Grumpaholic: A Grumpy Boss Romance

by Cole, Jagger

  What I said was true. I’m not the man I was years ago. Christ, I’m not the man I was a week ago. But I wasn’t totally truthful to Kristen. It’s not that everything’s changed.

  It’s that I found Ella Veers, and now nothing is ever going to be the same for me.

  I yank my door open and race out, calling Mike as I do. I need to fix this. I need to get back to that goodness I found, for the first time in my life.

  I need to find the girl I’ve somehow fallen completely fucking in love with and tell her I’m never letting her go. Because if I don’t, then I truly am lost.

  18

  Ella

  “Ella!”

  The fist thunders on my front door. I gasp and look up from my hands. Tears roll down my cheeks. But I angrily shove them aside at the sound of his voice.

  “Fuck off, Cormac!” I yell at the door.

  “Ella, listen to me…”

  “Nope! Now please fuck off!”

  His fist hammers the door again. “I’m not walking away!”

  “I’ll call the fucking police!”

  “Be my guest!” He yells back.

  I groan and jump to my feet. I storm over to the door. On the way, I grab a canister of neon orange acrylic paint from my painting shelf. I pull the top off, go the door, and yank it open. Cormac tenses when he sees the paint in my hands.

  “Are you engaged?!” I snap.

  He stares at me. “Am I… what? No.”

  “That… that woman…” I hiss

  “She is not my fiancée, Ella.”

  “But she knows you. She said she had a spare key to your place!”

  “Then she was lying.”

  “There’s a picture of you and her in your place!”

  Cormac frowns. “There is?”

  “Ugh!!” I snarl. I go to slam the door, but he stops me.

  “Hang on…”

  I brandish the paint.

  “Wait,” he snaps. His blue eyes captivate mine, sending chills through my core. “We dated, briefly and years ago. It was a disaster.”

  “I don’t care,” I sneer.

  “Neither do I,” he snaps. “Not one tenth of what I feel for—”

  “Stop it,” I groan, shaking my head. “Just stop it, Cormac.”

  “Her name is Kristen. She’s another developer. Years ago, we had a short relationship, and it ended with her stabbing me in the back and poaching clients and contacts.”

  I look away.

  Cormac steps into my doorway. “You can’t be mad at me for having a relationship before I even knew you existed, Ella,” he growls quietly.

  I glare at him. “Yes, I can.”

  He grins. I hate that he grins, because it makes me want to smile too. But I force the frown. I make myself scowl back at him.

  “Ella—”

  “This was a mistake, wasn’t it?” I whisper quietly.

  He growls and shakes his head. “No, it wasn’t.”

  “Cormac—”

  “She’s not really my fucking fiancée, Ella!”

  “I know!” I yell back. “I know that now, I just…”

  “Then what?”

  “How the hell do we think this is going to work out?” I look up at him plaintively. “You and me, I mean.”

  “Because it just is.”

  “No, Cormac,” I say gently. “You’re you, I’m me…”

  “And together, we’re—”

  “Together we’re oil and fucking water!”

  His jaw clenches. “I disagree,” he snarls.

  I laugh coldly. “Look around this place, Cormac.” I gesture at my apartment. “My whole apartment is the size of your master bathroom.”

  “Who fucking cares?”

  “I care!” I yell. “Cormac, you’re from a world I don’t even remotely understand!”

  “I’m not from that world, Ella,” he snarls. “I grew up—”

  “It doesn’t matter!” I hiss. “It doesn’t! You are what you are. And I’d be an idiot to try and change that or ignore it.”

  “And what am I, Ella?” he snarls. “An asshole? Just another rich prick?”

  I shake my head. “A dream. A fantasy.”

  His jaw clenches.

  “But nothing real.”

  “Goddamnit, Ella! I—”

  “You know it’s true,” I say softly. I look up at him. My lips quiver. My body clenches horribly. “It’s the same with me, for you. You just like the thrill of—”

  “I just love you is what it is,” he snaps.

  I freeze. My heart races. I want to jump into his arms. I want to kiss him until my lips are numb. I want to scream and flail around like a crazy woman.

  But that’s the fantasy. That’s the dream. And you always have to wake up from dreams. Cormac and I are from different planets. And there’s no way this works.

  “You don’t love me, Cormac,” I choke. “You just love the idea of someone saving you.”

  “From?” he snarls.

  “From you!”

  He grinds his jaw, glaring into my eyes. “Ella…”

  “I’m not your saving grace, Cormac,” I whisper.

  He looks right at me, without blinking or missing a single beat. “Yes, you are.”

  I stiffen. My heart skips and then wrenches for him. “Well then I quit.”

  He scowls. “Ella…”

  Tears roll down my cheeks. Inside, I can feel my heart breaking in two. But I force myself to meet his eye.

  “I either leave now, or we both end up hurt when this blows up in our faces,” I choke out quietly.

  He shakes his head. “You really believe that?”

  I nod. A tear starts to trickle down my cheek.

  “You’re wrong,” he snarls. “You’re so fucking wrong, Ella.”

  “Guess we’ll see,” I mumble through tears.

  He looks at me with hard, furious eyes. But also, with a sadness I’ve never seen on his face before.

  “You still owe me a painting,” he growls.

  I look away. “Fine,” I whisper. I slowly turn to look at him again. “Goodbye, Cormac.”

  I close the door as more tears flood down my cheeks. When I hear him walk away on the other side, my heart breaks, and I fall to my knees.

  19

  Cormac

  All I see is white. I’m staring through the door to the conference room. But instead of the sketches and smatterings of paint I’ve come to love seeing, there’s just a big white sheet across the entire wall.

  “Mr. Heath? I have those contracts for you to… oh, the sheet?” Hannah shrugs when she walks up with an armful of documents. She nods through the doors at the big white sheet hung over the wall, shielding my view of it.

  “Security said Ms. Veers hung that up early this morning.” She frowns and leans close. “Honestly, sir, I think she’s been here working since last night.”

  I nod thickly. “Is she in there now?”

  “I believe so?”

  I nod again.

  “So, these contracts…”

  “In my office, please,” I growl quietly. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

  Hannah nods and heads back up the hall. I stay where I am, staring at the cotton wall between me and Ella. Slowly, I turn the knob and open the door. I step inside and shut it behind me with a soft click. The sheet rustles. Suddenly, her gorgeous, spunky, blue-haired face pops out from the side. She stiffens when she sees it’s me.

  “I need the sheet,” she blurts. “I can’t finish this thing feeling like I’m in a zoo, being looked at.”

  I nod. “That’s fine. How’s it coming?”

  She steps out and looks down. “Good.”

  “Can I see it?”

  She looks up. I can see her eyes glisten for a second before she looks away. “No. Not yet.”

  “Ella…”

  “This was never going to work, Cormac,” she says quietly.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “Yes, I do,” she mutters
. “And so do you.” She shakes her head. “I should get back to work.”

  She turns to walk back behind the curtain.

  “When the hell did you become such a pessimist?”

  She stiffens and looks back at me. “When did you become an optimist? C’mon, we were both trying to be something we’re not with this whole thing.”

  “Bullshit,” I grunt.

  “Cormac, you want a girl who can go to black tie charity balls with you! Someone you can show off to your high-life investor friends and—”

  “No, I don’t,” I snarl. I step towards her, but she shakes her head.

  “Yes, you do. You don’t want me, Cormac.”

  “The hell I—”

  “You want the idea of me.” Her words slice into me. We both stop cold, staring at each other. “But I’m not that idea, Cormac.” She smiles, but it’s a sad, forced smile. “I’m the asshole that paints dicks in your mouth, remember?”

  I smirk coldly. “It’s that black and white, huh?” I say angrily.

  “It always is,” she whispers. “We just add in the color when we can to make it more bearable.”

  I close my eyes. My jaw grinds.

  “Cormac…”

  “Well, guess you’ve got work to do,” I snap. My eyes hold hers. She trembles. I want to go to her and grab her. I want to shake her and tell her she’s wrong before I kiss her hard enough to hurt.

  But I don’t. Because maybe she’s right. Maybe we were dancing in the grays, when this whole life we live is just black and white. Maybe we do add the colors where we can to make waking up each day even a little bearable.

  “Guess so,” she whispers.

  I turn, and I stride from the room. I storm through the halls back to my office. The door slams shut behind me, and I stagger into my chair. My desk is stacked with contracts. But with a snarl, I shove them away, scattering the floor with papers.

  I stand abruptly. Roaring, I heave the entire desk over with a crash. I whirl, furious. I want to destroy. I want to break any beauty in the world. Because the only beauty in mine just got yanked away.

  I’m blind as my fists slam into the shelves and the walls of my office. I’ve controlled myself for years. I’ve tempered the animal inside with ambition and focus. But my focus is ripped in two. And when it breaks, the fury is unleashed.

  I keep going, roaring and thrashing at the world until I’m standing in a pile of rubble that used to be an executive office. My shoulders heave. My fists are bruised and bleeding at my sides. I shove my hair away from my face and storm to the window. I lean against it, panting and gritting my teeth.

  Fuck.

  With the fury steamed away, I’m left feeling hollow and broken. And with some clarity. I close my eyes.

  She’s wrong. But she’s also right. Maybe I have been pretending to be something I’m not. I’ve spent my adult life keeping the world at bay. I’ve kept my armor on and my walls up, always. I’ve called it ambition, but in truth, I’ve just let myself become the soulless monster this whole city thinks of me as. It’s because of that that I’ve lost my angel.

  I tense. I may have lost my angel, but that doesn’t mean I can’t be saved. I hope not, at least. Maybe I am lost. But just maybe, I’m not the devil the whole world thinks I am. Not entirely, at least.

  I pull my cell out. Alan answers quickly. “Mr. Heath?”

  “Still got that nursing home check for me to sign?”

  20

  Ella

  It’s raining when I jump out of the cab. Which is annoying, because it wasn’t when I got in. I dart inside, shaking my hoodie out in the lobby. The sister manning the desk waves me through.

  “Afternoon, Sister Ethel,” I smile.

  “He just finished lunch. He’s back in his room,” she smiles back.

  “Thanks.”

  I head down the hallways of Saint Bartholomew to my gramps’s room. I look around sadly as I walk. In something like three weeks, these walls won’t be here. None of it will. It’ll be some yuppie wine garden and shopping center.

  I knock on my grandpa’s door and step inside.

  “Hey, gramps.”

  “Hey!” He beams at me from the chair by the TV. “There she is!” Gramps jumps to his feet. He rushes over to hug me tightly. I laugh, a little caught off guard by the energy.

  “Um, hi to you too?” I arch a brow. “Were they serving martini’s at lunch or something?”

  He rolls his eyes and chuckles. But then he looks at me closer and frowns. “What’s got you down, honey?”

  “Life,” I groan. I shake it away though. “But forget about me. What’s with the big smiles and energy?”

  He laughs. “So modest!”

  I frown. “What?”

  “Well, I don’t know how you got it done. But you did it, honey!”

  I shrug. “Just hard work. It kind of really came together at the end.” I frown suddenly. “Wait, how did you know that I finished the mural?”

  His eyebrows raise. “You finished the mural?! Cormac’s wall?”

  My brows knit in confusion. “I’m sorry, what are we talking about here?”

  “You finishing your wall!”

  “No, before that. What were you talking about?”

  He beams. “The nursing home, of course!”

  “What about it?”

  Gramps looks at me quizzically. “It’s… it’s not going anywhere?”

  I freeze. “Wait, what?! How?!”

  Gramps starts to laugh. “Hang on now, this is really news to you?”

  “Yes!” I almost scream with excitement. “What happened?!”

  He smiles curiously. “Well, Cormac did, I guess.” He shrugs and chuckles. “Apparently that fucker found a crumb of soul. Who’d have guessed, huh?” He frowns. “Hang on, you’re working all hours over there at his office and you didn’t know—”

  “Gramps!” I choke. “Will you just tell me what happened?”

  “He canceled the contract. Actually, he still sent the sisters the check for the agreed upon price. But then he had the contract torn up.”

  I blink. My heart begins to race. “I’m sorry, what?!”

  Gramps grins widely. “Looks like I’m not going anywhere!”

  My heart is racing as I throw myself into my grandpa’s arms. He roars with laughter, and I squeal in excitement as we hug each other tightly.

  “You’re serious!?”

  “Damn right I’m serious!” He chuckles. He pauses. I blink and realize I’ve been staring at a spot on the floor.

  He grins widely. “You gotta go, don’t you?”

  I look up. My heart is racing. I nod. “I…”

  “Get,” he chuckles. “And honey?”

  “Yeah?” I breathe.

  “Tell that prick I say thank you, would ya?”

  I hug my gramps one more time. Then I’m out the door. I’m running as fast as I can. There’s not an empty cab in sight, and it’s still pouring outside. But I don’t care. I don’t even feel the rain as I bolt down the avenues.

  21

  Cormac

  It’s pouring outside. It’s also a Friday, so I’ve sent the office home early. I roll my eyes at myself. Christ, look at me; getting soft.

  But it’s not that. It’s that I want to be alone. I need to be, to do this. I step into the conference room and look at the huge white sheet hanging in front of the wall. I walk over to it, steeling myself.

  There’s a note taped to it that simply says “Finished,” written in pencil. I grip the sheet. I take a breath. And then, I pull it down. It drops to the floor in a heap, I look up at the mural behind it, and my jaw drops. I blink in shock. My heart skips, and my eyes drink in the full weight of what I’m looking at.

  “Whoa…”

  It’s… I shake my head. It’s me. Well, sort of. It’s not photorealistic, but I know the man I’m looking at. It’s me half illuminated in lights, half in shadowed silhouette. I’m part of the cityscape, meshed alongside the buildings and
the skyscrapers. Colors and emotions absolutely pour off the wall, and I’m stunned. I’m honestly blown away by what I’m looking at.

  It’s me, through her eyes. And it’s the most incredible work I’ve ever laid eyes on.

  The conference room door bursts in behind me.

  “Cormac!”

  I whirl, my jaw dropping. Ella is half-hanging off the doorknob, panting for breath. She’s soaked, too… her long blue and auburn hair slicked down around her dewy face, her clothes sticking to her like a second skin. A puddle forms at her soggy feet. She looks up at me though, and I swear the world stops.

  “Ella—”

  “You canceled the demolition?!” she blurts.

  I nod. “Yes.”

  “Why?”

  My jaw clenches. “You know why,” I whisper.

  “Because of me?”

  The room is pin-drop silent. But there’s no need to hesitate or think.

  “Yes.”

  A sob wrenches from her throat. “But why?” she chokes.

  “You know why, Ella,” I whisper. I walk towards her. She closes the distance, until we’re face to face.

  “Why, Cormac?! Why would you—”

  “Because I love you!” I snarl.

  Her jaw drops. Her eyes widen and look up into mine.

  “Because you make me see the good in the world,” I growl. “Because I like seeing the world the way you see it.”

  “But, the development…”

  “It’s just money,” I growl. I step right into her. My hands slide over her hips, and I pull her close. I look down into her gorgeous green eyes. “And there are more important things.”

  “Cormac…” she breathes.

  “I’ve been rich, and I’ve been poor,” I hiss. “And I know I could be either and keep on living. But I’ve had you and not had you. And I know there’s only one of those scenarios I could live with.”

  She blushes. My heart surges, and I pull her into my arms. Ella gasps quietly and tilts her head up. My arms circle her possessively.