Maya And The Tough Guy Read Online Free PDF Page B

snorted. “You do worse than flirt with me whether its work hours or not.” She stood and tousled his hair as she walked by him and headed for the back.
    Maya suddenly looked panicked. “Oh, I should get home.” She stood.
    He stood. “Come on back to the office for a sec.” He didn’t wait for her. He went to his office, to his desk, and started pulling out paperwork that he needed her to do. She’d survived the night, which he assumed meant she was going to keep working there.  
    He frowned when he turned and saw that the chair in front of his desk was still empty. He looked up to see her standing in the doorway, chewing on that lip and hugging her waist. “Have a seat,” he said.
    “I don’t feel comfortable…” she started to say, then clamped her mouth shut.  
    “You don’t want to work here?” Thank God. Please let that be it.
    She gasped. “Oh, no. Please give me another chance. I need this job. I’ll do anything.”
    He stood to his full height. “You’ll do anything,” he repeated.  
    She nodded frantically. “Anything. Except…” she trailed off again.
    He felt sick. Again. “Maya, I don’t know how to do this with you. You come to me, quaking in your absolutely unacceptable canvas shoes—you are going to be in so much pain tomorrow by the way—and you look at me like I’m a monster. Stop and ask yourself some things, okay? Ask yourself if Kellen, whom you respect, would be my friend if I was this brute that you think I am. Would Zoey be my friend? Addy? Do you think the girls who worked here tonight wouldn’t have sued my ass years ago if I was the kind of man to exploit my employees?”
    She shook her head.
    “Then what? What is this?”
    She gulped in a shaking breath. “I just can tell you don’t like me very much,” she said, her voice weak and high-pitched. “And I don’t know what to do. I feel like I’m doing everything wrong.”
    He had no idea what the fuck she was talking about. “You think I don’t like you?”
    “It’s—it’s pretty obvious.”
    He just stared at her. He had no idea what to say to that. He blinked. Shook his head. “Listen, I’m sorry for snapping at you about the kids.”
    “It won’t happen again,” she said. “It’s just that I’d already promised them. I won’t call them any—”
    “Call them, Maya. Call your kids. Call your friends. Call whoever the fuck you want, just don’t come to me and ask me and then look at me like I’m going to hurt you or something.”
    She hugged her waist tighter. Her bottom lip trembled.
    Jayce sighed and shook his head, giving up. “Would you please sit down? If you want this job, there’s paperwork.”
    She suddenly relaxed. “Oh. Paperwork. Of course.”
    Had she thought he’d invited her back to yell at her? Fire her? Rape her? Christ, it was all so frustrating. At last she sat in the chair, her hands folded tightly in her lap. He finished gathering the paperwork. “Here’s the federal stuff,” he said, sliding the papers across the desk. “I-9 just verifies your identity and all that. And the W-4 for tax withholding. If you have any questions, Zoey can help you out. She’s all tax-savvy and shit.”
    Maya actually, almost smiled at this, as she stared in bemusement at the forms.  
    “And this is for me,” he said. “Emergency contact shit. Stuff about sexual harassment and unemployment. And rules about breaks.”
    She reddened a little.
    “Now listen, I don’t make waves about breaks, Maya, because as long as you’re doing your job, I don’t really care. A couple of the girls smoke and they take a break once an hour. You wanna call your kids, just call your kids.”
    She nodded, gathering the forms in her lap and not looking at him.  
    “You got any questions?”
    She shook her head.
    “Can you get these to me when you come in on Monday afternoon?”
    Nods.
    “Any chance in hell you’ll be making eye contact with me soon?”
    She grinned and let out a little laugh.