The Boss (Managing the Bosses 1)

“What? That I was invited? I may be friends with Stephen from college but I’m not that close to him.” Alex looked at her intently. “Trust me.”

Jamie swallowed and nodded. She wasn’t sure what to make of Alex’s expression. Unless he was mad at Stephen on her behalf or something. She wasn’t sure why he would be, but the thought was nice. Stop it. Whatever you’re thinking about, just stop it. She was definitely too tired to be near people right now. Her thoughts were going every which way.

“I have a gym in the house.”

“Pardon?”

“Gina mentioned she showed you the gym at the office.” He ran his tongue over his lower lip. “If you want to use a gym and don’t feel comfortable there, I have one here in the house. You are welcome to use it anytime.”

“Oh.” Great, now he was going to push her to lose weight?

“I don’t mean it in any way. You look okay. Fine.” His cheeks flushed red. “I just meant to offer the quietness here if you ever wanted it... before the wedding and stuff. It’s the room beside your apartment. The code to get in is one-four-nine-six. Top left, down, Right bottom up.”

Jamie wanted to crawl into a hole and hide. She nodded, unable to say anything, terrified she’d burst into tears. She gratefully stopped in front of her apartment door. “Well, this is me,” she said lamely. Of course he knows it’s your place. She took a deep breath in and let it out, hoping she didn’t embarrass herself again. Not in front of him. “Goodnight, Mr. Reid.”

He smiled at her. “Goodnight, Ms. Connors.”

His smile made her stomach flip and before she completely humiliated herself, she opened the door and quickly shut it in Alex’s face.

Yeah, that wasn’t humiliating at all.

Chapter 7

The next morning, after a restless night, Jamie got up an hour early and dug through one of her boxes for some workout clothes. “I’m not doing this for Christine, or my mother, or Alex Reid,” she told herself. “I’m just doing it because I want to see what the gym looks like. I’ll just peek around and spend twenty minutes on a treadmill.”

She yawned, feeling like a zombie that hadn’t started rotting yet. There’s no way I got enough sleep last night. Didn’t lack of sleep also affect weight loss? It definitely wasn’t healthy. Shouldn’t she be losing weight in a healthy way? “Doesn’t matter, not right now. Exercise will wake me up.”

She set a skirt and blouse on her bed and dug through the laundry hamper she had filled with shoes for a pair of sneakers. She slipped out the door, wondering if she should lock it as she stared out into what should overlook the pool. The sun did not rise at four, it wanted to sleep.

The cool morning air did little to wake her up. She checked her messages on the short walk to the gym door. There were five more calls from Christine and three from her mother. Even one call from Stephen and a text message from her father. Apparently she had one day of work and the entire world fell apart. She opened the text message from her dad as she stood outside the gym door.

Jamie, honey, I think you need to come home. Your mother and sister are freaking out. Maybe this new job of yours should wait until after the wedding.

Jamie blinked back tears. He had been the only one excited for her. Even if it was for just a few seconds, he had been, and now he was telling her to quit like everyone else. He’s just saying that because he can’t handle mom when she’s hysterical. Nevertheless, it still hurt.

She sent him a simple reply. I’m doing great. All is well and I’ll call Mom and Christine later today.

She shoved her phone into her gym bag that held a water bottle and towel. She made a mental note to make sure she stopped at the grocery store on the way to and from work today.

Luckily the gym was unlocked. Jamie went in and lights flickered automatically on. The place was nearly as big as the gym at the office, with more mirrors than a ballet studio. If she’d been half asleep before, she was fully awake now.

She looked around and dropped her bag to the floor. She might as well do something. Half the equipment looked like machines built to traumatize or kill people. She settled for the treadmill. Safe and not a killing machine. She was so tired she almost tripped getting on. Luckily she was alone.

Jamie turned on the treadmill, thinking about how she was going to have to call her sister back and wondering what she was going to say. By this point her mother and Christine had no doubt gotten together and had a huge discussion on how Jamie was a terrible sister. She could just imagine the words; let down, unreliable, selfish, and so forth. Stephen would join in, and twist it to make himself look like the generous brother-in-law who had been coerced into helping her find a job.

As she was envisioning the conversation she pressed the up button on the treadmill to get it started and adjust the speed. She rubbed her eyes, yawned, and stepped on. She wasn’t prepared for the speed on the machine, though, and as soon as she put her left leg on, it swung back and she tried to run with her right foot and grab the handrails to stop herself.

No. Such. Luck.

Her weight shifted but could not keep up with the moving path. She whipped her head back just as her body was flung backwards, across the gym. Arms and legs flailing everywhere until her back rammed into something hard.

The wall.

Right at Alex Reid’s feet.

Fucking. Hell.

“Good morning, Ms. Connors,” Alex said, frowning at her. “Are you all right?”