I did it.

My lungs were filled with fire, my muscles were burning and stiff and quivering, and I swear I could taste the metallic tang of blood in my mouth, but I fucking did it. I kept up with Adrien. (Mostly… save for a few meters by the end.)

I didn’t know which one of us was more surprised that I actually managed to do it. Me or him.

He kept casting sideways glances at me every time I pushed my legs enough to catch up to him after falling behind, and I thought I caught a quick glimpse of genuine disbelief when we finally reached the end of the route. But by that point I was mostly trying not to hurl or pass out, so I tossed his water bottle on the grass and collapsed beside it, fighting for oxygen.

He hadn’t reached for the stupid thing once. It was still full.

Fucking sadist.

Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up. Don’t throw up.

“I thought you said you didn’t run.”

I don’t.

Please don’t throw up.

“Or did you lie about that, too?”

Why don’t you measure the diameter of my nostrils and the angle my head is leaning at, jackass.

Ria, do not fucking throw up.

It felt like my blood was spinning, I was so dizzy. The worst part? Adrien barely sounded out of breath.

I really hated him. Despised him with a passion I couldn’t remember feeling toward anyone or anything in my life. There was a special place in hell for someone who forced another person to run against their will. And if there wasn’t, I’d carve one out for him.

But first, I needed to catch my breath.

I rolled onto my back and blinked up at the bruised purple sky. Inhale, exhale. Inhale, exhale.

“Get up.”

Fuck off.

I twisted my neck to look at him, willing my legs to move. They wouldn’t.

Adrien glanced down at his watch, his breathing almost entirely back to normal now. He wasn’t even sweating very much. His skin was covered with a light sheen, his cheeks flushed with warm color. How could someone manage to look that good after—

No. Wait.

Sorry. Not good. That wasn’t the right word. I meant more—

“You’re staring again.”

I was so depleted of energy that I couldn’t muster enough to look away. “I need… to… here… for a… sec.”

Another impatient glance at his watch. “Suit yourself. I’m going to the gym. You have exactly seventy-five minutes to meet me at the office.”

I was going to work with him?

But before I could ask, he’d snatched his water bottle off the grass and walked away.

Just two more minutes, I promised myself and flopped back down.

And that was when it occurred to me that I was going to have to do this all over again tomorrow. And the next day. And the next.

I rolled over and buried my face in the frosted grass with a groan.

Alba had been right—he really was going to kill me.

And oh, what a slow, torturous death it was going to be.