The Billionaire Boss Next Door

I stare until she turns around and then jerk my gaze back to my cooling crepe to avoid eye contact.

I make a point not to watch as she leaves the counter with her meal and finds a table of her own, but for some freakish reason, I can sense her anyway.

Back and to the left, her table is in the tiniest corner of the restaurant imaginable. In all of my visits, I’ve never even seen anyone sit there. The space is so tight that I’m pretty sure the restaurant only put it there so they could advertise more seating than actually exists.

But for some unknown reason, she insists on sitting there, in a booth that doesn’t really look like a booth. It’s basically just a miniature table pushed up against a wall, with a bench built for no one bigger than a baby.

And for what must be caused by a minor bout of delirium from lack of sleep or stress or something, I can’t not look in her direction. I’m powerless to my curiosity.

Quickly and as discreetly as possible, I glance over my shoulder and into the nook where I know she’ll be.

She makes a huge fucking effort to slide into the booth, damn near twisting and turning and contorting her slim figure into a pretzel.

Once. Two. Three. Four failed attempts, and I’m practically choking on a piece of banana from the hilarity of it.

It’s like she has a beef with the table itself.

She is so damn determined, so damn stubborn, that I’m silently wondering if she’ll remove a limb just to prove a point to a restaurant table.

When the fight becomes too much, when she finally gives in, she stands and leans over the table, picking on her crepe like a vulture.

God. This woman. She is something else.

With a slight shake of my head, I go back to focusing on my own meal, and I don’t notice immediately when she’s up and on the move again. In fact, I don’t really notice her until the third time she walks in front of my table.

And that’s just the beginning.

Greer uses the strip of floor in front of my table like a goddamn runway, stealing glances at me from behind a veil of hair every time she passes.

The first pass, she’s flipped her jacket backward and slipped on sunglasses.

The second round included a new part to her hair and that jacket tied around her waist.

It’s like she’s trying to trick me into thinking it’s not her or something.

I’m not sure if she thinks I’m legitimately blind or if she thinks she’s somehow engaged a special superpower to make herself invisible, but I’d be lying if I said I’m not getting some kind of amusement out of it.

Not to mention, each time she walks by, that plush ass of hers does too.

It’s not until the tenth time that she makes a pass, and one of the patrons asks her if she’s homeless and in need of money or food, that she drops the act and stops in front of the chair across from me.

She clears her throat, and I smile in greeting.

“Oh, hi, Greer. I didn’t realize you were here.”

Right. She did everything but flap her wings and throw a shoe at me. Everyone in the universe knows she’s here.

Her face melts into a sneer as it becomes undeniably clear I’m lying.

When she still doesn’t pipe up but stays rooted to her spot with a blue-eyed glare directed toward me, I have to prompt her.

“Go on,” I say and rest my elbows on the table. “I can tell you want to say something. In fact, it looks like the effort to keep it all in is literally killing you. So, by all means, spill.”

Her face softens a bit. “Respectfully?”

“Is that really possible for you?” I ask, and she rolls her eyes.

“You’d catch a lot more flies with honey than all that vinegar you’ve been pissing all over the place.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You’re kidding, right?” she tosses back without hesitance. “You’ve spent the entire day doing an impression of Sideshow Bob. Sarah’s almost worn her teeth down to the nubs.”

“Come on, be real,” I refute and narrow my eyes. “I wasn’t that bad.”

She scoffs. “Yes. You were. Barking orders and chewing out George.”

“George wasn’t doing his job.”

He wasn’t doing his job. And, honestly, it feels like George is never doing his fucking job.

“Look,” she says and lifts both hands in the air. “I’m not trying to start shit. I’m just saying you might want to dial it back a notch if you don’t want an outbreak of stomach ulcers to take down the whole crew.”

Not trying to start shit? This, coming from the woman standing in front of her boss and telling him how to do his job.

It takes everything inside of me to keep my tone calm and neutral. “While I appreciate your attempt at constructive criticism, I think you need to realize, as the head of this project, it’s my job to make sure shit gets done,” I say through a tight jaw.