The Boss (The Boss 1)

I took his hand and shook it, ignoring the zings of awareness that travelled straight up my arm, lighting up every pleasure center in my brain. I knew that hand. Both of them. Had committed every detail about them and what he’d done to me with them to memory. I smiled with clenched back teeth. “You’re telling me.”

“Look, I don’t want you to panic.” I think that was what he said. My concentration had kind of a dreamy-around-the-edges quality with tiny pinpoints of blackout rage scattered around. It made it difficult to concentrate.

I can’t believe he doesn’t remember me. I can’t believe I’m losing my job.

“In the meantime, can you stay on here for a few weeks? You can train whoever ends up as your replacement, and we can find you something here that’s a better fit.”

I smiled in a really great impression of a human with a functioning brain and said, “I would be happy to stay on until you find someone.”

I would also be happy to pay my half of the rent, which would be difficult if I were unemployed. Still, I couldn’t believe how cool I was being about all this.

Then I realized that it was all going to hit me, eventually. My job was over. My boss was fired. I was probably tainted, and I was going to see it in the face of every person I interviewed with for the next five years. I might as well move back to Michigan and start cashiering at Pat’s Foods.

I’d practically tied one of those horrible polyester aprons on when I realized that all was probably not lost.

“Great. We’ll be meeting with the editors at nine, which is in about...” Neil or Leif or whoever he was pretending to be today checked his watch, which was roughly the size of a damn bread plate. “Ten minutes. Look, I don’t really need you for that, but what I will need is some coffee, and something to eat. Can you do that for me and be back here by ten, for the office-wide announcement?”

“By ten?” He didn’t want it fifteen minutes ago? Wasn’t he going to snap his fingers at me?

“Is that not enough time?” He raised an eyebrow, and I was sucked painfully back to that night in Los Angeles six years ago. Even the way he lifted a brow was ingrained in my memory, and he didn’t know who I was. Just another in a long line of airport conquests, I supposed.

“No, it’s plenty of time.” Way more time than Gabriella would have given me. “What would you like?”

I noticed a subtle shift in the room. One of the men who’d come in with Neil— I hadn’t paid much attention to them, since their arrival hadn’t thrown me into an oh-god-we-fucked-before panic— coughed into his hand, and another openly rolled his eyes.

Neil, on the other hand, didn’t react at all, waving me off with a, “Bagels would be fine, get enough for all of us.”

“Coffee?” I asked, mentally calculating whether I could walk or if I would need a cab.

“Do they not have coffee makers here?” the eye-roller asked with a “tch” of impatience. I resisted the urge to glare at him.

“Of course we do.” I hoped I sounded cheerful and helpful. “Do you prefer Bolivian, Columbian, we have a great dark roast from Chile that was profiled last month—”

Neil took a step toward me, his hands pushing back his jacket as he slipped them into his trouser pockets. “I know that Gabriella was very particular about things around here. I’m not saying that I won’t be particular about your work, I will be. But I’m not going to fire you if you bring me the wrong coffee.”

“Very good. Bagels and coffee.” I was fairly certain my frozen smile had irreparably damaged my facial muscles. Once I was out of the office, I rubbed my aching cheek.

It might seem odd to complain about a boss who isn’t picky, but when you’re someone’s assistant, it really helps if that person is high-maintenance. Coffee and bagels? What kind of coffee? Cream? Sugar? Mug or disposable cup? If disposable, should it be 100% recycled material? My job was made so much easier by Gabriella’s very specific demands. Without them, I had to make independent decisions, which went against every one of my subordinate instincts.

Okay, so I knew I wasn’t going to be a subordinate forever. Someday, I was going to get promoted into a job I really wanted, and probably even have an assistant myself. But that’s the food chain of the working world. You bring someone else their ridiculous coffee order until the day you can order someone to bring you ridiculous coffee. It’s like The Lion King but without animal hair on everything.

If he wanted bagels, I could get him bagels. And I hoped he choked on them.