The Boss (The Boss 1)

“Are you quite well?” Neil asked, alarmed.

I wasn’t well at all. I was going to do the most dreaded, horrible, career killing thing it was possible to do at Porteras. See, I have the bad luck to be one of those people who cries when they’re angry. And right then, I was furious.

When I’d first started working for Gabriella, I’d been second assistant. The girl who had been first assistant got left at the altar, and returned to work the same week they started shooting for a June bridal feature. She had dabbed her eyes a little too obviously, and within a week, everyone was talking about “Miss Havisham” the jilted spinster who’d had a total mental breakdown at work. I could not cry, especially not in front of Neil.

I got to my feet, and he rose as well. I backed away with a hand at my throat, desperately afraid he would try to touch me, comfort me. There was no way I could take that. “I’m fine. I just... choked on my own spit.”

Smooth.

I turned and hurried to the door. How dare Gabriella choose Penelope over me? She could have offered me the job. Hadn’t I been a good assistant? At least good enough that she could have given me a heads up before I’d been ambushed by the new regime.

“I know you must be very upset. Perhaps you’d like to take the rest of the day—”

I turned. “You’re right. I am upset.” I weighed the pros and cons of what I said next, and the meter landed directly on fuck it. If I ended up working at Cats Monthly, so be it. I looked him dead in the eye and said, “Crown Plaza. Los Angeles airport. That’s why I’m upset.”

The color drained from his face. I took a second of sadistic pleasure from his sudden and obvious discomfort. If he didn’t remember me before, he sure as hell remembered me now.

And then I realized, nothing had changed. I had just blown off my job, but Gabriella wouldn’t be sitting outside my apartment, begging me to come work for her. Life wouldn’t magically return to the way it had been yesterday, and I still had a latte stain down the front of my fifteen hundred dollar jacket.

I had never so badly wanted the floor to open up and swallow me as I did at that moment. Neil tried an apologetic smile, and when he couldn’t keep it up, he looked away, out the huge windows I’d personally spot cleaned for smudges for the past two years. “Yes. Well. As I was saying, perhaps you should take the rest of the day. We’ll talk tomorrow.”

I left and closed the door behind me. I hesitated beside my desk, trying to decide if I should clear it out right then and save myself a trip. But that would require staying in the office a moment longer, and that was something I couldn’t stand to do. I got my coat and purse and left without saying a word to anyone.

* * * *

In times of great crisis, I can always count on my very best friend to point out the silver lining, to talk through the problem at hand, and to bring some perspective to the chaos that is my world.

Also, to do all that while providing much appreciated weed and booze.

“Whether or not he recognized you the moment he saw you, he does at least remember you,” Holli squeaked out as she exhaled a truly impressive cloud of pale blue smoke. “And you didn’t recognize him from pictures in magazines. Face it, Soph, it’s not like you guys had some kind of lasting commitment and he forgot you. You were a one-night stand.”

“I know.” I nodded miserably as I took my next hit. “But who has anal sex with someone and forgets all about it?”

Holli nodded enthusiastically as she swallowed her sip of wine. “My friend Alexis! Like two days ago she was all, ‘So there I was, bent over the kitchen sink with a vibrator in my pussy and my boyfriend fucking my ass,’ and today I mentioned it and she was like ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about.’” She gingerly took the joint from my fingers and lifted it to her lips. “But she has mad pregnancy brain right now.”

I shrugged. As soon as I’d gotten home, I’d changed out of my expensive work clothes and washed off my eye makeup. I should have felt much more relaxed in my flannel turtle jammies, but I still didn’t know what was going to happen at the office tomorrow. I wasn’t sure there was enough cannabis in the entire universe to overcome my anxiety.

Holli leaned forward, her huge brown eyes going extra wide, like she had an amazing secret. “What if... I went out and got us Chinese food? And pizza?” She raised a triumphantly clenched fist. “And a box of cereal.”