Chapter 7
seven
GRIFFIN
“ Y es, Henderson, I am actually really busy and have not gotten to your car yet.” Griffin was about to rip the hair out of his head.
What did the entitled prick expect when he dropped by unannounced? Does he not understand I need to finish all the overdue jobs before getting to his car?
He briefly considered making Henderson a top priority to avoid further contact, but decided it would reinforce bad behavior. If Henderson called him one more time today, he would set the Mustang on fire and call it a day. Chalk it up to faulty wiring.
A soft knock prevented him from following through with his dark thoughts.
Quynh stood at the entrance to his office, her petite frame outlined by the soft morning light.
“Tough customer?” A small smile teased at her lips.
The taunting lilt to her lips made him pause. It was the first time he had seen her really smile since she came crashing into town.
He wondered what she would look like with a genuine smile gracing her face.
Would her eyes crinkle in the corners?
He imagined she probably looked radiant, especially with her skin glowing like it was.
Griffin shook himself out of his runaway thoughts. He shouldn’t be imagining what she’d look like smiling. They were still strangers.
“Yeah. Won’t stop calling,” Griffin finally responded, his tone conveying his annoyance about the entire ordeal.
“Just show me what I need to do, and I can take care of it for you.”
There wasn’t much to his office other than his desk, an outdated computer, and an office phone.
He didn’t even have any other chairs besides his own.
The only item on display in the otherwise empty auto body shop was a simple, slightly tarnished frame holding his first hard-earned dollar a decade ago when he was granted ownership of the business.
The significance of the fateful day was etched into the building.
Heaving himself out of his creaky office chair, Griffin rounded the desk and gestured for her to make herself comfortable.
The wave of vanilla from her perfume hit him as she passed by.
The sweet scent was subtle, but still, his body reacted involuntarily.
His muscles tensed, and his breath caught in his throat as she rounded his desk.
The silence in the room was thick with tension.
As he watched her settle into his chair, the metallic clang of the garage doors opening echoed loudly in the otherwise quiet office. She looked so small in his space.
“I got this, boss. Go get some work done.” A teasing smile played on her lips as she made a shooing motion with her hand, her eyes sparkling with laughter.
Reluctantly, he backed away without a word.
In the quiet hallway, a small, involuntary smile tugged at his lips. A phenomenon entirely foreign to him.
Boss?
He liked the sound of her calling him boss. His fantasies about what he wanted to do to her on the desk were far from professional, though.
Fuck . There went his cock again.
He walked out into the garage just as Julio and Sean entered through the giant doors.
“Mornin’.” Julio was always peppy in the morning, while Sean took a couple of hours and about three cups of coffee to wake up. By lunchtime, they would all be begging him to stop talking.
They quietly put their coveralls on and got to work. The hours moved quickly, and before he knew it, there was a tapping on his leg. He was underneath a car, fixing the engine from beneath, when he slid out from under the hood to see who it was .
He wasn’t expecting to see Quynh standing there with a couple of boxes of pizza.
“I didn’t know if you were hungry, but I ordered pizza.”
The heat of Julio and Sean’s interested stares bored into the side of his face as he moved to stand up. Wiping his hand on the rag he kept in his back pocket, he tugged down the zipper to his overalls and slid the top off so it hung off of his muscular frame.
A sense of satisfaction filled him as her gaze tracked his movements. When she looked at him again, her cheeks were tinted a delicate pink.
When Sean coughed, Griffin’s attention was pulled away from the alluring blush spreading across her cheeks.
“Did you hire a new secretary, boss?” The fierce scowl he directed at Sean was met with a mischievous smirk. The bastard was not scared of him.
“Yeah, uh, this is…”
“Quynh. Your new temporary secretary.” She offered Julio and Sean a wave before turning back to meet his eyes.
“My car broke down, and Griffin’s letting me stay in the apartment upstairs while he’s fixing it.
” Her hand dropped back down to her side, and he offered her a sheepish smile, thankful she stepped in.
“Thanks for lunch.”
“Oh, it’s no problem. You boys have been working all morning. I figured you could all use a break.”
“Hell yeah!” Julio’s enthusiasm was infectious.
“Thanks, doll.” Sean flashed a flirtatious smirk at Quynh. His smirk widened into a grin at Griffin’s glare. It was infuriating.
“You boys wash up, and I’ll set this up inside the office for you. I’ll run upstairs and grab some plates and cups.”
True to her words, the pizza boxes were laid out in the main reception area by the time they washed their hands of the grease and grime of motor oil.
Quynh was nowhere in sight, but it didn’t stop Julio from pulling a slice out of the pizza box.
Julio’s groan of appreciation made his own stomach rumble with hunger.
Griffin didn’t have enough time to eat breakfast this morning.
Normally, he’d run back to his house to whip up leftovers from the night before, but they were so behind already. He still needed to look at Quynh’s car. She must be getting eager to get going.
He never asked why she was in town.
Griffin was about to grab a slice when Quynh reentered the room, balancing some paper plates and cups in one hand.
She moved with the fluid grace of a dancer, her footsteps barely disturbing the stillness of the room. Time seemed to slow to a crawl as he watched her graceful movements. Each move she made was deliberate and precise. The low, indistinct hum of voices echoed in his ears .
“Griff!”
Startled from his trance, Griffin glanced over at Sean to see he sported a shit-eating grin on his face.
Fuck, did Sean catch me staring at Quynh?
“What?”
Sean was not intimidated by his glower. Instead, his grin became impossibly wider.
“I said, can we keep Quynh?”
Sean waggled his eyebrows over Quynh’s head as she turned to look up at him.
“She’s just helping out while she’s in town.”
“I don’t mind helping. I can’t really do much without my car, and apparently, Uber doesn’t exist around here.” A dramatic gasp escaped her lips.
Quynh handed him a plate with two slices of pizza. He slowly took the plate from her hands and moved to sit on the desk. Griffin watched as Quynh picked out a small slice of veggie pizza and sat down next to Sean.
Sean was a nice guy. He talked too much sometimes, but the ladies found him charming.
Griffin had never been threatened by him before, but watching the two of them engage in conversation made his skin itch.
He fought the urge to jump up and physically force the two of them apart.
He briefly entertained the idea of sitting on Sean’s much lankier frame.
Sean wouldn’t be able to flirt if he sat on him.
Griffin wanted to punch Sean in the face at the way he looked at Quynh. A look he recognized as one of male interest. Punching Sean in the face felt like the appropriate response. He’d have to examine these urges later.
The shrill sound of a phone ringing filled the air.
Quynh jumped up to grab the phone she had left sitting by the pizza box.
Griffin watched as she unlocked her phone and read whatever was on the screen.
Quynh’s facial expression went from unbothered to upset at whatever she saw.
Her eyes were pinched in the corners as her lips pursed.
“What’s wrong?”
Startled, she looked up from her phone, brows furrowed.
“Oh, it’s nothing.”
She turned her phone screen off and tucked it into her back pocket.
“You boys enjoy the rest of your lunch.”
With her parting words, she headed to his office. Griffin wanted to march back there and demand she tell him what caused her distress. He didn’t like the way it made him feel to see her upset. This insane urge to set the world on fire for anyone or anything that upset her.
It was ridiculous. He was a stranger to her.
Griffin tried to ignore the impulse to go to her. He really did. He distracted himself by eating two more slices of pizza than he normally would have. He even cleaned up the office and brought the trash out back. Both Julio and Sean returned to work when he took out the trash.
Standing in the lobby, he debated what he should do. He couldn’t hear anything coming from the office. He lasted maybe another moment before his body directed him where his mind told him not to go.
Griffin slowly approached the open doorway of his office. He didn’t want to startle her again. Quynh’s nerves seemed frayed. The last thing he wanted to do was add stress to her day.
The sounds of muffled sniffling made his decision for him. He shoved the door the rest of the way open and barreled into the room like a freight train.
To his horror, she was crying at his desk.
A pile of tissues in front of her as she stared up at him with those wide brown eyes of hers.
Twice in the past twenty-four hours, he saw her tear-stained face, and both times, it drove a shard of pain deep in his gut. The sight of her crying made him sick.
She tried to wipe her tears away as if he wouldn’t have noticed.
“Oh, um, hi. Did you need help with something?”
Her voice was thick with emotion as tears still strangled her voice. She fought valiantly to keep the tears brimming her eyelids from streaming down her face.
Griffin slowly approached her like she was a wounded animal. Her apprehension at his approach made him even more cautious. He wasn’t very good at dealing with emotions, but he sure as hell did not know what to do with a crying woman in his office.
All he knew was he wanted it to stop. The only tears she should have were tears of pleasure instead of whatever was haunting her.
Griffin’s cautious footsteps brought him around the desk until she was looking up at him. Slowly, he crouched down so they were eye-to-eye.
“Tell me what’s wrong.”
It wasn’t a question. Rather, it was an order. He was determined to know what troubled her. As irrational as it was, he knew he would move heaven and earth to protect her.
Her lips parted as she stared at him in disbelief. After a moment, she must have seen the determination set in his features. She sniffled once more.
“It’s my father.”
He waited for her to continue talking, allowing her the time and space she needed to unpack her issues.
“He’s dying.”
The silence between them pulsed as he waited to hear more.
Griffin grabbed the tissue box and handed her another tissue. She smiled gratefully as she blew her nose.
“I don’t even really know him, but apparently, he doesn’t have much time left.” She offered him a watery smile as he placed the tissue box back on his desk. “That’s why I’m here. I was supposed to see him, but my car broke down. Obviously.” She gestured vaguely to the office.
“Where is he?”
“Ruth, my stepsister, texted me his address earlier this morning. She just texted me again not too long ago. His condition seems to be deteriorating at a rapid pace. I still haven’t been able to get over there to see him.”
He watched in horror as another fresh round of tears pooled in her eyes and fell over. He gripped the armrest of her chair so hard he heard a squeak of protest.
Relaxing his hold on the chair, he gingerly raised his arm to brush away an errant strand of her dark hair. The softness was permanently branded in his mind. He resisted the urge to cup her face, just barely.
“Give me the address. Let me finish one last thing here, and we can get going. Fifteen minutes.”
With the command, he got up and left the office before she could protest.
He would not be the reason she couldn’t see her dying father. Especially since he still needed to look at her car, much less fix the damn thing.
A wave of guilt threatened to overwhelm him, but he pushed it down.
Walking back into the garage bay, he told the guys he’d be heading out shortly to a round of head nods.
If Sean gave him a knowing look, he ignored it.
Instead, he focused on finishing the task he was working on when Quynh interrupted with lunch.
He would take her to see her father and fix her car so she wouldn’t need to rely on him for car rides. No wonder she needed an Uber. He should have asked her why she needed a ride instead of caging her on this side of town.
The taste of regret over the past twenty-four hours was bitter on his tongue.