Filthy Boss

CANDICE CARLSON:

Men are douchebags! I’m sorry, but there’s just no other way to put it and they can’t deny it. They only want one thing from us, girls. Then, just as you’re about to give it to them, they dump you like a hot rock because their mommy says you’re not good enough for their little boy. Seriously, bitch? I’ll show you not good enough with my fist in your nose.

Then I get assigned to work for Tanner Wright, the bad boy billionaire CEO who thinks his money, good looks, and big bulge in his jeans can get him whatever he wants. And what he wants at the moment is to get into this girl’s pants. What he doesn’t know is, that’s a place where no man has gone before.

The guy’s a billionaire douchebag and I’m a reluctant virgin. That combination could make for a very interesting workplace, indeed.

TANNER WRIGHT

It’s a lot of pressure, living up to a reputation like mine. You just try being a billionaire bad boy CEO for a week and see how you handle things. I’ll bet you end up in the press more than I do!

When you have the looks, money, charm, and bedroom skills that I have, the world is your oyster. So many mansions to buy, exotic cars to drive, yachts to captain, and so many women to… well… you know what the ladies want from Mr. Wright.

So, when Candice Carlson is assigned to work on a project for my company, it’s only fitting that I give her a shot at the brass ring. She’s young and brilliant and beautiful. And there’s something mysterious about her that draws me to her like a moth to a flame.

She can try to resist all she wants, but when Tanner Wright wants something, you can bet the bank that he will get it; one way or another.

Candice Carlson

I was sitting at my desk munching on a take-out salad from the cafeteria downstairs, when the email from my boss came through. I glanced at the large computer monitor sitting to my left, but didn’t bother opening the email. I already knew what it was.

I had been expecting the email since earlier in the day when my boss told me that our company, Goldman & Stern Management Consultants, had won a ten-million-dollar management consulting contract with Wright Enterprises, and that I would be one of the management consultants on the team.

I chewed a mouthful of lettuce and leaned over to read the subject line: Confirmation of Meeting Scheduled with Tanner Wright at Wright Enterprises.

I clicked the link that would automatically add the meeting details to my electronic schedule and went back to eating my salad.

A year ago, I would have been jumping up and down at the thought of meeting with billionaire entrepreneur, Tanner Wright, and his team. Now, this would be just another in a long line of boring meetings with rich douchebags who used Goldman & Stern’s management consultants – like me -- to do their dirty work.

Wow, sometimes I was amazed at how tarnished I had become in just one short year at Goldman. I don’t remember what I expected this job would be, but this wasn’t it.

Still, it was better than slaving away at a non-profit for twenty-grand a year. That was more fulfilling, but this allowed me to buy a lot cooler stuff.

I sighed as I stabbed a cherry tomato and bit it in half with my front teeth. I had already Googled Tanner Wright in anticipation of the meeting. Not that I didn’t already know who he was. Everyone in business knew who Tanner Wright was because he was the stuff of legend.

Thirty-five years old, single, tall, dark, and handsome; with the build of an athlete and the brain of a Rhodes Scholar.

He started Wright Enterprises as a little computer fix-it service in his parents’ basement fifteen years ago, and the company did six billion in revenue last year.

Wright was in to everything now: from computing to networking to cyber-security software to fiber optics. But it took more than generating a ton of revenue for a guy to impress me these days. In my mind, I already had him pegged as just another billionaire playboy who thought he could buy the world and everyone in it.

I took a sip of the watery iced tea that came with the salad and looked out the twentieth-floor window at the hazy Chicago skyline.

“I’ll bet he’s a major douchebag,” I heard myself say.

I couldn’t help it.

Whenever I thought about men these days the word “douchebag” automatically came to mind.

In fact, the word “douchebag” was becoming synonymous with the word “man” in my mind.

Man, douchebag.

Douchebag, man.

Call me jaded, but in my mind, they were one and the same.

I took another bite of the lettuce and munched as I sighed. Why do men have to be such douchebags, I wondered. Aren’t there any good men left in the world? Surely, they’re not all gay or married.