Page 51 of Taken By My Grumpy Pakhan

“What?”

“We once had an intern challenge a new code and the concept, and the boss acknowledged his boldness and made a comment on how he loves when people have enough balls. Ever since, he has taken it upon himself to be noticed. It’s almost embarrassing at this point.”

“Do you have a phone?” The presenter asked Richmond.

He gave his signature egotistical smirk. “I believe we all do.”

“And you make use of it?”

“I believe so.”

“You have accounts and possibly bank information on there, don’t you?”

Richmond straightened, his eyes darting briefly to Kazimir as he adjusted himself into a more upright position. “I… uh… I believe so.”

“So you trust a cellular device you have no personal relations with over the company you work in? If I didn’t know better, I would argue you were calling a fraud and accusing us of stealing customer data.”

I stole another glance at the top of the table and this time, Kazimir had his eyes on Richmond while Nikolai smirked.

“I think he’s gonna shit himself,” Collin whispered, causing me to stifle a laugh.

“I don’t think so. He looks constipated.”

Collin disguised his laugh with a cough. “At least he has the attention he desperately needed.”

“Yup, and I hope he gets what he deserves.”

Collin gave me a side glance. “Not a big fan of mister hotshot?”

My eyes automatically rolled at the title. “He’s 5'7", he’s hardly big for anything.”

“You’ve gotta pay attention to this one.”

I lifted my head to find Nikolai berating Richmond and tasking him with finding all the loopholes in the recently launched products since he was so security conscious.

My lips curled into a triumphant smile.

“Whatever did he do to deserve such happiness over his woe?”

“He was an asshole while I worked in the reception.”

Collin nodded. “Then he deserves to have his dick cut and stapled to his face.”

I snorted a very unattractive laugh. “You’re evil. I—” my response was cut off by the intense heat burning into the corner of my face.

I followed the sensation to find Kazimir’s heated gaze on me. His face was expressionless and his eyes ablaze.

A shudder spread through my body as I took in the look in his eyes. For a moment, I couldn’t look away. It was as though he’d extracted me from the present and wrapped me in the darkness exuding from him.

“I believe in punishing the enemy.”

Collin's statement brought me back to the moment, and maybe the right thing to do would’ve been to shut down the conversation. It was an important meeting and I shouldn’t be whispering, but somehow, the persistent heat only motivated me to do more.

I was done letting him interfere in my every activity.

I flashed Collin my most flirty smile. “You look too innocent to be evil.”

His lips curled, his eyes settling on my lips. “I wouldn’t hold on to that thought if I were you.”