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“Oh!” I cry. “Oh, a protocol. Of course! I should have just punched him in the face!”
“I only hit Gray because he was out of line,” says Dimitri in a low voice. “No one speaks to you like that in my presence. Ever.”
Something flutters weakly in my stomach at his words, but I clench my abdominals to strangle the feeling. “But it’s fine to tell me to keep my fucking mouth shut as long as we’re not in public?”
Dimitri’s eyes flare a brilliant gold, and the glass in his hand shatters. The stench of bourbon burns my nostrils as it showers the floor, and a few drops of red pool in the mess.
I suck in a breath and chance a glance at his face. Dimitri looks angrier than I’ve ever seen him — even angrier than the instant before he punched Ian Gray.
I take a step back as he shakes his head, more glass and blood peppering the floor. Dimitri’s face is a mask of rage, and he seems totally unconcerned with the inch-long shards of glass still embedded in his palm.
“I’m not telling you to keep your mouth shut,” he snarls, closing his fist around the broken glass. “I’m not like them, Jules. Don’t put me in that box. I’m simply asking you not to make things even harder for me than they already are!”
Dimitri doesn’t shout, but there’s something about the quiet timbre of his voice that shakes me to the core.
I don’t shrink back, though. I’m too angry to give him the satisfaction. “Oh, yes. Poor Dimitri. It must be so hard for you to live in your sixty-million dollar mansion with only your stock portfolio to keep you warm.”
I know that my comment hit below the belt, but at this point, my fury has taken on a life of its own.
“My nana worked every day of her life until she was sixty-eight, scrubbing toilets for people like you. She scrimped her whole life just to get by and watched my mother do the same. Now she can barely afford to eat because of her medical bills and property taxes and all the fucking bullshit regular people have to worry about! So excuse me for not having the decency to sit there like a good girl while those horrible men railed on people who are just like my family!”
For a moment, Dimitri looks stricken. His normally olive skin looks a bit pale, and his eyes are like two chips of gold. But then he drops his gaze to the counter, hands curling into fists at his sides.
“I am not oblivious to my privilege,” he growls, his voice still low and deadly. “But you have no idea what it’s like to be me — to have the weight of a multibillion-dollar company riding on your shoulders and no one you can trust.” He sucks in a tight breath, finally glancing my way. “I asked you to come tonight because I thought you would help make this evening tolerable. I wouldn’t have asked if I knew you were going to insult and humiliate the very people I need not to hate me.”
“The fact that you feel there’s no one you can trust says more about you than it does about them,” I snap. “That’s the only reason you asked me to come tonight! You thought I’d behave because I’m your employee.”
“Exactly!” Dimitri bellows, and I realize I’ve said the wrong thing. A crushing silence follows his reply, threatening to swallow me whole. “You are my employee!” he growls. “Nothing more.”
I should have expected this — should have seen it coming. But I didn’t, and the wave of hurt that rises up inside me is evidence of what a fool I’ve been.
Dimitri doesn’t have feelings for me. He doesn’t see me as anything more than a piece of ass and a disobedient employee.
Hot tears sting my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. I’ve had my fill of humiliation for the night.
“Get out!” I yell, too caught up in my own swirl of fury and heartbreak to wonder if I can actually kick Dimitri out of his own house.
He raises his head to meet my gaze, and the look in his eyes makes my insides twist. Dimitri drags in an uneven breath and then backs away from the counter.
I don’t look up. I don’t need to.
A second later, I hear the kitchen door slam. Dimitri is gone.
Chapter Eleven
Dimitri
I’m a fucking idiot.
That’s the refrain that rings in my head as I stare down at the glass of hundred-year-old bourbon glistening in the low light of the Ponderosa lounge. I killed the first glass as though it was two-buck chuck, but I can’t bring myself to drink the second — can’t bring myself to numb the pain from the gaping hole in my chest.
I don’t deserve the sweet respite of oblivion.
I deserve to feel all of this, I think as I flex and straighten my injured palm. The cuts from the shattered glass have already begun to heal — one of the perks of being a shifter — but I never fished out the remaining shards, which are now embedded in my palm.
Every movement is pain. Every movement is penance.
All I want is to rewind to those perfect moments in the courtyard with Jules and tape over the rest of the evening.
