Playing with the Boss (Red Hot Read Book 2)

by Max Henry

  I’ll tell you what I was thinking. That the damn night wouldn’t have ended with an argument. Great clear decision making there, girl. And now? Now I have to spend the day with the better part of my focus on where the idiot is so I can avoid him.

  You can do this. Not as though he’s going to be here forever now, is it? Then again, maybe I won’t either if he has any say in it.

  He wouldn’t have done it. Surely. I arrived home, thankful Emma was out so that I could vent without judgment. Although, I’m pretty sure the neighbors probably think I’m a few screws loose after hearing me ranting to myself about what a narrow-minded jerk Mason is.

  He’s loaded. Has to be, if he has ties to that damn hotel. And as much as I tried to reason otherwise with myself, I can’t help but come to the same conclusion every time: this is nothing more than a game to him.

  I’m so damn naïve. Why would he ever have had a particular interest in me when it came to saving jobs? If they merge our arm of the company, there’s a list a mile long of people who Leyton would want to assimilate into other roles before they got to me. I might be the one who brings in the contracts, but if there is no print sector anymore, then what use am I? Really?

  Nope. Mason merely laid eyes on me I that boardroom and realized what an easy target I’d be when he no doubt saw my shock at the news.

  “Lisa!”

  I stall on my way past Alf’s door; jacket slung over one arm and purse in hand. “Morning.”

  He pushes from his worn leather chair, bustling his portly frame around his desk. “I’m glad I caught you.”

  Yeah. Because he so would have had no idea where I would be if he hadn’t. Not as though I’d be in my office, or anything. Oh, the safety of my office. Damn, that sounds good.

  “I have to say I was rather surprised by your announcement.” He clasps meaty hands before him, looking every bit the sad old man he is.

  “My announcement?” What on earth is he—oh shit. My announcement.

  He wouldn’t have.

  “I haven’t caught Mason yet this morning to find out what triggered your resignation. Perhaps I could hear it from the horse’s mouth?”

  He did.

  That goddamn—

  “I’d love to give you the backstory,” I say sweetly, “but I have a client call first thing this morning, so….” I make a show of checking the time.

  “Of course.” Alf takes a step back. “We’ll catch up after.”

  “Perfect.”

  I resume my path down the hallway, the impact my heels make with the carpet decidedly firmer now given the way my blood boils beneath my skin. How dare he? How dare that self-centered, egotistical, spoilt—

  “Morning, Lisa.”

  “Ugh!” My purse and coat hit the floor of my office in the most unladylike fashion.

  I’ve had it. I’ve had enough of these games, and now I’ve gone full-blown tantrum like a toddler who wants out of the sandpit because the other kid isn’t being fair.

  “It was an accident,” Mason offers, rising from where he’d been leaned against the front of my desk.

  “Was it?” The door slams into its enclosure behind me, rattling the wall with the force of my backhand. “Because from what I remember, you very purposefully wrote that message.”

  “I never meant to send it,” he explains. “It was a ruse, a desperate attempt to get you to stay.”

  “You thought you could make me stay by pissing me off even more?” I slam my arms across myself, eyes wide.

  “I don’t even know what the fuck I did to piss you off in the first place,” he shouts in reply.

  “Well that’s just perfect,” I mutter, taking my seat. Mason's admission simply confirms my suspicion—the guy is so ingrained in his entitled ways he can’t even see what would be insulting to the working class like me. “You really have no idea why I’m annoyed at you?”

  He runs a rough hand through his hair, stance wide. “Clearly not, otherwise I wouldn’t have sat in here for the past ten minutes waiting for you to make the slowest goddamn trip from the parking lot in history.”

  “Well excuse me for not sticking to a schedule I had no idea of.”

  He matches the glare I paint him with. Asshole.

  “Well?” A muscle in his jaw tics. “Are you going to enlighten me now?”

  “I can’t believe I have to spell it out.”

  “Humor me,” he bites, taking a step forward. “Because obviously, I’m nothing but a dumb male.”

  “You’re a snob,” I snap. “You swan in here, throwing your weight around like we should all bow at your feet and grovel for our jobs, but it’s all just a big game to you, isn’t it?”

  “How?” He drops both palms to the front of my desk, leaning into my space.

  “You’re loaded,” I say with a huff, frustrated I have to spell it out for him. “You’ve got no idea how important people’s livelihoods are to them because should you lose yours, you have options.” I sigh, softening my tone as I continue. “Some of us need every goddamn dollar we earn just to stay afloat.”

  “That’s what this is about,” he snarls. “You’re fucking insecure because of your perceived poverty.”

  “It’s not perceived,” I cry. “I don’t have a dime in savings. Nothing. And the damn credit company is my bestie given the rate they send me mail.”

  “So you’re bad with money.” He shrugs and straightens to his full height. “How’s that my problem?”

  “Because you don’t get it.” I sink into my chair. “And yeah, maybe that isn’t your fault, but if entertaining your idea of a little fun puts my future in jeopardy, then I’m sorry—it was fun while it lasted.”

  Mason turns toward the door with a sigh. His shoulders stiffen, hands punched in his pockets.

  “So that’s it then.” The ice in his words sends goose bumps skittering over my skin. “You’ve cast this grand assumption based on what you think you know about me, and rather than take the time to get to know me properly, you’re going to sit on your goddamn high horse and play the victim?”

  “Jesus, you’re an asshole when you lose.”

  He turns, eyes dark as a malicious grin spreads across his lips. “Oh no, baby. Don’t fool yourself.” I watch with rapt fascination as he pulls his bottom lip between his teeth and releases it with a pop. “I didn’t lose. You did.”

  My blood pumps furiously through me, my chest tight as I struggle to maintain the illusion of indifference. “Alf is in his office now if you’d like to go and, you know, withdraw my resignation.” I wave him off with the back of my hand.

  Mason leaves without a backward glance, striding out of my office as though we just discussed last quarter’s sales and nothing more. I don’t even know if I can trust him to undo the damage he’s done.

  If only I knew what kind of guy he was when I first laid eyes on him. Maybe then I could have avoided him altogether and saved myself the trouble.

  It was a spontaneous hook-up with some guy in a bar that I didn’t know. It was a chance meeting in the workplace that should have stopped at that. It was never meant to make me feel like it does.

  He was a moment of pleasure. A lapse of sanity.

  So why the hell am I crying?

  FOURTEEN

  Mason

  “Alf. Have you got a minute?”

  Something sits unsettled in my chest as I lean a hand against the old bastard’s doorframe. Is it anger? Shame at being rejected? Or regret?

  I can’t pick it. All I know is it’s an emotion I’m not accustomed to. A feeling that comes with defeat.

  I don’t like losing. I make a point not to lose. Which is why I won’t give up.

  So here I am, being gallant despite Lisa’s evident disinterest in me.

  “Of course. Come in.” Alf waves to the seat against the wall.

  I drag the threadbare chair in front of his desk, noting that his workspace looks as though it was last updated in the eighties. Guess the money isn’t lost here, then.r />
  “I need to talk to you about Lisa.”

  “Mmm.” He nods, distracted by whatever paperwork he tries to find on his desktop. “I do too.”

  “The message was a—”

  “It was ideal for her to resign.”

  What? “Pardon?”

  Alf stops shuffling the mess before him to cast a glance my way. “Her resignation. It’ll look much better on her resume that what would have transpired anyway.”

  “Redundancy?” Have they made decisions already that I’m not aware of?

  “Dismissal,” he states s though confused why I would have thought otherwise.

  “Sorry?” I seriously need to back the fuck up out of this room and start again, because I have no goddamn idea what the old man is on about.

  “You made a point of getting under Tony’s skin the other day,” Alf explains as he folds his hands on the desk before him. “Did you think he’d sit back and take it?”

  “I expected him to be a professional about it.” My hands fist on my knees.

  “Like you were?”

  This cryptic shit is getting old, fast. “Spit it out, Alf.”

  “Your relations with Lisa didn’t go unnoticed.” His fingers fidget, cheeks reddening as the broken blood vessels swell.

  “We haven’t had ‘relations,’” I snap, making air quotes. “We socialized outside of the office. Last I heard that wasn’t frowned upon otherwise I’d be accused of entering into a relationship with half of the upper management.”

  “There’s no need to get defensive.”

  “Isn’t there?” Can’t tell me he wouldn’t if he was in the same position. “What proof does Tony have?”

  “He hasn’t told me.” Alf reclines with a sigh. “But it’s not my place to challenge him on it, either. You know how he is.”

  Yeah. I do. An arrogant asshole that needs taking down a peg or two. “Tell him to grow a fucking spine and speak to me about it.” I rise from the seat, shunting it roughly back where it was. “Until then, disregard my message about Lisa’s job; she’s not resigning.”

  Alf huffs out his nose, a frown settling in place. “I’ll leave it undecided. If this goes south, she may still want the option of walking first.”

  “It won’t go south,” I promise with a jab of my pointer finger his way. “Not if I have anything to do with it.”

  Alf shakes his head as I step out into the hall.

  All it does is piss me off further.

  I stride back in, leaning both palms on the front of his desk. “Regardless of what Tony thinks he knows, if I want to date an employee, then I fucking well can, Alf. Last I checked there wasn’t anything in the employment contracts about it. Otherwise, I never would have got stuck with Louanne.”

  He lifts both hands, leaning back to put a little more distance between us. “It’s not my call, Mason.”

  “It’s not Tony’s either, so do yourself a favor and stop obeying his every whim like a whipped dog.” I march back to the door before adding, “I’m taking Lisa to lunch today, so fucking sue me.”

  ***

  Goddamn, the idea seemed brilliant at the time. But after watching Lisa move around the building the past three hours, I still haven’t found the right opening to let her in on the plan for lunch without coming off as a jerk who can’t get a hint.

  Although, I guess I can’t. After all, here I am still intent on winning the woman over after fucking it up, what, three times now?

  “Rosie.” I catch the woman from finance’s attention as she passes by my shithole of an office, coffee in hand. “Where is somewhere decent for lunch close by?”

  “By decent you mean something more than takeout?”

  I nod.

  “I guess you could get something at the café on Goodhue.”

  “Goodhue?”

  “It’s a block that way.” She points over my shoulder with her free hand. “Right on the corner. Small, but usually has a table free if you get there in, say, the next half hour.”

  Damn it. “Thank you.”

  She smiles and carries on her way.

  Time to suck it up, champ.

  I make it two steps out of my office before I’m cut off by the last face I want to see when I’m thinking about how to seduce a woman: Tony.

  “Heard you wanted to see me,” he says curtly, chest pushed out and thumbs slung casually in his pockets.

  I straighten, chin up, and narrow my eyes on the fucker. “Heard it was you who had an issue with me.”

  “Damn straight I do.” He peers out the corner of his eye, clearly conscious that we’re entering into a standoff in the middle of the fucking gossip highway. “Step in my office.”

  Asshole can’t even close the door behind me properly before he starts. “I’ve got an issue with you sticking your nose where it’s not necessary.”

  “Are you still harping on about the credit cards?” I roll my eyes as he passes to take residence at his ostentatious desk.

  Fucker has a picture of his ridiculously large house pride of place on his bookshelf, for Christ’s sake. Or at least, I assume it’s his house. Be kind of weird if it’s not.

  “I’m talking about messing with my staff.”

  “Lisa.” He’s got nothing.

  “Exactly,” he sneers. “Back off and keep your work here professional.”

  “Can’t make me.”

  He grimaces. “Do you have any idea how juvenile you sound?”

  “Do you have any idea how much I don’t care?” I step forward, arms folded. “Drop this bullshit with her. You’ve got no reason to think anything is going on worth your interest.”

  “Really?” He arches an eyebrow.

  I smirk. “Prove it. Show me your evidence that your sales rep and I have had anything more than a professional relationship.”

  “She was seen at your hotel.” He leans back, arms folded and clearly pleased with himself.

  “So?”

  “Colleagues don’t usually walk arm in arm like lovers.”

  Lovers. Is snort at his fifties take on it. Although, that does sound kind of nice. On task, Mason. “I was being a gentleman.”

  “You were seen heading into the archive room together.”

  I laugh at the fucker. “Fucking conclusive evidence, Tony. Good luck with that.”

  He scowls, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the desk. “You better watch yourself.”

  “Exactly what I was about to say to you.” I step up to his desk. “Leave Lisa the fuck alone.”

  “Maybe it isn’t her I have the issue with,” he snarls.

  “So leave me the fuck alone as well.”

  “Or what?”

  “Or I take what I’ve found so far to Pete.”

  Tony scoffs. “You think he would care? Or do you think he’d be more interested in how rogue you’ve gone?”

  “What the fuck are you on about?”

  “I spoke with Pete already,” he announces, dismissing my jab. “He was polite enough to give me a summary of the key areas you’ve been asked to investigate. Profit margins on the deals sales cut, staff outsourcing, and how the international orders are financed.” A smug grin spreads across his thin lips. “Nowhere did he mention entertainment expenses or discretionary spending.”

  God, I hate this guy. “And if you’d bothered to ask about the additional areas I’m looking into, then you’d be aware that Pete knows how thorough I am in my work and that he’s never surprised when I go above and beyond to help the company.”

  “Stop tooting your fucking horn, you jumped up little shit!”

  I jerk back at his outburst.

  Tony stands, leaning on his desk to jab a hand my way. “We both know this is personal.”

  “No shit it is.” I step up to let him know he can’t bully me like one of his own staff. “You said that mere seconds ago. The difference is, I don’t have a problem with just you,” I snap. “I have a goddamn problem with any asshole who wastes money to keep up appearances.”<
br />
  “Excuse me?” He rears back as though I struck him.

  “A meeting at the golf club that took all day? Tell me. What benefits did you get for Leyton after that? How did our investment pay off, Tony?”

  The guy’s quicker than I give him credit for. He lunges around the desk, hip knocking a pen cup over and scattering small weapons everywhere. Surely, he wouldn’t lay a hand on me.

  “What’s the point of this, Roberts?” He shunts me in the shoulder. “What do you get out of bringing me down?”

  “I’d advise keeping your hands to yourself.”

  “Or what?” My back hits his glass wall.

  Without a doubt, he’s attracted unwanted attention now. In fact…

  “Or I’ll dig a little deeper,” I bait. “What else will I find?” My gaze catches a picture of his trophy wife. “Perhaps something the missus doesn’t know about?”

  Bingo. His fists bury in my jacket, my back and head slamming into the glass wall again.

  I really, really, want to hit this bastard, but goddamn, he’s burying himself so fucking well on his own.

  “Just you try it,” he growls.

  “Oh, I will.”

  His fists tighten. I catch the murmur of a crowd behind me through the glass.

  “I’m telling you to leave it!”

  “Why, though? By the sounds of things I’m going to have some real fun searching your history.”

  He pulls one hand back, the other sliding to pin me by my throat.

  Shit. Too far.

  FIFTEEN

  Lisa

  “I think I dodged a bullet,” I tell Emma while nursing a glass of wine.

  She motions for me to scoot over, and then joins me on our small two-seater sofa. “Surely Mason isn’t that bad.”

  “He started a fist fight with our General Manager today.”

  Her eyes go as wide as saucers. “Spill.”

  I chuckle at the way she folds her legs, wriggling her ass around on the cushion to get comfy. “Nobody knows what the argument was over, but Tony had him in a throat hold against the office wall.”

  “Holy shit,” she breathes. “What happened after?”

  I sigh. “That’s just it; I don’t know.”

  “So find out.” She backhands my thigh, frowning. “Jesus. Offices are full of grapevines and shit. One of the gossips must know what happened.”