I pushed the note over the desk, closer to his reclining form. He looked through half closed, lazy eyes and raised an eyebrow slightly.
“What’s this?”
“Notice. I’m leaving in two weeks.”
“Ah, Michelle. Why would you want to do that?”
The inevitable guilt trip. I shrugged my shoulders, avoiding contact with his blue eyes.
“I’ve lost the passion I had for this job. Too many hours put in, too little gotten out. I just don’t want to do it anymore.”
“But we pay you well. Where else are you going to get this salary? Your own desk? Your own hours? Where else are you going to be this happy?”
“I don’t have any passion for it, Zack, I just can’t do it anymore.”
The conversation should have ended there. It was so much easier during the rehearsal I’d given myself in front of my mirror this morning. “I’m leaving, goodbye,” I’d said to my reflection. But Zachary Quinn hadn’t been in my bathroom. He was here, his big, broad form relaxing in his chair, looking up at me through the thickest lashes I’d ever seen on a grown man, a half smirk on his lips, as though telling me he didn’t believe a word I was saying. I swallowed, wishing that he were less attractive, less distracting, less menacing.
“Two weeks, Zack, then I’m out of here.”
With cat like quickness he sprang from that reclined position. I’d never seen the man move so fast in my life. Every meeting I’d had with him he had been at ease, unwound, relaxed. He’d watched proceedings as if bored, sleepy, watching a rerun of a television show. Though it was obvious he worked out, and regularly, I’d never expected him to be able to get on his feet and breach a distance so quickly.
“I don’t think you know what you’re talking about, Michelle,” he said into my ear. His voice was almost a whisper, almost a threat. His breath was hot against my flesh, his body pinning mine, making me feel small. Startled, I felt myself shrinking away from him, as though I was something tiny afraid of being crushed.
