The Boss(hole) by Penelope Bloom
Jules
Itook the world’s fastest shower and only had time to put on the bare minimum amount of makeup. When I met Mr. White in the lobby, my hair was still wet and I felt far from ready for the long day he was promising. I was banking on being able to rush to my room and change into business clothes and out of the leggings and t-shirt I was currently rocking, too.
Somehow, Mr. White had cleaned up to look just as impeccable as always. Less than half an hour ago, he’d been wearing a simple white shirt and thin boxers, and now he looked like he was getting ready for a photo shoot. It didn’t even seem possible, but there he was, clad in a freshly pressed suit that fit him more snugly than sin.
“Mr. White,” I said as coldly as I could. I was still annoyed with him. I wasn’t even sure why exactly. Except maybe that I’d never even had a fraction of this kind of sexual tension in my entire life with anyone. Meanwhile, the only thing he could say to acknowledge it was that he doesn’t sleep with his employees. He’d managed to assume I was suggesting we do something about the sizzling temptation between us and shut it down in one emotionless statement. Bastard.
“Miss Adams,” he said. His voice was as cold as normal, but he couldn’t completely fool me. I saw a little lingering something in his gaze. I was halfway tempted to check between his legs to see if the man was hard again. Then again, the damn thing was so big I probably could’ve seen it even if my back was turned. I wondered if he’d ever heard the medical advice to see a doctor if an erection lasted more than four hours, but I guessed I was giving him too much shit for that. I had been laying on top of him in the hotel room. I also knew “morning wood” was a thing. And on the airplane, he’d walked in on me with my pants down. Not that I would’ve considered it the peak of sexuality to see me sitting on the toilet, but I wasn’t going to kink shame the guy. Especially after I’d basically ruined my underwear from getting so wet because of our little encounter.
I followed him, telling myself it was all normal, just biological reactions between a man’s body and a woman’s body. Our bodies were just reacting to attraction. That was their job. And it was the job of our heads to decide if that attraction was wise to act on or not. This was definitely an “or not” sort of situation.
Originally, I’d been afraid to acknowledge my attraction for Mr. White because I needed the job. But now I thought I was just scared to see what would happen if we unleashed the growing tension. It felt like the two of us letting loose at this point might be roughly equivalent to splitting the atom. Atomic.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“There’s a restaurant here. We’re meeting some of my partners. Be on your best behavior. These are long-time friends of mine. I want you to make a good impression.”
“Oh, I’m meeting your friends now? I guess things are really getting serious.”
Mr. White stopped, turning to face me just before we reached the hostess who stood outside a white tablecloth restaurant within the hotel. “Jules,” he said. “I will admit I haven’t been entirely professional when it comes to our working relationship. That’s my mistake. But it’s a mistake I intend to fix. I suggest you do the same.”
I was torn between wanting to kick him between the legs and nodding my agreement. It was there again—that implication that I was just as guilty as him of egging on whatever this was brewing between us. I knew I should’ve just nodded my head, but it frankly pissed me off that he wanted to keep lobbing those assumptions my way. “I’m not sure what you’re talking about, Mr. White. Could you be more specific?”
He stepped closer, giving me a dizzying view of his green eyes. Those eyelashes of his were impressively long, too. “Are you sure you want to go down this road?” His words were laced with warning.
But I was still irritated with him, so I nodded my head. “Yes. Please, enlighten me.”
“I’m having trouble getting you out of my mind, and it irritates me. This weekend is absolutely critical to everything I’ve worked towards for the past ten years, and all I can think about is you. Frankly, I’m sick and tired of it. I want you off my mind, Miss Adams. And yes, I hold you personally responsible for causing such a distraction.”
My breath caught. He spoke with so much intensity that it literally felt like it sapped the air from my lungs. I licked my lips. “I think you’re an insufferable egomaniac. You have the emotional range of a robot, and you ask way too much of your staff. And speaking of your staff, I think we’d both have an easier time staying professional if you stopped letting it get hard and poking me with it or pressing my face into it.”
Something very dangerous flashed in his eyes. He was standing so incredibly close, and the few people passing by us to head into the restaurant or move about the hotel seemed to fade out of view.
I was sure he was going to kiss me. The knowledge came suddenly and without warning, but I could feel it in my core. I knew it was coming, and I knew I was going to let it happen. Worse, I knew I was going to embrace it, because two human beings could only endure so much tension before they burst. Or gave in.
“Adrian,” a man said in a deep voice. He seemed to appear from nowhere, and he clapped Mr. White on the shoulder of his suit, smiling broadly as he moved to his side and faced me. “Are we having an argument? Things looked pretty tense over here.”
Just like that, the thick air between us seemed to snap and I could finally breathe again. I stepped back, feeling my head clear. I could hardly believe I’d actually been so ready to kiss him—to do anything with him if it meant releasing the tension pounding in my lower stomach.
I looked at the newcomer. He was tall with tattoos creeping out from his suit sleeves to the back of his hands and up the base of his neck. His blond hair was shoulder length and thick. The gorgeous man stuck his hand out towards me. “I’m Travis.”
I smiled, shaking his hand.
Mr. White subtly gave the man a little nudge to break our handshake. “Travis and I have worked together for a very long time. Travis is a sales wizard. When a deal needs closed or a client needs greased, he’s the one I call. But come on, there’s one more person you’ll need to meet. He should be waiting for us inside.”
And just like we hadn’t been milliseconds from kissing our professional business relationship goodbye—quite literally—we all headed into the restaurant.
I forgot about what had just happened when I saw the beautiful interior of the restaurant. It was covered in greenery and stonework with running water that trickled over the stones and fed into shallow rivers of water. The whole restaurant felt like some temperature controlled perfect slice of nature. My mood immediately brightened. It felt like I’d spent the last half year in cramped apartments and oppressive offices. As much as I didn’t miss my old life, I had to admit being somewhere this beautiful felt nostalgic and comforting.
“Mr. White,” a young girl at the hostess stand said. She straightened like she knew his reputation, then grabbed three thick leather menus and led us to a table.
Mr. White and Travis were speaking about something as we walked that I couldn’t make out and didn’t try to. They shook hands and did the manly shoulder patting routine when we met their other partner at the table.
It looked like the three of them must’ve all gone to the same male modeling camp when they were kids. The guy waiting at the table for us was clean cut with glasses and dark hair. He had a sexy nerd thing going on.
All together, Mr. White looked like the one who would’ve played quarterback in high school. He was athletic, but in a lean, efficient sort of way. He was clean cut with enough intensity and danger to make him seem like the bad boy, even without visible tattoos. He looked like the one people followed.
Travis seemed to be the charmer. The one who wound up sleeping with his teacher when he was in high school and got kicked off the football team. He was thicker with muscle, but his face wasn’t constantly molded into a frown like Mr. White’s. He looked easy to talk to and relaxed.
The one in glasses seemed like the valedictorian type. I could imagine him giving a speech at graduation and secretly having the heart of all the smart girls. He was the too-good-to-be-true guy that parents loved.
“This is Noah,” Mr. White said. “He’s our infrastructure guy. Absolute genius. I’ve never shown him a system he can’t improve.”
The four of us took our places around the table. It looked like Travis was about to sit beside me, but Mr. White smoothly slid into the spot at my side, leaving Travis across from me and Noah to my left.
I felt completely out of place, so I tried to distract myself by burying my face in the menu.
“Don’t let the prices scare you,” Travis said. He had an easy smile that made me feel relaxed. I could see how he was probably effective in closing sales. That, and probably getting women into his bed with that straight-toothed smile and those dimples of his. “Adrian over here covers all company meals. Order as much as you want. It’s on his dime.”
As if Adrian could read my thoughts about Travis’s attractiveness, he splayed his legs slightly, which caused his knee to rest against mine.
I felt like he was marking me out somehow. Like a dog pissing on its favorite bush. How flattering.
If I wasn’t born with a silver spoon jammed so far down my throat that it was threatening to pop out my ass, I would’ve been hopeless with the menu at this place. It was all in French, and mostly obscure foods like quail eggs and imported meats the average person has never heard of. Thankfully, I recognized most of it from the things I’d been forced to eat.
But thinking of my childhood gave me a strange pang of guilt. Here I was, the daughter of the man these people were working for, and none of them had any idea. Of course, they had no right to know. It was my business if I wanted to use my mother’s maiden name, and I wasn’t obligated to tell them who my father was.
We ordered our drinks and eventually the food while the men talked about various aspects of the conference coming up. I gathered bits and pieces from their conversation, but a great deal of it went over my head when they delved too deep into company politics or jargon about business practice.
Eventually, there was a lull in the conversation and Mr. White leaned over to me. He pulled up his phone and tapped in his code. “Let’s make sure you’re up to speed on my presentation. I need you to be on point.”
I was watching his phone when it unlocked. He’d been in his camera roll and had a picture pulled up of a young boy and an older man who looked almost exactly like Mr. White. I realized it was Adrian as a boy a man who must’ve been his father. They both looked adorably happy. “Is that your-”
Mr. White jerked his phone toward himself and tapped out of it. “Forget it,” he muttered.
Travis and Noah shared a look with raised eyebrows but didn’t comment.
“Before you get into details,” I said. “Can you explain what your goal is, exactly? Is this about selling more books, or is it something else?”
“I’m not just a publishing executive, Miss Adams.”
“Adrian, don’t you th-” Noah began to say.
Mr. White held up his palm. “Relax. All I’m saying is I have bigger plans than helping Coleton’s publishing branch expand. I want to work at Coleton Central. There are company-wide issues I know I could be instrumental in fixing. That’s what I’ve put a team together to do.”
I shook my head. “I don’t understand. People don’t usually… I don’t know, aspire to get promoted as a team?”
“I get the promotions and I bring my people with me as a contingency of accepting the terms. It’s pretty simple. I like to work with the people I trust.”
“Okay, but why do you care so much about moving up?”
“Adrian has always wanted a yacht,” Travis said, jumping in before Mr. White could respond.
Mr. White gave him a cold look, ignoring the comment. “All you need to understand is that I’m going to reach the top of Coleton, no matter the cost. This presentation is one step in that direction. A very important step, because Gerald Krause is in charge of acquisitions for Coleton Central. If we impress, he’s the one who might put in a word with Russ Coleton himself and get us fast tracked for a promotion. Understand?”
The mention of my father’s name made a chill run through me, but I nodded my head. I wondered how differently Mr. White would treat me if he knew I could make a phone call to my father and probably get him the promotion he wanted so badly by simply promising to come home and “end this foolishness” as my father had put it. Because wanting to do more with my life than get married and breed was the height of foolery, of course.
The other notable problem was that Gerald Krause was an old family friend who would recognize me in an instant. I wasn’t sure what sort of setting this was all going to take place in, but I was hoping it was a very large room with me at some nondescript tech booth in the back. That would be my only hope of not having my real identity broadcast to Mr. White.
We were deep into the drudgery of the presentation when Jordan, his sister approached our table. She looked alarmed. “Bad news,” she said.
“What is it?” Mr. White asked.
“Krause just let his team know he’s going to miss the conference. Something came up and he’s catching a flight back to New York this afternoon.”
Mr. White pounded the table. “Shit!” he said, clattering plates and drawing the eyes of nearby diners.
“Anyone else we can target?” Travis asked. “There’s got to be someone else from Coleton Central at the conference.”
“It had to be him,” Mr. White said. “Fuck. We need to think fast.”
“What if you catch him at the airport?” I suggested. I almost immediately kicked my own leg for my stupidity. If he still expected me to help with the presentation, I’d just suggested putting my face right in front of Krause.
Mr. White stroked his particularly well-formed chin in thought.
“I think she’s got the right idea,” Travis said. “We just catch the bastard, and we all get to skip the mind-numbing ordeal of this conference.”
Noah frowned. “I enjoy the conference.”
“Then you’re welcome to attend,” Mr. White said. “But me and Jules are going to catch Krause at the airport.”
My stomach sank. How the hell was I going to get out of this?