Villain (Hero 1.50)

This one was so much fun to write and even more so to edit. Thank you to Jennifer Sommersby Young. Jenn, you made editing VILLAIN painless and entertaining, something you always manage to do! Thank you for your smarts and wit, friend. Moreover, thank you to the lovely Viviana Verona for proofreading the novella and making sure it had that extra polish on top! You are wonderful.

And a big thanks to Jeff Senter at Indie Formatting Services for formatting my books so they look swish and professional.

A massive thank you to my PA, Ashleen Walker, for organizing the promo for this novella and for just being generally freaking fantastic. I’d be lost without you.

On that note, a huge hug and thank you to every single blogger who took the time to participate in the promo for VILLAIN. I appreciate you more than you’ll ever know.

As always, a big thank you to my agent extraordinaire, Lauren Abramo, for your guidance, hard work, and constant support.

And finally, the biggest thank you of all to you, my reader. You are tremendously good to me. THANK YOU.

For all my HERO fans…

“Run with the twins with different fathers’ story. See if we can get the mom in for next Monday,” said my boss, Dick.

I caught Barbara rolling her eyes and hid my smirk. She was one of the hosts of the breakfast show WCVB This Morning and getting a little sick of our new boss. She wasn’t the only one.

Dick cut her a dark look. “Problem, Barbara?”

“I was wondering when I get to interview someone about something important again.” She shrugged.

Barbara had job security. She was much loved at WCVB and would be hard to replace. So she could push Dicky Dick a little further than the rest of us.

“You don’t think twins that have different fathers is scientifically important?”

“I think it’s scientifically rare. And there has been no mention of DNA tests, no doctors corroborating her story. This woman put the story up on social media and it got some attention. That’s all. I call bullshit. Where’s the evidence?”

“People don’t want evidence. They want sex and scandal. If she’s lying, great. You get her on that couch and you grill her about why she’s lying. If you can make her cry or storm off the set, even better.” And apparently that was all he was going to say on the matter because he turned to me.

I hated this part of our early morning conference meetings: when Dick’s lecherous eyes landed on me.

“Nadia, how is your weather report coming for next week? Anything there?”

My meteorology reports for this week sat in front of me. “The rain from this week will ease off into a heat wave. I’m guessing lots of people will be heading to the coast for a long weekend.”

His black eyes ran over my chest and I wanted to shrivel inside myself. He grinned. “Fantastic. Let’s get you to the beach next week in a bikini for Monday’s weather report.”

The thought made my stomach plummet. This was not what I signed up for. Russ, our last boss, the boss who hired me, was a brusque but professional man who would never have dreamt of putting me in a bikini on air. “Um… I’m not comfortable with that.”

Dick raised an eyebrow. “How so?”

Barbara huffed in annoyance for me. “She’s not a Playboy Bunny, Dick.”

“She’s a weather girl. And her face, tits, and ass have shot our ratings through the roof. Can you imagine what they’d do if they saw her in a bikini?”

Anger bubbled under my skin. She’s a weather girl. And her face, tits, and ass have shot our ratings through the roof. Can you imagine what they’d do if they saw her in a bikini? I memorized every word for my log file. “Actually, Dick, I’m a broadcast meteorologist, and I’m not reporting the weather in a bikini.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Barbara grin proudly.

It was difficult for me to stand up to Dick, which was infuriating because I’d never found it difficult to stand up to anyone. But I loved my job. I loved the challenge of getting on camera and having to think on my feet. I didn’t have cue cards like the rest of my colleagues. It was just me, my report, a green screen, and coming up with a way to report the weather that was fun, witty, and fit with the theme of the breakfast show that day.

So I didn’t want to lose my job after only six months, which was a possibility considering Dick had already fired our entertainment news girl

and our chef and replaced them immediately with younger, more pliable employees.

If Dick was surprised by my mulishness he didn’t show it. He opened his mouth to speak but was interrupted by Andrew, Barbara’s co-presenter. “You can’t force Nadia to wear a bikini, Dick, and harassing her about it violates a whole bunch of in-the-workplace legislation.”

Dick’s lips pressed together in irritation. He sighed. “Fine. But let’s get you out on the beach. At least wear a summer dress or something a little enticing.”

I shrugged, not agreeing or disagreeing. Which was better than getting up out of my chair and kicking him in the balls.

Relieved when he moved on to asking me what I had in mind for today’s show, my tension slowly eased, especially when he eventually turned his attention to Angel, our entertainment news girl.

When the meeting was over, I stood, ready to head back to the makeup department. They’d already done my makeup but they had to put finishing touches on my hair before we went live.

People often asked me if the early mornings killed me but you got used to them after a while. Monday to Friday I got up at 3 a.m., got to work between four and four thirty, pulled together my meteorology reports, went into hair and makeup, joined the team for our conference meeting, finished hair and makeup, and prepared to go live. Our breakfast show started at six and finished at nine, and I appeared every half hour to do the weather. Afterwards I worked on my long-range meteorology reports so I had an idea of what was ahead, and then for the most part the rest of the day was mine. It meant early to bed, which played havoc with my social life but it was worth it.

“Nadia, see me in my office. Now,” Dick said as the staff filtered out of the room. He followed them.

Barbara frowned at me. “Do you want me to come with you?”

I loved this woman. Grateful, I gave her a tense smile. “I think I better go it alone. I’ll be okay.”

“Are you still keeping that log?”

“I’m still keeping that log.”

“Good.” She squeezed my arm.

A horrible case of butterflies erupted in my belly as I strode to Dick’s office. If he wanted to argue about the bikini, I had to push past my fear of being fired. Because there was no way in hell I was getting my ass out in a bikini on live television.

The tinkle of a text message on my phone brought my head down to where my phone lay on top of the folders in my arms.

The sender’s name sent irritation through me. I flicked it open.

Please, darling, we need to talk. We both made mistakes. Let’s put it behind us.

Darling. And to think I used to like it when he called me that. Now it made me want to smash my phone every time I saw the word. I wasn’t his darling. I’d never been his darling. I deleted the text, like I’d done with all the others.

Dick had left his office door open for me. I rapped my knuckles against it and waited.

“Come in and shut the door behind you.” Dick sat on the edge of his desk, his ankles crossed in front of him, his arms crossed over his chest. As always, his dark eyes ran the length of my body, slowly, lasciviously, and in a way that one day might get him punched.

I reluctantly shut his door behind me and turned to face him, pressing my folder against my chest so I could at least conceal the part of my body that fascinated him so much.

What most people didn’t know about me was that I was pretty insecure about my body. Growing up I was a chubby kid and had been bullied mercilessly until junior high. I’d stretched out, lost the puppy fat, and my waist shrank. The only part of me I’d never been insecure about were my legs. My mother had long, fantastic legs with perfectly toned calves, toned thighs, and a slim ankle. Great legs. And she’d given me those. But I still had big boobs, wide hips, a sizeable ass, and a curve to my belly that no amount of sit-ups could flatten. Everything about my body was exaggerated and I envied women who could slip on any dress and have it sit beautifully on their slender curves.

I wasn’t a woman who could wear practically anything I wanted. Jeans made my ass look huge, as did most pants. Anything floaty made me look bigger than I was. Fitted fifties-style attire suited my figure best, so I dressed in a lot of pencil skirts and blouses.

It was a surprise to me that I became so popular on WCVB for my curves. Don’t get me wrong—I’d had men in the past tell me how much they loved my curves, but I honestly thought they were lying in the way most men do when they tell a woman she’s beautiful so they can fuck her.

But Boston liked my curves. I was “WCVB’s Weather Pin-Up Girl.” The attention was a little daunting at first, and truthfully I was at war with myself over it. Part of me got a huge confidence boost from it, and the other part of me was uneasy that they were focused on my appearance. Yet, I knew that was a huge part of the industry I was in, and I knew that before I got into it. Thankfully, as it turned out, just as many women liked me on the show as men did. They said I was funny and down-to-earth. Real.

That made me feel better.

Dick, however, never made me feel better.

He made me wish I could wear a burlap sack to work.

“Don’t worry, it’s not about the bikini.” He waved the thought away.

Under normal circumstances I might have relaxed, but this was Dick.

So I didn’t.

“I have a proposition for you.”

I knew it.

This was the moment I’d been dreading.

Yeah, I was going to be sick.

“How would you feel about taking over Angel’s job?”

Shock rippled over me, putting a pause on the nausea. “In entertainment?”

“Yes. She gets more airtime than you, which makes no sense considering you are why viewers are tuning in.”

“Not all of them. They love Barbara and Andrew.”

Dick rolled his eyes. “Right. Well, if it were up to me, you’d be getting Barbara’s job but the powers that be upstairs like her so she stays. For now.”

Bastard.

“But I want more of you on our show.”

“I’m a meteorologist.”

“Whether you like it or not, you’re Boston’s new ‘it girl’ and I want more of you on my show.” His eyes bored into my folder, as if he stared long and hard enough, he’d see through it to my chest. “And I have a story that will get you there.”

I didn’t want Angel’s job. I wanted to keep my job. “I’m not interested.”

Dick’s expression hardened. “I have a private investigator friend. Did you know that?”

It was never good when someone asked that question out of the blue like that, right?

My stomach flip-flopped.

“It always befits a boss to know his staff as well as he can. I know my staff very, very well.” He stood up from the desk and I had to steel myself from pressing back against his door. “For instance, I know that you’re not quite the sexy-but-nice girl next door you make yourself out to be. You’re also not a natural redhead and your real name isn’t Nadia Ray. And I know why.”

Sudden understanding dawned.

The bastard thought he knew who I was because of my past. He thought I was that kind of woman. No wonder he was more abrasive with me than any of his other female staff.

Fuck.

“How do you know that?”

“It’s easy enough to find out these things if you know where to look.” He took a step toward me, smirking. “Somehow I don’t think Boston’s ‘it girl’ will fare too well when they discover she was a home-wrecker at the tender age of twenty-one.”

I hated him.

I truly hated him.

“What do you want?”

“That’s easy. I want to be the highest-rated breakfast show in Massachusetts. I’ve failed in the past, Nadia. Let’s just say I didn’t like the way I was treated while I was struggling to climb my way back up. Until now. With this job, I’ve been given a second chance. I can’t fail again. And I think you’re the key to my success. So

, we’re going to prove to the powers that be that you deserve the top spot. First, Angel’s job… then we’ll work on getting you Barbara’s.”

“I don’t want their jobs.”

“It’s not about what you want. Or haven’t I made that clear?” He grinned as if he were telling a joke instead of blackmailing me. “And I have the seeds of what could be a brilliant story.”

I thought about the log on my iPad. Since Dick started working here, I’d kept an exact account of every sexual comment he’d made to me. The plan had been if he pushed me too far, I would take it to the station executives. Unfortunately, I knew how these things went. Dick would be fired but eventually they’d find a way to get rid of me too, not wanting to be tainted by a sex scandal. And I was afraid there were few employers who would hire someone who’d accused a colleague of sexual harassment. I needed this job. This job was the first thing in a long time that made me feel good about myself.

“What’s the story?”

“This one we’ll need to be careful with, and it will test your research skills.” Dick stepped toward me again and I braced myself. If he so much as touched me… “I slept with an older woman this weekend while I was at a family wedding in Philly. She was drunk, we got to talking after sex, and she let slip something very interesting.”

“What?” I snapped. I wanted out of his office. And I really, really didn’t want to hear about his sex life.

“She let it slip that I wasn’t the first younger man she’d been with. She developed a taste for living in Cougar Town after paying a hot young guy to fuck her. And do you know who that young guy was? Caine Carraway. CEO of Carraway Financial Holdings. She told me that while he was at Wharton, he prostituted himself to her and her wealthy friends. That’s how he got the capital to invest.”