Alphahole (Alphahole Roommates 1)

Carly nods at my father and then her eyes land on me. She’s pissed and now that she’s stopped talking about her skills, she’s doing a bad job of hiding it. She’s looking at me with challenge in her eyes. Not afraid of going head to head with me despite finding out I’m a Carmichael? I’m almost impressed.

I stare right back, dead into her eyes with challenge, and she flinches.

Good.

I physically bump into my brother outside the boardroom and he jokes about it, but I’m in no mood. I storm off.

9

CARLY

I think I might hate him. I barely know him and I’m not a hater, at all, but I might have real hate for this cocky asshole.

I somehow managed to keep my cool in there, but now that I’m walking back to my desk, my legs are shaky, and my ears are burning hot.

It wasn’t bad enough, finding out that the office I worked at was being closed in front of my new department. They had a goodbye party for me. They wished me well and had a cake for me. I was leaving on short notice and they’d even put money into a pre-loaded credit card with my goodbye card, so I could have some sightseeing money when I got here (even though I wound up using it for groceries, because Caitlin).

Yes, there were jerks there. Yes, some of them took credit for my work. But, not everyone. And they gave a crap when I left.

And I had to sit and listen to the shocking news that they’d all be losing their jobs and absorb that shock in front of everyone without showing too much emotion.

I didn’t know how to show emotion without either looking like I didn’t care or like I cared so much that I’d offend Mr. Carmichael, who was beaming with pride about me and how I differed from them.

I mean, I had long pegged the vast majority of them as lazy sloths, but this was confirmation. It didn’t feel good, though. I did not feel vindicated or anything like that. And several of the back-office people, all the admin girls, they were great. They were my work-friends f

or two years, people I spent almost a third of my life with.

When I first met Mr. Carmichael in the copy room at lunch time when the office was empty (but for me) and helped him photocopy something when the machine was acting screwy, then got to chatting where he asked me questions about my job that led to the boardroom chat that was actually a job interview, an interview I didn’t know I was in, but yet I’d aced…I had no idea I was going to be the only one with a job from that whole company.

When the news came of Carmichael acquiring us, our bosses told us we had nothing to worry about. Either they lied, or they were lied to. And I hated finding that news out in a room of my new peers, because they’d probably think I was cutthroat.

Ally asked me if I was a backstabbing bitch-faced cunt. Would she think I’d lied when I said I wasn’t?

And to make it worse…with Aiden the asshole jerk strutting in there late, exuding all this alpha male authority, and every man looks at him with respect while every woman in the place looks at him like he’s a god or something and he pays absolutely no attention to anyone until he starts trying to make me look bad in front of the whole room? I have had it with this guy. He’s an alphahole. An alpha male asshole who wants to pound his chest and make everyone fall in line out of fear of him.

I feel like I just survived a trial by fire.

I’m reeling.

All I know at this moment is that I’m going to rock my job and prove myself. If it kills me.

I also know I have to do it without letting him walk on me.

Somehow, I’m going to succeed here without being a doormat, without becoming a backstabbing bitch-faced cunt to anyone that doesn’t deserve it.

However…

If someone crosses me, they’ll have to be prepared to face the consequences. Carly 2.0 is going to be transformed like Linda Hamilton from Terminator to Terminator 2. A warrior. Let’s just hope I don’t wind up incarcerated in a mental hospital in the process.

We get back to our cubes and Ally has a look on her face like she’s worried about me. She’s not saying much. She watches Aiden storm back to his office and Mr. Carmichael gives me a big smile as he heads to wherever his office is.

Aiden changes his mind and does a smooth about-face, then storms in the direction Mr. Carmichael went. A beat later, I hear shouting and then a door slam.

Heads are popping up like a busy prairie dog community all over the place and I pop up, too. I catch, from the corner of my eye, both Carmichael men in another glass office and the younger one is shouting at the older one, pointing his finger at him.

Yikes. I duck back down.

“You okay?” Ally pops up to face me from our shared half-wall