Belonging to the Boss by Jenna Rose

1

Gracie

“And you saidyour name was Gracie…?” The woman at the desk with the resting-bitch-face looks up at me with her fountain pen in one hand and an old-fashioned leather-bound notebook in the other.

“Oliver,” I tell her for the second time. “Gracie Oliver.”

I’m trying my best to hide the bitchy tone that’s starting to creep into my voice, but it’s admittedly kind of difficult. This is the third gallery job I’ve applied to today, and unless I’m completely inept at reading social signals, the third job I’m going to get turned down for.

And sure enough, a strange look of recognition and something like disappointment comes over her face, and she slowly nods then shakes her head.

“Yeah, we’re actually not hiring right now actually,” she says in a completely non-convincing tone.

“Oh, you’re not?” I ask. “Because it said now hiring on your website.”

The girl picks her phone up and thumbs the screen. “Yeah, that was a mistake actually. I’ll talk to our manager about taking it down. I’m really sorry you came all the way down here, though.”

Yeah, she’s not sorry.

“Mmm.” I nod. “So am I.”

I took three trains to get to my first interview, another two to get to my second, and then walked six blocks to get here. I stopped at a convenience store, bought a bottle of water and stopped at a McDonald’s, bought a small fry and used the bathroom, took a quick whore-bath to wash at least some of the sweat and subway residue off of me just so I could get turned down by this bitch-faced Karen who wants to pretend like they’re not hiring when I know damn well they are.

Part of me wants to confront her—give her a real piece of my mind and get into an argument with her. But what would that really solve anyway? She’s not going to say, “Oh, all right, Gracie. I’m impressed with your gumption and vigor. The job is yours!” She’s just going to tell me to get lost or call the police.

So I do what I generally do in situations like this: I force a smile, nod, say, “Thanks,” and leave the way I came.

Straight outside into the blazing New York City summer sun. I can practically feel the sunburn starting to set in on my cheeks as I raise my hand in defense. After everything I had to do this morning to get ready and prepare, I forgot my facial sunscreen.

I look down and see an expensive looking dress with a pair of Victoria’s Secret panties lying on top of it, covered in some kind of white substance. We’re uptown in front of a very expensive art gallery, and this is what greets me when I come outside. I have to admit, New York City is not what I was expecting when I came here.

I thought life would be like Friends or Sex in the City—you know, nice, awesome apartments with great, hip, friendly people at the local coffee shop. Instead, what I found were massive rent prices, rude people, dirty streets, and no job prospects.

Honestly, I would have turned around and gone straight back to my parents’ home in Connecticut, but after I chose not to listen to them and go to college after graduating high school and decided to come to the city to pursue a job in the art world, that wasn’t really much of an option.

The sun beats down on me like a fist, and I feel the beads of sweat already beginning to form on my brow. With a sigh, I reach up and wipe them off my forehead and start up the block toward the subway. It’s going to be another long trek back to my dingy cupboard of an apartment where I’m going to have to really think hard about my next move.

I’ve applied—and now been rejected—to all the top art galleries in the city, and even the majority of the mid-level ones. All that leaves are the low-level ones, which I’m not opposed to working at, but which also won’t even cover my rent as they barely pay anything more than minimum wage. That means I’m going to have to figure out a second job, but also something close to the gallery that I can get to after work so I don’t waste more time taking the subway and—

“Excuse me, Gracie?”

A voice behind me stops me, and I turn to see the bitch-faced Karen from the gallery standing behind me, looking slightly timid.

“Um, yes?”

“I—look, I feel kind of bad about what happened back there,” she says. “And I’m going to tell you something, but you have to promise not to tell anyone that I told you.”

This is weird.

“Sure.” I shrug.

“No, seriously,” she says emphatically, stepping closer and glancing around like there might be a sniper somewhere close ready to take her out at any moment. “You cannot tell anyone what I’m about to tell you.”

“Okay, okay,” I say. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

Again, she glances around and then leans in so quickly that for a second I’m sure she’s about to kiss me.

“We are hiring.”

“Yeah, I know you are,” I laugh.

“It’s Derick,” she whispers. “Derick Beaumont. He’s the reason we can’t hire you.”

“Derick…Beaumont?” I repeat, mulling the name over. It rings a bell, but for some reason, I can’t quite place it.

The girl looks at me with wide eyes like she can’t believe I don’t automatically realize who she’s talking about.

“You’re kidding, right?” she hisses. “Derick Beaumont? The billionaire playboy who owns the new high-rise downtown? The tallest building in the city? The one who looks like he should be a Hollywood movie star?”

And then it clicks.

“Oh, yeah! But…why would he be stopping me from getting a job at your gallery?”

“Not just our gallery,” she replies. “At every gallery. Orders have come down that no gallery in the city is to hire you. You’ve been blacklisted, Gracie.”

My head starts spinning.

“But…that doesn’t make any sense.”

The girl shrugs. “Listen, that’s all I know. I just thought I should tell you so you don’t keep wasting your time.”

“What could I possibly have done?”

Again, she shrugs. “Whatever it was, girl, you pissed him off!” She reaches out and gives me a squeeze on the shoulder and a forced smile. “Good luck out there.”

All I can do is sort of stand there awkwardly as she turns and walks back to the gallery and goes inside.

Blacklisted by New York City’s most famous billionaire playboy? In what world does that make any sense at all? Me, Gracie Oliver, a nineteen-year-old who lives in an apartment building with more rats and cockroaches than people in it. I doubt I’ve ever even been within one thousand feet of Derick Beaumont. The closest I’ve ever come to hobnobbing it with high society was that one time I went to a ridiculously expensive restaurant in the village with my old roommate Fiona who’d found herself a sugar daddy for a couple months and got him to treat us both.

I’d hoped he’d stick around so she could get him to cover my rent too, but no such luck. He ended up taking her and leaving me to cover the apartment myself.

“Wow,” I say to no one in particular, and since this is New York City, nobody cares that a random girl is talking to herself either. I lean against a lamppost and take a breath and glance down at the discarded dress as a deep despair begins to grip me.

What am I supposed to do now? If Derick has had me blacklisted, does that mean even the low-level galleries too? Does this power-hungry maniac really want me to starve? God, I wish I could meet him. Just once, so I could ask him what his problem is.

“Prick,” I grumble as I kick an old piece of cardboard at my feet. I’m just about to get going when the most expensive black sedan I’ve ever seen in my life pulls up to the curb in front of me. It’s got a Mercedes emblem on the hood, but it’s not like any Mercedes that I’ve ever seen, that’s for sure.

Nice timing, I think as I start walking. Just as my life is crashing down on top of me, the prospects of my dream career crumbling, I have to look at some rich asshole pull up in a car that costs more than the house I grew up in.

So I just keep walking, my eyes on the subway station and where I have to go. But that’s when I hear it. The sound of a car door opening followed by a gruff, male voice behind me.

“Ms. Oliver.”

My legs sort of freeze on me—turn to blocks of cement, that try as I might, I’m unable to move.

Is it him?It’s ridiculous to think, but no more ridiculous than some random man in New York City knowing my last name. So I turn and look behind me, half hoping to see Derick Beaumont, the billionaire playboy, standing behind me, smiling at me with his boyish good looks, but instead, I see an obviously muscled thug with a buzz cut squeezed into a suit, staring at me with beady eyes with such intensity that I feel as though if I make the wrong move now it might mean my death.

“Uh, no,” I mutter.

“You are Ms. Oliver,” he says. “Ms. Gracie Oliver.” My blood runs cold, despite the blistering sun burning down on me.

“I—”

“And you will come with me, please.”

He says please, but he might as well not. There’s obviously no saying no to this man. I don’t see a gun on him, but he’s big and his suit could be hiding anything. Even without a gun, there’s no way I’m fighting him off me, and with my legs not working, he could get his arms around me before I could do anything.

So almost like I’m watching a movie, I stand in place as the hulking man lumbers toward me, step by step, until he’s right up on me, towering above me like a giant. He reaches out and takes me by the wrist, his strong hand like a vise grip that seems like it could crush my bones to dust, and slowly begins to lead me toward the car.

My legs begin to work again, but poorly. I stumble over my first steps and almost fall, but the man holds me and keeps me from falling. He opens the back door for me and says in a low voice, “Watch your head, miss.”

Under different circumstances, I’d be excited to get into the back of such a car. The sense of luxury is overwhelming and takes my breath away as he closes the door behind me and goes around to the driver’s side and gets in. My heart is racing as he pulls away into traffic. I think about reaching for my phone to call the police, but it’s like he can read my mind. He glances in the mirror and shakes his head.

“Do nothing stupid, please. He will be very upset if you do.”

“He?” I ask. “He who?”

The man smiles but simply turns his eyes back to the road.

It’s clear I won’t be getting any answers, so I stay quiet as my mysterious captor drives. I’m pretty sure who he is, but I don’t want to make any silly assumptions, and once I see the high-rise coming into view and the car pulls around to a private side entrance, my suspicions are confirmed.

“Derick Beaumont?” I say as we pull into a private garage. The driver just smiles to himself and drives the car straight onto a single-car elevator that begins to rise. Instantly, my heart is in my throat, and not because of the rapid ascent either.

I don’t know how many floors the building is, but the elevator takes us up all of them before finally slowing to a halt. There’s a soft ding, and the doors in front of us open to reveal a breathtaking view.

“Goodbye, Ms. Oliver,” the driver says before exiting the car and disappearing through a discreet side door, leaving me on my own. It takes me a minute to get moving, but I am finally able to work my legs again and get out of the car and into the elevator that is more like an art gallery itself. Slowly, I walk through the large double doors in front of me into an enormous penthouse with views on three sides overlooking the entire city.

I’ve never seen such a lavish display of wealth in my life. A grand piano sits to my right, a crystal chandelier above my head, and an unlit fireplace to my left. It’s modern, a bit cold, but incredibly tasteful.

“Gracie,” a male voice says to my left. “Welcome.”

I turn and see him.

“Derick Beaumont,” I say slowly. “You’ve got some nerve, huh?”

I hate the fact that when he smiles, I get butterflies all through my stomach. He’s undeniably gorgeous, standing there in a pair of perfectly fitted off-white linen trousers and a black Henley with just the right amount of chest hair tufting out of the neck.

He doesn’t even look mortal. His cheekbones are just too high and tight, too sharp, and his muscled torso is making too perfect a V down to the…well, an area I shouldn’t be thinking about right now. This man just had me kidnapped and brought to him like a puppy being delivered to its new owner. I should be utterly pissed off about that.

But then why is there this obnoxious, sudden wetness in my panties? And why am I feeling like I’m about to blush so hard I might faint and fall over?

“And you’ve got something, Ms. Oliver.” He smirks, striding toward me.

“Oh? And what’s that?”

“Something I need,” he says with such straightforwardness that I almost can’t process it. “I guess by now you’ve realized that you won’t be getting your coveted gallery assistant job anywhere in the city.”

“Thanks to you.”

His smile broadens. “Thanks to me, yes. Which means you will be needing a job.”

“Oh, and I suppose you’ve got one for me?”

“I do.” He nods. “You’ll be my personal assistant, Gracie.”

“Thanks, but I’d rather die.”

That’s a lie, but what am I supposed to say? “Hell yes, sir. I’d love to!?”

But Derick seems to completely ignore this and continues on.

“You’ll be my personal assistant. Do whatever I say. Whatever I need.”

“Oh, I will, will I? And why won’t I just find my own job, Mr. Confident?”

This question seems to amuse Derick, who licks his lower lip as he takes another step closer to me.

“You could do that. But then you’d be job hunting instead of being paid a competitive New York City salary.” He smiles. “And you’d be permanently blacklisted from your dream career instead of working toward impressing me so I lift that and maybe help you get a job that you want in the future.”

“Wow.” I nod. “So I’m blacklisted and blackmailed.”

Derick shrugs. “You could think of it that way.”

There’s an anger inside me so hot I can practically feel my skin burning, but after staring at him for a few seconds, it becomes quite clear he’s not backing down. So I cross my arms over my chest and shrug my shoulders.

“All right, Mr. Beaumont. I guess I’m yours.”