Dirty Arrogant Boss by Terri E. Laine
Ten
Hugh
How couldI be this attached to a woman so quickly? But here it was. This woman had more than a firm hold on my balls. There was most certainly more, I just couldn’t name it yet. My father had warned me that one day there would be a woman who would tame the wild beast inside me. And when that day came, I would fully understand why he’d married my mother.
Was this that day?
Lunch with Molly had clued me in to several things. There wasn’t much she could do to make me run away. Which was why I made a call to my friend and lawyer the following day.
“Arthur, it’s been a while,” I said to my buddy I hadn’t talked to much since his wedding.
Arthur Lattimore had been a college buddy of mine and had made it to partner of his law firm in record time. “Up to your old tricks, I bet,” he said.
I chuckled. “I’d say that wife of yours has you on a short leash.” I was only teasing. He was lucky to have met her in college. I envied him.
“Willingly,” he admitted. “She’s pregnant with number two.”
“Another girl, I’ll wager.”
“I’ll take whatever I can get. And trust me, it’s worth it. You should give it a try.”
“Fatherhood?”
“Husband, father, the whole shebang.”
“I’ll leave that to you for now. Though there is a woman I’m very interested in.”
“Though you can’t see me, I’m blinking rapidly because I’m not sure I heard you correctly.”
“Ha, ha, ha. Look, I need a favor. Her father’s in trouble and I want to help them out.”
“Okay, fill me in.”
I gave him the basics about how her father had been found guilty of embezzlement, but both claimed he was innocent.
“You know criminal law is not my area.”
“I know. But I assume you may know the name of someone who is a really good criminal lawyer.”
“Let me do some digging. What’s his name again?”
I gave him her father’s name. I didn’t give him hers, though that would be easily found out if he looked.
“Give me a couple of days.”
“Thanks. And give your wife a big sloppy kiss for me.”
“I will, because I’m the only man who will ever kiss her in this lifetime and the next.”
I laughed and hung up.
Later that day, I went to Chloe’s. If I wanted a chance in hell of making it work with Molly, I needed to straighten things out with her best friend.
I knocked on the door and waited. The last time I’d spoken to her, she’d quit and had given me hell for making her life at work miserable. This wasn’t going to be easy, but I had to do something.
When the door opened, Chloe looked puzzled and I couldn’t blame her. “Mr. Hampton, what are you doing here?”
“Uh, Chloe, are you okay? You look a little, uh, tense,” I blurted without thinking it through.
“That’s an understatement.”
I wasn’t exactly good at apologies and said, “Is there anything I can do to help?”
She blinked. “You’re joking, right?”
“No, I see that you’re upset about something and I was wondering if you needed help.” I was blowing this big time.
“Why on earth would you wonder that?”
“Because you appear to need it,” I said, extending an olive branch because she looked like she bore the weight of the world on her shoulders.
“Mr. Hampton, I worked for you for months while you treated me like a dog, heaping work on me like I was a farm animal. And here you stand asking if I need help. I needed help when you gave me impossible deadlines to meet and threatened to fire me if I didn’t.”
“I did that?” It was still hard to believe. She’d been my most reliable employee. She’d made all her deadlines. I’d never given a thought that my expectations were impossible.
“You need to leave.”
The door shut in my face. I took a second to gather my thoughts. I didn’t think I’d done a good job of explaining myself, so I knocked again, louder so she wouldn’t just ignore me.
“For the love of wine and beer, who is it now? Are you planning on sleeping out here? Should I toss you a blanket or something?”
It was time to eat crow for Molly and Chloe too. “No, I was going over what you said to me and I guess I was pretty hard on you. I wanted to tell you I was sorry.”
“Look, I think you’d better leave. This is too much,” she said.
“But…”
She pointed to the street. “Just go.” A car door slammed, and someone yelled. We looked over and she said, “Well, I should’ve guessed this would get worse.”
“What’s he doing here?” I asked, feeling like I might know.
“You can ask him yourself.”
“Get away from her,” Ryan snarled.
“Hold up there,” Chloe said, but that didn’t stop Ryan. I was so distracted, I missed Ryan’s fist. He caught me square in the jaw. My head snapped back, and I had to shake it off.
I rubbed at the ache and decided not to stoop to his level. Instead, I yelled, “What the fuck are you doing? Have you lost your mind?”
“Leave her alone. Don’t you even think about touching her, Hugh.”
“I wasn’t touching her. We were talking. I’m not like you, you asshole.” It was likely Ryan hadn’t told Chloe why he was fucking her.
“Ryan, I think you’d better leave,” Chloe said.
“I’m not going anywhere until we’ve had a chance to talk,” he said, before turning furious eyes on me. “Get the fuck out of here or I’ll beat the shit out of you.”
“You know something? You’re crazy,” I said, jabbing a finger at him.
“You haven’t even begun to see crazy.” Ryan puffed up his chest in front of Chloe. Even if I wanted to take him down a peg, kicking Ryan’s ass wouldn’t win me points with Chloe and maybe I’d lose some with Molly if her friend saw me as some sort of bully.
“We’re not finished, Ryan,” I said, warning that he wouldn’t always have a woman to protect him. “And if you hurt Chloe, I’ll make sure you pay.”
Ryan laughed as I played the better man and walked away.
Fuck, I thought as I got into my car. That couldn’t have gone any worse. I had no idea what Molly would say or do if she talked to Chloe.
By the time I got home, I was prepared for a shitstorm. Instead, Molly was in the kitchen.
“What’s this?” I asked.
She turned around with the biggest grin. “I just thought, why not start our truce with a homecooked meal? I hope you like it. Sit.” She ushered me to a chair.
The woman couldn’t be any sexier to me when she put a plate worthy of restaurant dining in front of me. I wanted to tell her about Chloe as it appeared she hadn’t talked to her yet but decided not to ruin dinner with bad news.
The meal was great. Roasted chicken and potatoes hit the spot. The green things on the plate weren’t bad either.
When I finished, she waited expectantly. “That was wonderful,” I said. “I could get used to it.”
Her grin was huge. “Play your cards right…”
“Hopefully, you’ll feel that way after I tell you about my day,” I said. Though her smile dimmed, she waited patiently. “I went to see Chloe. It didn’t go too well.”
“Oh, man. What happened?”
“I tried to apologize, and I bungled it. Before I could fix things, Ryan showed up.” I waited for her expression to change, but apparently, she didn’t know who Ryan was.
“Ryan?”
“Yeah, I think she’s dating a guy named Ryan. You don’t know him?”
“It’s news to me. I think you’re mistaken.”
Was I wrong? Maybe he hadn’t been there to win the inheritance. I could be totally wrong. Before I explained who Ryan was, Molly came over with a seductive smile on her face.
“Time for dessert,” she said, and we ended up in my bedroom.
The next morning, I got an early call from Ben, my finance guy.
“There is some chatter about someone trying to buy into your business,” he said.
I had a bad feeling Ryan was trying to steal my company from underneath me. But that wasn’t even the worst thing to happen. Arthur called me to come into his office. Already in a bad mood when I arrived, I wasn’t all smiles.
“Don’t look so pissed off,” Arthur said. “I have some good news. But we should wait for Molly.”
“Wait, Molly? You know her?”
“After I looked into her father’s arrest, her name came up. Turns out she works here,” Arthur said. Dread filled me. “Also, James McNeill is here to explain the details.”
Arthur introduced me to the criminal attorney who was in the conference room with us. When Molly walked in and saw all of us, I knew she was going to eat my balls for lunch. She was pissed.