Chapter 9 — I Quit
1248 Words
The slap left Tiana dazed, rooted to the spot.
Jason Vance watched the two of them without a flicker, his dark eyes fathomless as the bottom of the sea. His lips moved, but he never spoke.
In this business, you learned to stomach the stars and directors. Their tantrums were everyday currency. Besides, he very much wanted to see what Tiana would do. This little firecracker, prickly as a hedgehog — she'd cuss Bonnie out and storm off. That's what Jason figured.
"I…" After a long moment, Tiana said, meek and small, "I'm sorry, Miss Bonnie. Please forgive me."
That apology genuinely floored him. He seriously doubted the Tiana Hart standing here was the same one who'd charged into his office yesterday. Her reaction left him stunned — until he watched more closely, and understood. She wasn't broken. She was calculating. She was weighing what this job was worth against what her pride cost, and she'd decided, for now, that the money mattered more. That wasn't the surrender of a victim. It was the arithmetic of a survivor.
Bonnie still wasn't satisfied. She snapped, sharp. "Who hired you? Get your boss in here! Someone this clumsy has no business in a studio!"
"Miss Bonnie, I'm sorry… I…" Tiana was near tears.
The work was hard, sure, but the pay was good — better than her other jobs put together. Most of all, it fit perfectly around her class schedule. Losing a job this good would be a real shame. Every hour of it fed the locked box under her bed, the one that was going to buy her the truth someday.
"Did you hear me? Get your boss in here!" Bonnie watched her fluster with a spoiled little smile.
"Enough." The deep male voice cut in, hard.
Bonnie turned to Jason Vance, shocked, unable to believe it. She was his protégée — a newcomer he'd single-handedly made, who'd blown up in a month flat, all on his money and pull. Scenes like this weren't new, but Jason had never stepped in before.
This time, he had.
"Jason…"
Jason looked at Bonnie and made a quiet cut it gesture, his smile like the devil's — an irresistible, cold authority. Bonnie choked back her voice and turned her face away from Tiana, humiliated, burning. A broke little gofer had just bested her.
Jason nodded, satisfied, at Bonnie, then threw Tiana a provocative look — see how it feels to owe me one?
Tiana caught that loaded gaze and frowned. And that was the mistake he'd wanted her to make, because it lit the fuse.
The fear from a second ago was gone, replaced by a struggle — like she was fighting something down. She took a deep breath, gritted her teeth, and lifted her chin. When she spoke, her voice had lost every trace of the trembling gofer.
"Miss Bonnie Sterling. I'm taking that apology back. You know exactly what really happened here."
"That slap just now — I'll call it a scratch from a wild cat. Try it again, and I won't hesitate to hit back. For the record, I've got three years of karate."
She turned her clear eyes on Jason Vance, and for a moment neither of them was acting.
"And you, CEO Vance — thanks for nothing. I don't need a man to fight my battles. I never have."
She picked up her bag, squared her shoulders, and delivered the last line to the room like a queen dismissing her court.
"One more thing. I quit."
She walked to the door. But it was Jason's face she'd remember later that night — not angry, not amused, but arrested, staring after her as though a memory he couldn't place had just walked past him wearing a stranger's clothes.
Amid Bonnie's sharp intake of breath, Tiana smiled, free and easy. The nasty knot in her chest finally loosened. She walked calmly to the door, looked up at Jason Vance leaning there, and threw him the same provocative look right back.
"CEO Vance. Mind stepping aside." Her smile brightened.
Jason was plainly thrown by the sudden move. He stepped aside, docile, and stood there blank-faced until the door slammed — then snapped back to himself. He dropped his head, thinking something to himself he wasn't ready to name.
"Jason." Bonnie finally rose and walked to him.
Jason looked up sudden and wrapped a long arm around her, kissing her hard. His tongue drove in, tangling with the woman in his arms. Fierce, emotionless. His lowered eyes went cold — none of the warmth he usually gave a lover. Pure takeover, or more exactly, venting.
That damned girl. She'd turned on a dime the moment he spoke up for her, and thrown his help back in his face like it was garbage. No woman did that. Women thanked him. Women stayed.
Bonnie melted completely into the kiss, her slender arms looping his neck on their own. She rose on tiptoe, body soft against his hard frame, eyes shut, lost and breathless as she kissed him back. The temperature climbed; the little dressing room filled with thick, hungry want.
At the very edge, Jason yanked the kiss to a stop.
He looked down at the woman in his arms, starving and unsatisfied, and his beautiful face went arrogant, a wicked curve on his mouth that could fell any woman.
"Tell me. Do you love me?"
Bonnie lit up and kissed him, nodding. "Jason, I love you."
"Mm." He stroked her face, his smile softening. "Pity. I don't love you."
This woman had gone bland. A whole month now. Time for a change.
Bonnie stared at him, unable to take it in. Her gorgeous face flashed panic. She clutched at his shirt and begged. "Jason, don't leave me! Don't throw me away! I love you! Did I do something wrong? I'll fix it! Jason!"
Jason bent and brushed her cheek, light as a dragonfly. "A private beachfront villa. A check for one point four million. A film opposite a famous director." His smile lingered, gentle.
"Jason, I…" Bonnie's eyes went greedy at the words. "I understand."
Jason Vance truly was a romantic — generous and tender with women. What he decided, no one could change. They said every woman he'd ever left still remembered him.
Bonnie was coming to agree. He was the kind of man a woman never forgot.
But as he shrugged into his jacket and left her weeping prettily among the makeup lights, Jason wasn't thinking of Bonnie at all. In the elevator down, he pulled his phone and looked again at the photo Ethan had sent that morning — the girl beaming at the sun, two loose braids, that mischievous mouth. He'd meant to glance at it. Instead he studied it the way he studied a rival's balance sheet, looking for the thing that didn't add up.
Non mi toccare, principe. Don't touch me, my prince. He replayed the four words she'd hissed at him yesterday in his office, in flawless, aristocratic Italian, before her face had gone blank as if she hadn't understood her own mouth. A broke orphan from a Bronx orphanage did not curse men in the private dialect of Italian old money.
The elevator opened. Jason didn't move. He dialed Ethan and, when the line clicked, said only four words that would set the whole machine of his fortune turning toward one small, penniless, infuriating college girl.
"Pull her mother's file. All of it."
- Writer
