Falling for the Boss Read online

  “No,” I answered honestly because it was the truth. “Because I’m not trying to meet anyone, remember?”

  “Ugh! See, you’re not even open to the possibility of love. This is why your mom is never going to leave and live her life. Ever. She’s going to sit here and babysit you until she dies. And you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

  She was baiting me, pushing my buttons, hoping I’d snap. But my assistant knew me better than that.

  “I’m not open to love right now.” I emphasized the timing. “I’m still earning our clients’ trust and trying to expand our company internationally. You know that. My mother knows that. I don’t have time for a relationship. It wouldn’t be fair to expect anyone to try to be with me right now.”

  My dad had built an empire with Martin Staffing and Management in New York, but it was my dream to take it abroad. The majority of our clients had multiple offices located across the globe, and it was a missed opportunity to only focus on their stateside ones. It’d become my goal to expand our company to Europe—London specifically—and I didn’t have time for distractions. Not until I made this a reality.

  “I know, but your mom needs to think that you’re trying to have a life outside of this building.”

  “So, what do we do?” I acquiesced because I knew I had no choice.

  “Let me go back to my desk and think about this for a second. You have a meeting in five minutes anyway. We’ll reconvene after it ends,” she said.

  Before I could respond, she was out the door, and I was alone.

  PAYING FOR DATES

  JOSEPH

  When my meeting ended, Kayla popped back into my office, uninvited, and sat back down.

  I glanced at her. “You thought of something?”

  “Yeah. But you’re not going to like it.” She shook her head and made a face that told me I definitely wasn’t going to like what she suggested.

  “What is it?”

  “There are some firms that specialize in this kind of thing.” She said the words so quietly that my brain almost didn’t pick up exactly what she was saying.

  But when it clicked into place, I mentally took back my previous thought about dating apps and decided that this was the very last thing I would do to meet a woman.

  “I know you’re about to freak out, but just listen.” She put one hand in the air toward my face to get me to stop talking before I even started, but it didn’t work.

  “No. I can’t do that. I can’t go to some firm to find a date!”

  “But it’s not real. You’d just be paying her to be your fake date.” She couldn’t even get the words out without giggling.

  “Are you going to stop laughing at me, or should I fire you?”

  “Definitely fire me. But please give me a good severance package, so I can spend a month in Bali, doing nothing but working on my tan with a hot Balinese woman.”

  Short of Kayla betraying my company secrets and selling my soul to the devil, there was very little she could do that would get me to fire her, and she knew it.

  “So, are we a go for the dating firm?” she asked, her expression serious as she put her pen in her mouth and bit down.

  “That’s the only thing you thought of this whole time?”

  “Hey,” she started to argue, but I interrupted.

  “We just need to slow down a second,” I said, my insides twisting.

  “What’s the hang-up?”

  “It’s kind of creepy, is it not?” I asked because it felt like it was.

  She shifted in her seat before tossing her dark hair from her shoulders and onto her back. “It’s not though. Listen. It’s a business arrangement. You don’t want to fall in love. These women aren’t there for love. It’s a win-win.”

  She pulled out her phone and started typing frantically on it. “Okay, these are the five high-profile firms for the rich and famous in the city.” She winced as she said the words out loud, gauging my reaction before continuing her spiel. “Basically, they sound like high-class escort services, I guess?” She shrugged, clearly in as unfamiliar territory as I was.

  “So, I’d pay some girl to be my fake girlfriend for Social Month, and my mom will be happy and go check off the things on her travel bucket list?”

  Kayla’s face pulled together. “List? I guess that sounds about right.”

  “And this woman wouldn’t expect anything from me because I’d be paying her, right?”

  “That’s the gist of it, I think.”

  My brain spun a mile a minute. I had no idea what the right thing to do was, but I knew I couldn’t really try to find a woman like my mom had suggested. I wasn’t in the place for it. God, how had this become my life? An hour ago, the only woman even remotely on my radar had been the one I planned on fucking later. The one who would leave the second we were done and walk out of my apartment like nothing had happened.

  “I’d be mortified if this got out to the press. Could you imagine the headline? ‘The Anti-Playboy Turns into the Pays-for-It Punk’?”

  She quickly stopped whatever she was doing on her phone. “No way would I let them meet with you before I vetted them first. I think the whole point of those firms is so that it doesn’t get out. Obviously, the woman would sign a nondisclosure agreement, where she would be forbidden from discussing the details of your relationship or anything about you.”

  “There has to be another option,” I said, shaking my head and leaning back so far in my chair that I thought I might break it.

  “There is. You could actually try to find a real woman on your own, or you could let your mom set you up, like I know she’s dying to do. But then that poor girl would probably fall head over heels in love with you and want twenty of your little staffing babies.”

  The thought didn’t excite me. It didn’t cause my heart to race or my pulse to speed up. It gave me the exact opposite feeling actually—dread. It coursed through my veins, and I knew I wasn’t ready for any of that.

  Running my fingers through my hair in frustration, I responded, “I need a no-strings-attached type of deal.”

  “Then, we’re going to have to call one of these places. It’s our only hope. I wouldn’t have even suggested it if I thought we had another option. I’ll research them all first, meet with the owners, find out everything I need to before I let you work with them. Okay?” She tried to reassure me, but I was still hesitant.

  “I trust you with all that,” I said, and I meant it. I knew Kayla would never let me get into a situation that wasn’t good for me. “I just don’t like it. Why can’t I just be free to focus all my time on work and worry about love and babies and shit later?”

  “God, you remind me so much of Sutton that it’s annoying,” she said before her jaw slacked open. She quickly snapped it closed again, her lips pressing together tightly.

  “Your psychotic roommate?” I asked, horrified.

  After three years of working together, I knew way too much about Kayla’s personal life, including her best friend and roommate, Sutton. She was the only person Kayla ever spoke about with consistency. To be honest, I only half-listened whenever Kayla went on a rant, talking about their excursions. I knew it was shitty of me, but as a guy, we only cared so much about people we didn’t know or didn’t plan on fucking. And Sutton’s name was at the top of my DO NOT TOUCH list.

  “She’s not psychotic!” Kayla snapped back.

  “I have memories that beg to differ.” I leaned back in my chair and folded my arms across my chest.

  I’d met Sutton once before, and it hadn’t gone well. If my drunken haze remembered correctly, which was fuzzy at best, I’d called the woman a hot mess—or something like that. But in my defense, she had been holding a lighter toward my balls, threatening to light them on fire!

  “You called her an evil troll,” she yelled, and I started laughing ’cause that shit was funny.

  “I’m sure she deserved it.”

  Kayla sucked in a loud, long, annoyed breath. “Shut up for one second and listen. Talking to you is like talking to the guy version of her. Babies later. Why can’t I work? Why does everyone want me to do something I’m not ready to do?” She said the last few sentences in some silly, mocking tone.

  “So?” I pushed, my tone, irritated, because even though Sutton was a redheaded stunner, she was clearly a fucking psychopath.

  Why are redheads always the crazy ones?

  “She doesn’t want kids yet? Big deal. Is she running an empire I don’t know about? Is she rich, insanely good-looking, and have a fetish for fast cars? Get called names in the press daily? Have men tried to land her for her money?”

  Kayla’s lips twisted like she’d bitten into rotten fruit. “Ew. Full of yourself much? And no to all of the above, by the way. I just meant how she has no interest in dating right now, just like you. She always talks about how no guy likes being second to her residency. Just like you. And only other doctors and medical personnel understand her way of life, but she doesn’t want to date any of them because they’re all egotistical assholes who think their shit doesn’t stink,” Kayla said with strength, like she was delivering the closing argument at a trial.

  “Interesting.” I smiled a little to myself, but I still wasn’t convinced.

  “Yeah. Now that I think about it, you two sort of have a lot in common.” Kayla suddenly grew silent, her eyes looking past me and straight out the window. “How have I never put that together before now?” she practically whispered. “I know why. ’Cause you two hate each other,” she continued talking to herself.

  “What are you thinking, Sanderson?” I snapped my fingers once, bringing her focus back to me.

  “Maybe we won’t have to use one of those firms after all?” She dragged it out like a question, and I f
ound myself more than a little curious.

  “Let me see her picture again. A recent one.” The last time I’d seen the little wannabe fire starter, it was two years ago. A lot could happen to a person in two years.

  Kayla pressed some buttons on her phone before turning it toward me. I reached for it and studied the face staring back at me. Long red hair, green eyes, and full lips.

  “She’s gorgeous.” The words slipped from my mouth. I hadn’t meant to say them out loud, but fuck it; it was the truth.

  “Smart too,” Kayla added, reaching for her phone, and I handed it back, hesitating slightly.

  I wanted to text myself that photo so I could look at it later, study it more, or use the way those lips to jerk off to. The image of her holding a lighter toward my nether regions flashed in my mind, and I realized that no sane man jerked off to a chick who wanted to dismember his … well, member.

  “Once again, I beg to differ. A lighter, Kayla. She had a lighter aimed at my balls,” I explained.

  “Yeah, yeah. I remember.” She waved me off like this sort of thing could happen to anyone. “She never told me what you two were fighting about. Care to fill me in?”

  Fighting? We’d been fighting? I barely knew the woman.

  “I have no idea. I was hammered that night, remember?”

  She threw her head back slightly. “That’s right.” She snapped her fingers. “That was the double-shot bartender party.”

  Apparently, one of the bartenders had had some sort of grudge against a rival company of mine. He thought it would be funny to give all the executives and higher-ups double and triple shots of their orders without telling them. Almost everyone was off their rocker before dinner was even served. The only people who had been spared the humiliation were the ones who didn’t drink.

  “This might be our only option, Joseph. At least tell me you’ll think about it.”

  “Is she taller than you? I can’t run around with a sprite on my arm.” I wasn’t trying to be a dick, but my six-foot-four frame always looked silly in company pictures, standing next to Kayla.

  “I’m not a sprite,” she growled, her face looking like a cartoon character, and I couldn’t stop laughing. “But she’s a normal height, gargantuan.”

  “How tall is normal to people like you?” I teased, and her eyes pulled together.

  “She’s five-six.”

  That worked for me. But I still wasn’t sure that I should be taking an evil troll to these events. “What if she does something crazy again?”

  “She won’t,” Kayla pushed. “The next morning, she was mortified about how she’d acted and the things she’d said.”

  God, I wish I could remember any of that.

  “I bet she was.”

  “Sutton doesn’t normally act like that,” Kayla added, and I shook my head, not sure what to believe. “You pushed her buttons.”

  “And neither one of us knows how I did it or what I apparently said?” I wasn’t going to take the blame for something I wasn’t sure I’d even done. And who the hell threatened a man’s balls?

  “Nope.”

  “Do you think she’ll do it?”

  “Not a chance,” Kayla said, and my expression fell.

  “Really?”

  “No. She hates you.”

  “She”—I emphasized the word—“hates me?” I scoffed, jerking my head back and shaking my head like this whole thing was ridiculous. “Why would you even bring her up then?” I found myself getting even more annoyed … and competitive. I was not the type of man who lost easily, and now, this was something I needed to win. Even though it would probably be a huge mistake.

  “The idea just slipped out. I hadn’t planned it. But there’s no way in hell she’d do something like this.”

  “Kayla,” I growled, my jaw clenching.

  Kayla looked away from my murderous eyes and up at the ceiling, as if the white tiles would provide her with some sort of wisdom. Apparently, it worked because within seconds, she said a single word with a sinister smile plastered across her face. “Money.”

  “Money?” I repeated, needing more details.

  “Yeah. She has a ton of debt. Not that she won’t get out of it, but I mean, it’s going to hang over her head for the next twenty thousand years or so. You know, typical med school stuff.”

  I sat up straight, half-tempted to open my wallet and throw wads of cash at her. “Well, that’s easy. I have lots of money.”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She waved a hand at me before pushing away from the desk and standing up. Not that you could really tell the difference between her sitting and standing. God, she really was short. “By the way, I want a raise if she agrees.”

  “Better get her to agree then,” I said before adding, “And no lighters or matches are allowed in her possession.”

  What the hell am I doing?

  NO EFFIN WAY

  SUTTON

  I trudged through the front door of my apartment, my mind solely focused on the scalding hot shower I wanted to take. Maybe I’ll take a bath instead, I thought for a second as my feet screamed at me to get off of them.

  Twelve-hour shifts weren’t easy, but they were totally worth it. Or at least, they would be once I was a burn specialist.

  “Yay, you’re home!” My roommate, Kayla, practically bounced down the hall to greet me. I never knew if she would be home or not—her work schedule was almost as demanding as mine. “You look like shit.”

  She pressed the back of her hand against my forehead, and I swatted it away.

  “I don’t have a fever. I’m not sick. I’m just tired.”

  “How tired?” she asked.

  I shot her a look that told her I didn’t have the energy for her kind of crazy tonight. Kayla could have me dressed up and drinking vodka tonics at some bar before I even knew how we’d gotten there.

  She was always coming up with over-the-top ideas, and I usually went along with them. I mean, women really shouldn’t go out alone, right, even if they were searching for other women? The city wasn’t always safe, and I would never forgive myself if something bad happened to her because I’d sent her out to party alone.

  “I could probably sleep standing up. That kind of tired,” I said before asking, “Why?”

  Kayla gave me an odd smile before pulling me toward our couch and sitting us both down.

  Oh, that feels nice. I might never get back up again. I now live on this couch. Please forward my mail.

  “Okay, before you freak out, just listen,” she started off slowly, and I felt my entire body tense. No good conversation started with before you freak out.

  I fidgeted but stayed seated. Partly because I was convinced my feet would give out on me the moment I tried to use them again and also because this was suddenly the most comfortable couch on the planet. Who cared that it was from my mom and so worn down that you could almost feel the support bar under your butt? Not me. At least, not right now.

  “Okay, so,” she tried to talk, but I interrupted.

  “Kayla, don’t drag whatever this is out. Just say it,” I snapped but only because if she didn’t spit it out soon, my eyes would close and not open again until morning.

  “Joseph needs a date to the Social Month events, and I told him you’d do it.” Her head whipped back as she braced for my response.

  I suddenly felt anything but tired. “Joseph? As in your jerk-off of a boss, Joseph?” I stuttered his name because the one time I’d met the guy, I’d made a complete ass out of myself. Sure, he’d deserved it for saying the things he’d said to me and setting me off, but still. I was embarrassed and completely okay with going the rest of my life without ever seeing his stupidly smug face again. “And you told him I’d what?”

  “Go with him to some of the events.” She winced and shrugged a shoulder.

  “He called me an evil troll, Kayla!” I shouted, and she started laughing. “An evil troll! And that was after insulting me numerous times.”

  “He’s sorry,” she said, and I narrowed my eyes at her.

  “No, he’s not.”

  “You’re right. He’s not.” She exhaled loudly. “But I’m sure he will be. He can be. Whatever you need.”