Bad Boss by Stella Rhys

5

JULIAN

I took a biggerthan usual swig of Scotch, letting the liquid burn its way down my throat. I’d just lost Carter’s attention to some girl, but his wasn’t as important to me, anyway. When it came to business, he yielded to his brother, whose focus I still had.

Till this second, apparently.

“That motherfucker!” he laughed, pointing across the room at Carter. According to Turner, his brother had just claimed the “only real talent” at the party, and now it seemed he was doing his best to impress her by bidding on the stupid Maserati.

“Hey.” Turner elbowed me. “Let’s go over there and outbid him in front of her. It’ll be epic.”

I glanced at the car. “No.”

“Oh, right, you’re not impressed. You’ve got plenty of those babies.”

I did. I kept my collection of cars and motorcycles in a four-story garage I owned on Eleventh Avenue, and for a moment I entertained the idea of going there, grabbing my bike, and riding the three hours to my home in East Hampton – just so I wouldn’t be tempted to waste another minute trying to woo these assholes. But the fantasy was fleeting.

“Hey – why don’t we take one of your rides for a spin? Maybe cruise around town and find some real talent since there’s clearly none in this room,” Turner said, his eyes following a petite brunette. “Boring,” he remarked.

“Turner.” I masked my disgust. “I should remind you that I’m trying to sell the Biarritz resort as soon as possible and you’re by no means the only person interested in buying,” I said, referring to the flagship property in my small chain of luxury hotels.

It was enjoying record profits this year, but I was still eager to get it off my hands. I didn’t want to look at it anymore. Aside from the obvious reason I wanted it gone, I was also in the process of freeing up capital for a privately financed renovation of Empire Stadium. Doing that in partnership with Roth Entertainment would be ideal. It would put me at an advantage for booking concerts and tours, capitalizing on both road games and the offseason to make the stadium profitable year round. I could get fucking hard thinking about how much money could be made from our collaborative efforts.

Of course, those efforts required Turner’s focused attention, which I knew I wasn’t getting when he grabbed my shoulder and grinned.

“Hey. Anyone ever tell you to just relax, Hoult? We’re at a party. Enjoy yourself.” He gave me a shake. “Tell you what, man.” This was the part where he suggested we hit the club to drink and fuck all night before getting to business on Monday. “Why don’t we see what’s going on at 1OAK tonight? We’ll grab Carter, take a spin in one of your cars, and we’ll have a grand finale of balls to the wall partying before buckling down on Monday and really getting to – ” He cut off. “Fuck.”

I looked at him, almost certain that wasn’t the actual end of his sentence. “What?” I asked with irritation.

“Who’s thatfuckin’ beauty?” he asked, his face lit up like a Vegas slot machine. Ridiculous. I had to hide my resentment as I turned toward the bar to see what he was seeing.

The long, black hair struck me first. Then it was the knockout fucking figure wrapped in a long, red dress. Gotta give it to him this time, I thought wryly as my gaze moved the rest of the way up to the girl’s face.

When my eyes locked on hers, my heart jumped into my throat.

I stepped back.

“The hell is she doing here?” I hadn’t meant for the question to escape my mouth, but it came out in a shocked mutter that more than caught Turner’s attention.

“What? You know her? Who is she?”

She was the woman I was never supposed to see again, yet here we were. She was a thousand times sexier than I remembered, and I was at a complete loss for words.

“Jesus, Hoult. Hello? Don’t keep me hanging. I’m dying here.”

I tore my gaze off her to look at Turner’s stare fixed with a comical urgency on me. I noted with amusement that for the first time tonight, he had come alive.

“She’s my assistant,” I said.

The words rolled off my tongue before I really thought about what I was saying. I cleared my throat when I finally processed what I’d just done.

“Your assistant? Why haven’t you brought her around? Are you fucking crazy?” Turner laughed joyously like he’d just hit the jackpot.

I glanced up at her again. She’d spotted me with those big eyes, and I wanted nothing more than to make a beeline for her, rip that dress off her tits and bend that perfect body right over that bar.

But I had a lumbering idiot to tend to.

“What?” I frowned at Turner.

“Jesus – I asked why you’ve never brought her around before. If she’s your assistant, where the hell has she been?”

I thought on my feet.

“She was away the past few weeks,” I said, my heart beating faster as I came up with my story. “She was overseeing the renovation and management change at the Biarritz resort. Her flight just got in tonight, so I wasn’t expecting to see her here.”

Not bad. I had to give it to myself as Turner nodded, accepting my lie.

“No shit,” he muttered, both of us staring at her now. “Poor girl just wants to party.”

I suppressed my smirk as she blushed and squirmed in her seat. I knew the look.

Her pussy was wet.

Christ.I clenched my jaw, wishing badly that I could go back to tasting every inch of her at my leisure. From as far as I stood, I could see her perfect nipples were hard, straining against that thin, red dress. Fuck me. I knew exactly what they looked like under there. I remembered exactly how fucking sweet they were on my tongue, and my mouth watered with the need to suck them again.

But outwardly, I wore no hint of expression as Turner grinned at me.

“Hoult, I owe you an apology,” he declared, patting my back. “I thought you were too straight-laced to hire smoking hot girls like her. Fuck did my dad call them again?” He snapped his fingers when he thought of it. “Office-wreckers.”

“I hire based on capability, and I have a strict rule against interoffice dating.”

“You’re crazy.” Turner licked his lips. “I mean Christ, do you see those tits? Look at those tits.”

Trust me, asshole. I’m looking.

“I have eyes. I know she’s attractive. She’s just far too valuable of an employee to risk anything with,” I bullshitted.

“Uh-huh,” he responded distractedly. “So you, uh… you said she’s your expert on the Biarritz resort? What’s the name of the place again?”

“Hotel Piera.” My mind raced, but I took a casual drink to hide it. “If you’re interested in hearing her reports, I’d be happy to have you at the office on Tuesday. That’s her first official day back.”

“Yeah?” Turner looked at her again. “Set it up, Hoult. Tuesday’s good. Noon work for you?”

“Noon’s perfect,” I said smoothly as I returned my eyes to the woman I’d just made my non-consenting pawn. Shit. I thought fast as I stared at her. She was wearing that sultry fuck-me look of hers that made me want to forget everything and just bury myself inside her, but I needed to focus and excuse myself from Turner fast.

I had a plan I was improvising on the fly as I walked toward her.

And it involved a hundred percent of her willingness to lie for me.

* * *

SARA

I barely hadtime to breathe let alone understand.

“Don’t look surprised. Just come with me.”

Those had been his only words before he took my hand and brought me down a grand hallway toward a marble staircase. I hastily gathered my skirt in my hand as we ascended, our shoes a noisy chorus of click-clacks that echoed up every step.

My thoughts were scrambled.

“What’s going on?” I asked, breathless once we were mostly alone on the second floor. Two vested servers wheeled a cart of dirty plates from an empty ballroom down the hall, but save for a few curious looks, they paid us no mind. “Hey.” I grabbed Julian’s forearm to bring his attention from them back to me, but I dropped it like a hot potato when I felt that rigid knot of muscle. Answers. I needed to prioritize getting answers over getting distracted by my unbelievable lust for him. “Hey. Can you please tell me what’s happening?”

His eyes slid back to me. “My colleague downstairs has his eye on you,” he said, his jaw slightly clenching when he eyed my dress. I looked down at myself, realizing that in our rush, the strap of my dress had fallen well off my shoulder. I didn’t fix it. “And I need to brief you on a lie I involved you in before he tries to introduce himself.”

“What the hell are you talking about, Julian?”

He paused hard at the sound of his name from my lips. I could tell he wanted to ask how I knew it, but it was clear that whatever he was just talking about took priority.

“You have Turner Roth’s attention. I want his. For that reason, I’d like to hire you for a very short and specific job. To be safe, we can make it a three-month contract, and I’ll pay however much your last employer offered for a full year.”

“What?” Seriously, what? “Wait. I don’t understand – what kind of job is this?”

“You’d be posing as my assistant, and by Tuesday, I’d need you to have memorized a full report on a twenty-million-dollar renovation to a resort in Biarritz, France that I’m looking to sell to Turner and Carter Roth.” He eyed the fallen strap of my dress. “I’ll also be needing you to present this information to them in a rather specific way.”

“How is that?”

“I need you seduce them.”

I stared. “Excuse me?”

“By seduce, I don’t at all mean sleep with them.”

“Thank God for that, but then what do you mean? Because I think I need a very thorough explanation,” I said. Despite my frustration, I stared unblinkingly at the way he ran his hand across his jaw.

“I have a limited amount of time to strike an important deal with the Roths,” he explained, standing close as I leaned back on a wall. “They just inherited the biggest sports and entertainment presenter in America, despite the fact that they’re by no means actual or savvy businessmen. In fact, their particular egos make it so that they feel little reason to pay attention to anything unless it involves instant gratification, generally in the form of impressing a beautiful woman. Of course, from what I’ve gathered, they lose that interest the moment they actually have sex with the woman, so your job is to be professional while also dressing provocatively and flirting enough to maintain their interest. All I need is for them to listen long enough to connect me with their business advisors, with whom I’ll actually have productive meetings. So realistically, the hardest part of your job could be done within just a few meetings.”

I stared. I couldn’t quite believe what I was hearing. But presuming I’d just understood correctly, I was curious, and… thrilled, even?

I wet my lips.

“Okay, so… correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re saying you want me to string these guys along with my sexual allure, and force them to pay attention to your pitch in the process?”

“Yes. But you’ll never spend any time alone with them. You’ll only ever be accompanying me during meetings and business trips, and when we’re not doing anything involving the Roths, which will probably be most days of your week, you’re free to use the resources at my office to send resumes, or work on your own projects.”

Damn it. I was already halfway sold before knowing I could use the time to continue my job hunt.

“What are you thinking?” Julian asked.

“That this is crazy,” I said, if only to remind myself that it was. The near stranger I’d almost fucked in an elevator last week, whom I’d spent the past six days obsessing over, was proposing to hire me as sexual bait for a couple of sleazy billionaires. The money made me want to say yes, but I knew I owed myself a moment to consider the cons of the situation. There were probably tons.

I just couldn’t think of any.

“Tell me about the job you quit,” Julian said, breaking my weak train of thought. “Where was it?”

“June Magazine.”

He laughed. “You’re kidding.”

I looked at him curiously. “I’m not. Why?”

“No reason,” he replied, the closest I’d ever seen him to smug. “But if I told you that I could guarantee getting you either your job back or a better one after our contract is finished, would you agree to work for me?”

I blinked.

Okay, this was one of the cons – the fact that this man was making such lofty promises while remaining a complete fucking mystery to me. I had no reason to trust him. I knew nothing about him except that I made rash decisions around him, and that he disabled my logic with just a look in my eyes. My heartbeat was never steady around him, and it always inclined me to do something reckless, impulsive.

So in what world was it a good idea for me to work for him? And in such a strange, sexual role?

My best bet by far here was to decline, invite him back to my apartment, and sleep with him for the first and last time. After that, I’d cut myself off before getting addicted. That was the smart thing to do. The right thing to do.

Of course, I’d established a pattern of doing very much the wrong thing around Julian.

“Okay,” I blurted before I could stop myself.

Even Julian looked partially surprised by the speed of my response, which had me instantly questioning my decision. But when he extended his hand and asked, “We have a deal?” I gazed at that slight but stunning curl of his lips and forgot to backtrack or at least ask a couple questions like I told myself I would.

“Yes.” I let out the breath I was holding. “We have a deal.” I swallowed the knot in my throat. “And in case you were at all interested, my name is Sara.”

His voice softened unexpectedly.

“Sara,” Julian repeated as he shook my hand. My pulse picked up as his gaze grew heavy, taking its time to look me up and down. “It was nice to meet you last week, Sara,” he smiled, sending a shiver up my spine. “I look forward to working with you.”

“Likewise,” I said, pretending to be casual despite the fact that I was still processing what I’d just done, and telling myself the same thing on repeat in my head.

You are fucked, Sara.

You are so incredibly fucked.