Page 2 of Ignition

“You heard me,” he drawled. His head cocked sideways as he peered down at me. “Scurry back to whatever slum you came from.”

My blood heated, until a vein thrummed in my temple.

For the first time in twenty-two years, I wanted to slap a literal stranger.

For an earth-shattering second, my fingers twitched at my sides, before I stilled them into tight fists.

Everything had gone quiet, but for my pulse thumping in my ears.

The prickle on the back of my neck reminded me people were watching, and an overwhelming urge to push past him and run gripped me, but my feet cemented to the spot.

I didn’t bust my ass off for three years in law school for nothing.

So I squared my shoulders, tilted my chin up, and dragged in a slow breath that singed my lungs.

“Last I checked, I deserve to be here as much as anyone, if the interviews and tests I aced are any indication,” I growled. “So feel free to fuck right off.”

My stomach plummeted.

I wanted to yank the words back right away, but they’d spilled out like sand through my fingers.

Alarm bells blared into overdrive, and still, my feet wouldn’t budge.

His eyebrows flicked up a fraction.

I blinked, and he’d smoothed his expression into one of bored contempt again, though a muscle still twitched in his jaw.

Then, his lips curled into not quite a smile, but a cruel tug at the corners of his mouth.

Any hope of making it out unscathed splintered.

“I’ll say this slow.”

Another footstep. His eyes turned steely, sending needles of apprehension down my spine.

“Whatever your results, you’re not fit to be here…” His tone lowered until it dripped venom. “…if I say so.”

Another footstep, until his toes nudged mine.

I drew my shoulders straight and resisted staggering back, though my instincts screamed it.

“If you know what’s good for you, get lost,” he whispered, voice soft like a sheathed blade.

I wish he’d yelled instead.

“Or I’ll make your life here miserable.”

He adjusted his watch with the air of someone used to having the last word.

The urge to do something I might regret kicked up again—an itch under my skin I couldn’t scratch.

The voice in my head screamed not to let this rich asshole put me in my place—or decide what my place even was—but my jaw cemented shut through sheer force of will.

And god, I almost managed to master my tongue, but then he went and smiled. Not a pleasant one, either, but a baring of teeth hinting at the bite underneath.

My insides ignited.

“Whatever you say,” I hissed.