The Wrong Boss: Chapter 3

I should’ve been celebrating. My lunch with two board members of a small but dynamic software company had been productive, and I was pretty sure there would be a job offer coming my way in the next few weeks. I didn’t know much about software, but the company specialized in financial systems, which was my area of expertise. That, and I’d always been good at sales.

It was a huge step up in my career. It was exactly what I’d been working toward, and it had the potential to change the course of my life. For the first time, I’d be in the director’s seat. I’d be in charge.

The victory tasted bitter on my tongue, and the taste of the smooth, smoky fifty-year-old Scotch I’d been nursing for the better part of an hour hadn’t helped much.

My phone rested on the polished wood bar top, its screen dark.

Rome, my current boss and good friend, would be furious. I stared at the light refracting through my cut crystal glass as I tilted the amber liquid inside to and fro and huffed at my own thoughts. He wouldn’t be furious; he would be hurt. And that was so much worse.

Glancing over my shoulder, I spotted the two police officers I’d spoken to earlier. They were still leaning against the lobby’s reception desk, gathering details about the theft outside.

I wondered what the spitfire in the silky dress was doing now. If her ankle was okay. If she was as hard with everyone else as she’d been with me.

I wondered why I cared.

“Another?” the bartender asked, gesturing to my near-empty glass.

“Why not?” Sitting here ruminating over potentially blowing up my only close friendship with the man who’d given me a big leg up in my career seemed as good a way to pass the time as anything. And the sounds of wedding merrymaking from the ballroom reminded me there was a dark-haired distraction causing trouble not too far away.

The bartender nodded and poured another measure of overpriced alcohol for me, put it on a cocktail napkin, and slid it across the bar. I threw back the dregs of my drink and traded my glass for the fresh one.

Even the burn of the alcohol and the thought of sparring with the woman from earlier couldn’t occupy my thoughts for long.

I’d just landed a huge opportunity, and it felt like I’d been fired from my dream job. Conflict raged inside me, and I knew it was because changing jobs felt like disloyalty. Of all the things I valued in my life, being a trustworthy and dependable man was at the top of the list. Rome had given me a huge opportunity when he’d hired me as his advertising agency’s chief operating officer, and I was repaying him by moving on as soon as I found something better.

That was business. It was bound to happen.

But it still felt like shit.

I’d have to tell Rome soon, but I’d wait until I got the official contract from the new company. Nothing was secure until my name was inked on the paperwork, and I didn’t want to blow up my life without good reason. It’s not that I was delaying the inevitable. It’s not that I was afraid of the consequences.

Would he ever talk to me again?

Rome had given me every chance to get ahead. He’d plucked me from the drudgery of my job on Wall Street and given me a position as the COO of his empire. It wasn’t an empire at the time, but he built it up until it couldn’t be called anything else. We built it.

Working for him had been exciting, challenging, and rewarding. Rome was one of the only people in my life to whom I owed my loyalty. It was hard-won, but after everything I’d been through, the thought of turning my back on him…

Was I really ready to throw our friendship away?

He’d take it as a betrayal. Hell, it was a betrayal. He’d given me everything, and I was treating him as just another line item on my resume.

“I see the dark and brooding look wasn’t just for my benefit earlier,” a familiar voice intoned, full of wry sarcasm and hidden softness.

Turning on my barstool, I took in the vision in the peachy dress. She’d fixed her hair and makeup, and it looked like she’d found a fresh bridesmaid’s dress to put on.

So it hadn’t been my imagination: She really was that beautiful.

Soft, rounded cheeks and big gray doe eyes. A small, perfectly formed mouth. A thin frame with the most perfect hips a woman could have. I couldn’t see it from this angle, but I knew she looked as good from the back as she did in front.

She was made for fantasy. Too bad her tongue was razor-sharp and getting anywhere near her was liable to end in bodily harm.

Clutching her ivory purse in front of her stomach, the woman nodded to the seat next to me. “Mind if I join you?”

“That depends.”

She placed her purse on the bar and threw me a sideways glance. “On what?”

“On how nice you feel like being.”

Sticking her nose up in the air, she said, “I’m always nice.”

My scoff didn’t seem to impress her. I arched a brow.

Sliding onto the stool beside mine, she pursed her lips and managed to look slightly abashed. “I was…overwrought…earlier.”

“I see.”

“I just finished talking to the police, and I saw you sitting here.” She turned to the bartender who paused in front of us, ordered a drink, then cleared her throat. In my peripheral vision, I saw her turn toward me, but I swore I could sense the moment her gaze touched my skin. Warmth skated through me as she studied me, and I turned to meet her liquid gray gaze.

“I wanted to thank you,” she finally said, surprising me. “You didn’t have to help me, but you did. I appreciate it.”

“The cops think they can get your things back?”

She tucked a strand of hair behind her ears and shook her head. “They said they’d try, but I’m not stupid. Once I started talking about old ticket stubs and baby pictures, their eyes glazed over. I’m not seeing that stuff ever again.” Her voice broke on the last word, but she cleared her throat and smiled at the bartender who placed a mojito in front of her.

“You risked getting stabbed over old ticket stubs and baby pictures?”

Her glare was almost a relief. I’d enjoyed all the sharp edges of her earlier. I’d hated seeing her hurt, but her toughness had drawn me. Now, in the quiet of the bar, without the pumping adrenaline and impending danger, the cracks in her facade made me feel things I’d rather not.

Apparently, I had a weakness for tough, beautiful women who seemed just a little bit broken.

That figured.

She sipped her drink and adjusted her dress. The slit was high on her thigh, and she tugged the silky fabric over to cover the expanse of skin the slit revealed, only for the fabric to fall back between her knees. She had beautiful legs. I kept my forearms resting on the bar and pointed my eyes forward, because staring at her was making me slightly dizzy.

“It was a memory box,” she finally replied. “My mother died when I was seventeen. She was a single mom—I never knew my dad—and she was the best. We’d go out to the movies once a month, and I kept nearly all the ticket stubs. Back in the days when you actually got ticket stubs,” she added wryly. Then she sighed, and I found my eyes drawn to her once more. I watched her lick her lips as her finger traced the cut crystal shapes on the side of her glass, her gaze directed inward. “We moved a lot, so I never had much stuff. Which, to be honest, is pretty handy when you break up with a long-term boyfriend and need to get out of his apartment in a hurry.”

She said it as a joke, face turning up to meet my gaze with a hidden little smile on the corner of her lips, but I didn’t laugh.

“That box was all you had left of her?” I guessed.

“Yes,” she whispered in reply. “It was mostly worthless, other than one of her earrings. I didn’t even have the pair. But she wore them every day until she lost one of them.” She touched her ear, and a soft smile tugged at her lips. “A little gold hoop with a tiny gold bird dangling on it. The bird’s eye was an emerald. I know it sounds like it’s worth stealing, but it really wasn’t. The emerald was no bigger than a pinhead. It was just pretty, is all, and it was hers.”

Staring into her eyes was like being drawn into another world. I saw the depth of pain in her past. Her strength. Her mettle. She wasn’t pushing me away or sniping at me with that sharp tongue. She wasn’t demanding I put her down. For just a brief moment, it felt like I saw right down to the core of her—and I wanted more.

But that was ridiculous. She was a stranger. I’d done a good deed, and now we’d go our separate ways. I didn’t know this woman, nor did I want to. This would be a funny story to tell at parties later. Next time I went on a date, I could use it as comedic relief about why my romantic life was always in shambles.

She meant nothing to me. I didn’t even know her name.

So it was a surprise when I heard myself say, “I only have one picture of my mother.”

We turned toward each other, and our knees bumped. Neither one of us moved away.

“Really?” she asked.

“My birth mother,” I clarified. “I was adopted. They—my adoptive parents—never told me. I found my birth certificate in the attic after my dad died, when I was trying to clear out some of his things to help my mom out. I was twenty-three.”

“That must have been a shock.”

I huffed a bitter laugh and took a sip of my drink. “Yeah. But it explained a lot about how I was treated growing up.”

I hated talking about my past, and I wasn’t sure why I was opening up to this woman. But when she slid her hand over my forearm, just below the cuff that I’d rolled up to my elbow earlier, the heat of her palm against my skin was a balm.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

I shrugged. “Long time ago. Not sure why I’m talking about it now.”

“Maybe it’s a full moon.”

I hid my smile behind another sip of my drink. Our knees still touched, and I wished I had the right to slide my palm over her bare thigh.

“Have you met your birth parents?”

I tore my gaze away from the expanse of skin rendered visible by the slit in her dress and met her gaze. “No,” I told her. “But I know who they are. My birth mother passed not long after I was born, and my birth father is a successful businessman. I’ve been putting off reaching out to him.” He’d made a fortune on Wall Street. It was in our blood, I supposed.

“How come?”

I shrugged, not sure how to put it into words, and not sure why I was telling her any of this in the first place. Rome didn’t even know about it. I’d grown up feeling out of place in my family, and I wasn’t sure if I could bear to feel the same way with my birth father. I didn’t want to hear excuses about why he’d given me up.

But at the same time, I felt a pull to find out more. To know the man who created me. To look him in the eye and ask him for his side of the story. It was a simple question, at the end of the day: Why didn’t you want me?

“I’m not sure,” I finally answered, taking a sip of my drink.

“Maybe you should reach out,” she suggested.

“Yeah? Why do you figure?”

Her lips bunched to the side. “I won’t say closure, because I’m not sure closure exists. But it would allow you to get answers to questions you might have. And that would allow you to move on.”

I leaned back, huffing a laugh. She’d read me like a book. Still, I asked, “How do you know I have questions?”

She rolled her eyes. “Please. Men don’t have such a massive hero complex without some kind of deep trauma in their past. You obviously need something to help you move on.”

“Wow.”

She laughed, her eyes challenging me. The warmth I’d felt when she first smiled at me spread to my chest, and I couldn’t quite stop the smile from curling my lips.

“Can we—” She paused, straightening her bag and coaster on the bar before turning to look at me. “Can we start over?”

“Not interested in hearing about my deep childhood trauma?”

“I’m desperate to hear about your deep childhood trauma,” she corrected, and we both grinned at each other. Then she stuck out her hand. “I’m Carrie.”

“Cole.”

Her palm fit against mine like it was made to be there. Her eyes sparkled as she met my gaze, and dimples appeared in her round cheeks as her smile widened.

For a moment, all that existed was her. The play of the warm, low lights of the bar over her dark hair. The thousand shades of gray and blue in her eyes. The way her dress dipped and crinkled over her body. The warmth of her skin against mine.

Whenever I’d heard people talk about the world falling away in movies and books, I’d always scoffed. Chemistry was a real thing, sure, but the cliche of everything going dark except for the other person?

Preposterous. Overly romanticized bullshit, as far as I’d been concerned.

Except it wasn’t.

I don’t know how long it lasted, only that it happened with an intensity that staggered me. I saw all of her in those few moments. The curve of her neck below the line of her jaw. The pain hidden in her eyes as her smile brightened and faded. Fine-boned wrists and long, delicate fingers. A strength I admired. A sensuality I was drawn to.

I felt an affinity, an attraction I’d never experienced before. Hell, maybe it was the alcohol. Maybe I was drunker than I wanted to admit, and I was still reeling about having to change jobs when I knew it would be a betrayal to one of my best friends.

But deep down, I knew it wasn’t the Scotch, and I knew this had nothing to do with Rome.

“Nice to meet you, Carrie,” I said.

“Likewise.” Her smile widened, brilliant and beautiful, and she added, “And you even sounded like you meant it.”