Greedy Boss Read online

The waitress presents the bottle to me and smiles. “It’s a gift from the gentleman at the bar.”

  I peek around her, expecting it to be someone trying to woo Charlie. But when I get an eyeful of the sexy man at the bar, I know I was wrong.

  It’s Jasper.

  And there’s no doubt in my mind that the champagne is for me.

  Chapter Six

  Jasper

  It turns out that Charlie Sky is a real person, and a famous rock star to boot. That’s something I probably should have known, but in spite of the tabloids’ belief that I spend most of my time partying and sleeping around, I’m too busy working to keep up with the current music scene. My PI has no problem finding out where he has reservations tonight, though I should have been able to guess it. The Champagne Lounge is every rich boy’s go-to for a first date.

  I have no problem getting in—money and reputation will do that—and I spot Helena and the rock star right away. Settling in at the bar, I watch them like it’s a television drama. Helena is quiet, which I know right away is a bad sign. The dumbass ordered her a beer, which sits untouched on the table. Watching the guy make Helena take a picture of him with a fan is the last straw, and I order a bottle of their best champagne for the table.

  The waitress presents the bottle to Helena, and Helena’s eyes find me almost immediately. There’s a split second where I think she’ll turn the bottle away, but then she nods, allowing the waitress to open the champagne and pour two glasses. When the waitress leaves, I approach the table.

  “Helena, what a pleasant surprise,” I say, pulling up a chair from a nearby table and joining them.

  “Is it?” she asks. “A surprise, I mean?” In spite of the scolding tone of her voice, there’s a smile playing at the corner of her lips.

  “Can I help you?” the rock star asks.

  I turn my attention on him for the first time. “I’m sorry, am I interrupting something? Because from where I was sitting, it didn’t look like it.”

  “What the—”

  But Helena interrupts. “Charlie, this is Jasper Wright. Jasper, meet Charlie Sky.”

  Charlie’s contemptuous smirk morphs into something like trepidation. “Wait. Jasper Wright?”

  “Of Wright Consulting,” Helena chimes in.

  “No, aren’t you involved with the Royal Underground?”

  I could deny it, but why not use it to my advantage? So, I don’t say anything at all. Sometimes, it’s better to let people fill in their own blanks, even if it does get me into trouble.

  He turns his attention on Helena, who’s looking between us with her brow furrowed. “Look, I don’t want any trouble.” He finishes his beer and puts his napkin on the table, standing. From his wallet, he pulls a few hundred-dollar bills and drops them on the table. “Thanks for dinner, Helena. It was nice, but, uh, I don’t think this will work.”

  And he’s gone before she can say anything.

  I take his untouched glass of champagne and knock it against hers, which is still in her hand. That seems to wake her from her stupor. She throws back the rest of her drink, smacks the glass down on the table, and stands, gathering her purse to her.

  “What were you thinking?” she hisses.

  I lean forward, caught off guard. “I was thinking that it looked like you were having a miserable time and I wanted—”

  She cuts me off with a frustrated wave of her hand. “No. No, I don’t care. It doesn’t matter. I…” Instead of continuing, she shakes her head and stalks away from the table. She’s only a few steps away when she returns, grabs the bottle of champagne from the ice bucket, and sneers at me. “I’m not letting you do this to me again.”

  “Do what?” I ask, still stunned.

  She doesn’t answer, but instead turns and hurries away toward the elevator.

  I drop some more money on the table to cover whatever Charlie Douchebag didn’t, and chase after her, but the elevator closes before I get there. Pressing the button, I impatiently wait for the next one and take it down, bursting out into the quiet lobby and bolting for the doors. I catch sight of Helena rounding the corner to the parking garage and I follow, catching her just before she disappears into the stairwell.

  “Helena.”

  She whirls on me, waving the champagne bottle around as she speaks. “What do you want, Jasper? What. Do. You. Want?”

  “I want you,” I tell her. “Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

  “Because I don’t believe you!” She throws her arms up, sloshing champagne over her hand. Looking at it, she brings the bottle to her lips and drinks straight from it.

  “Why not?”

  “You crushed me, Jasper. You were my first kiss; did you know that?”

  I shake my head, again taken back to that night our senior year. The empty school, the echo of our voices in the hall. The way she’d leaned into me, and the way I’d held her up, my arms around her, my mouth against hers. We’d wasted four years bickering and trying to get the better of each other, only for me to realize too late that the reason she got under my skin was because she was the only person in my life who challenged me. She made me think, made me work harder, didn’t put up with my bullshit. And I liked it. I still like it. I need it. I need her.

  “You used my feelings to break me.”

  “I didn’t do it, Hel!” My voice is loud, but I need her to hear me. That night, we’d been at the school putting the finishing touches on our senior project presentations. The next morning, we’d gotten to school and found hers destroyed.

  She turns and throws the champagne bottle. It crashes against the cinderblock wall beside the elevators, glass and champagne exploding everywhere.

  I clear the space between us in one stride, grabbing her wrists and backing her up against the wall by the stairs. Our bodies meld together so perfectly that not even a breath of air fits between us. She jerks her wrists once, but I don’t let go, instead pressing them against the wall on either side of her. This makes her breasts rise temptingly against my chest.

  She glares up at me. “You ruined me.”

  “I didn’t do it,” I say, slowly this time, more controlled.

  Her voice is venomous when she hisses at me, “You ruin everything.”

  With a growl, I dip my head and capture her mouth and her hateful words with mine. Her teeth clamp down on my bottom lip until I taste blood and pull back, releasing her.

  At first, I think she’ll make a break for it, but then she grabs my shirt and spins me, pressing me against the wall. She leans hard into me and pushes up onto her toes. Our mouths crash back together in a hungry frenzy. My hands grip either side of her face, my fingers digging into her neck. She moans into my mouth and I feel it all the way into my dick, which is rock hard and grinding against her hips as both of us seek that friction.

  I drop my hands to her waist, gathering up the fabric of her skirt in my fists until my fingers brush against warm, soft bare skin. I grab her ass, squeezing hard and lifting her against me. I could rip her panties right now and dive inside of her, fuck the media and anyone else who has anything to say about it.

  But when a door slams overhead and the sound of laughter drifts down to us through the stairwell, she pulls away, panting breathlessly as she adjusts her skirt back down around her thighs.

  “That was…” She stops, smoothing her hair, composing herself. “A mistake.”

  “Let me take you out,” I tell her. I need a chance to talk to her, to make things right. “We can go to the Oakwood Club. Or to my place. Somewhere private.”

  She shakes her head. “I can’t, Jasper. We can’t.”

  The door to the stairwell opens and a family emerges. Helena stands aside to let them through, and when the dad holds the door open for her, she thanks him and disappears, leaving me to wonder how many times I’ll watch her walk away before enough is enough.

  Chapter Seven

  Helena

  Oakwood City’s most sought after PR agent caught in a love triangle. br />
  Billionaire businessman and rock star fight over the Mary Poppins of PR agents.

  Who is the mystery woman starting a war between the moguls?

  Those are the headlines I wake up to the next morning, along with about a dozen missed calls from my boss and Jasper.

  Un-fucking-believable.

  I’ve spent years—my whole life—trying to avoid trouble, and it somehow always finds me, especially when Jasper Wright is involved.

  Someone at the Champagne Lounge had snapped a picture of the three of us, one where Charlie is standing and appears to be facing off with Jasper, not fleeing like the table’s on fire. Another person—or maybe the same person—gave them an exaggerated account of the blow-up between the three of us, complete with details about Jasper’s mad dash out of the restaurant to catch me. Thankfully, there was nothing about our fiery kiss in the parking garage.

  I’ve spent years working people out of situations like this and never quite believing them when they tell me that it’s not how it looks. I always thought, in the back of my mind, that they were getting what they deserved for the bad decisions they made.

  I get it now, though.

  As soon as I sit down at my desk, I plug Jasper’s name into a search engine. Instead of the positive news about his charitable contribution and the work with his company, it’s all about the two of us. I make the mistake of looking at the comments on some of the articles. Worse than the stories is the hate I’m getting from women across the board. Fans of Charlie and Jasper are uniting against me. Calling me slut. Whore. Gold-digger. It’s awful and disheartening and altogether untrue.

  Having put it off long enough, I close out of the articles and call Zach back.

  “It’s not how it looks,” I say as soon as he answers.

  He laughs, but I can tell he’s pissed. “I’ve heard that one before.”

  “Seriously, though. It was just—”

  “Say no more,” he interrupts me. “It was just a business meeting. They’re both clients of yours, and the pictures were taken out of context. The press release from Durand Communications has already gone out. Sky and Wright will be issuing statements to the same effect.”

  I sink a little into my chair, feeling scolded. I’m so used to being the golden child that this is a strange feeling—to have someone else have to pick up after me.

  “I trust this won’t further affect your business relationship with either man?”

  “No,” I say, mustering up as much firmness as I can. “Not at all.” Though, to be honest, I’m not sure. I’ll just have to deal with them when I can. At this point, it’s just damage control.

  Not in the mood to talk to anyone else, I put my phone on Do Not Disturb and spend the day catching up on paperwork, billing, and other administrative duties, not stopping even for lunch. At six o’clock on the dot, I shut everything down and get changed into yoga pants and a tank top. Then, I grab a bottle of vodka from my liquor cabinet and head downstairs.

  Amara lives on the fifth floor with her six-year-old son, Josiah. She’s slaying the single mom life, with a bachelor’s degree, a managerial-level job, and a downtown apartment. She opens the door with a smile, somehow looking like a model even in her sweatpants and a messy bun.

  “Girl, you have some explaining to do,” she says. Then, she turns, and yells, “Helena’s here.”

  Quinn and Miriam, the other two that make up our foursome, are already in her living room, drinks in hand.

  “You’re late!” Quinn accuses. The girl is a stickler for punctuality.

  “I’m right on time,” I say, collapsing into my usual spot in the armchair. Miriam passes me a fruity red drink that I suck down gratefully. “Y’all are lucky I came at all considering the day I had.”

  After I finish my first drink and feel a little more relaxed, I tell them the whole sordid story, starting with our high school rivalry and ending with our parking garage make-out session. For the first time in the last year that we’ve been getting together for weekly cocktail hours, all three of them are speechless.

  “Let me get this right,” Amara says from her place perched on the arm of the couch. “You were high school rivals. He kissed you. He destroyed your senior project. He hired you to save his reputation. He kissed you.” She holds up a finger for each point.

  Miriam sucks in a breath through her teeth. “Sounds like it’s time for him to destroy something.”

  I groan, leaning my head back. “He already has. My career. My life.”

  “Your heart?” Miriam chimes in.

  I glare at her, then at the other two. “I need another drink.”

  The drink appears in my hand and I swallow it down quickly.

  Quinn, who is, at heart, a hopeless romantic, says, “I think you should go out with him.”

  I laugh at her but stop when I realize no one else is laughing. “What are you talking about?”

  She shrugs. “You always play it safe, but he lights a fire in you. I’ve never seen you like this.” She looks around the room. Miriam and Amara nod their agreement. “Besides, the whole world already thinks you are. And people change a lot in fifteen years. I think you should give him a chance.”

  “Give both of you a chance,” Amara adds.

  “Exactly,” Quinn agrees.

  “What have you got to lose?” Miriam asks.

  That, though, is a question that no one dares to answer.

  Several hours later, I arrive back in my apartment feeling tipsy but hopeful. A night with the girls has a way of doing that to you. I can’t help but think that maybe they have a point. I went into this thinking that the Jasper I’d be working with is the same Jasper I butted heads with in high school. But I’m not the same girl I was back then, so who am I to assume that people can’t change? He’s still handsome, ambitious, and challenging, but he’s also funny and passionate. I’ve gotten to see the real him instead of the public persona, and I have to stop denying that I like what I see.

  I change into my pajamas and lie in bed, my phone clutched in my hands. No more playing it safe. I scroll to Jasper’s name and push the call button. The phone rings once, twice, before panic strikes. I’m about to hang up when there’s a click and then his groggy voice on the other end.

  “It’s about fucking time.”

  “Wh-what?” I stammer.

  “I’ve been calling you all day.”

  “Were you sleeping?” I look at the clock. It’s hardly eleven o’clock. For a party boy, he sure is in bed early. Maybe he really is following my directions.

  “That’s not important here. The important question is which one of us you chose…in our love triangle.”

  I laugh and burrow down into the sheets. “How do you know Charlie and I weren’t the ones fighting over you?”

  “Oh, it’s like that, is it?”

  “It wouldn’t be any more absurd than the lies they’ve published so far.”

  There’s silence, and I imagine him propping himself up on his pillows and wiping sleep from his eyes. I bet his golden hair is sticking up in the back, maybe falling across his forehead. What would it feel like to be there beside him? To swipe it from his eyes?

  “I am sorry about that,” Jasper says finally. “I never wanted to get you in trouble.”

  “Yes, well, it is your fault. If you hadn’t crashed my date…”

  “If I hadn’t crashed your date, you’d probably still be drinking warm beer and fending off Sky’s drunken advances.”

  I grunt, not agreeing or dissenting. “But I was calling for a different reason. I wanted to see if your offer still stands.”

  “What offer is that?” he asks, and I can hear rustling like he’s rolling over, getting comfortable. Maybe this was what it would have been like if we’d been nice to each other in high school—late night conversations, this giddy excitement at the possibilities.

  “For dinner.”

  “Are you asking me out to dinner?”

  My cheeks burn with embarrassmen
t. “No, nevermind, forget—”

  “Helena, I’m kidding. Of course, the offer still stands. Tomorrow night at the Oakwood Club?”

  I pick at my down comforter nervously. “I was thinking I could just come to your place.”

  There’s a small hesitation before he hurries to say, “Yeah, yeah, of course, sure.”

  “Or the club. The club is fine, too.”

  “No, no, I just…want to do what makes you comfortable.”

  I take a deep breath that I hope he can’t hear. “I’ll come over.”

  “OK. I’ll see you tomorrow.” There’s a small pause, and then he says, “What are you wearing?”

  “Good night, Jasper.”

  “Good night, Helena. Sweet dreams.”

  And they were.

  Chapter Eight

  Jasper

  Helena shows up the next night wearing skintight jeans and a t-shirt topped off by a baseball cap and dark sunglasses.

  “OK, Jack Nicholson,” I tease, snatching them off of her as the door shuts behind her.

  “I didn’t want to get the gossip mill started again,” she says with a laugh. It’s true that it has died down a bit already with the statements from Charlie and me and the release of my recent interview. “This is where you live?”

  “Nah,” I say, leading her through the foyer into the kitchen. “I’m just trying to show off.”

  “Well, it’s working.” She crosses the open living room to the wall of windows looking out over the river that bisects Oakwood City. “I’ve only ever dreamed of living in Riverwatch.”

  From the kitchen, where I’m putting the finishing touches on dinner, I call, “The Village is nice, though.”

  “It’s no Riverwatch.” She comes to the kitchen and props one hip on a barstool. This is the most relaxed I think I’ve seen her, maybe ever.

  I feel her eyes on me as I plate the risotto. I’ve been looking forward to this all day. Since our kiss, it’s taken all of my self-control not to hunt her down and stake my claim. I’m used to going after what I want; waiting is not my strength.