Beautiful Boss (Beautiful #9)

by Christina Lauren

  “What in the actual fuck—” he started to say, tugging at the fabric.

  “Just . . . Oh my God, Will—” I curled on my side, laughing so hard I had tears in my eyes. He managed the first pair, holding them up victoriously before he went back for the second.

  “Jesus Christ,” he said, attempting to pull them down without stretching them or damaging the elastic. “Are these on with some kind of adhesive?”

  “No!”

  “Okay . . . It’s possible this wasn’t my best plan. And will you hold still! It’s like trying to peel a wiggly onion!”

  “I’m going to die of laughter and when the police finally get here I’ll still be wearing these hideous underwear. Why didn’t you just take them all off at once?”

  “You can’t expect me to think when all my blood is in my dick!”

  “I told you this wasn’t sexy. Admit that I was right and I’ll just go in and take them off. Admit that I’m smarter than you.”

  “Oh, you’re definitely smarter than I am, and they’re definitely sexy,” he said. “I really don’t see a way I lose in this scenario.” He lifted my shirt off and over my head and took my breasts in his hands.

  “We’re never going to be packed at this rate,” I said, watching as he took one nipple into his mouth, and then the other.

  “I’d say I wished we would have hired someone, but this has been fun. Today . . .” He kissed my breast again and then looked up at my face. “Today has been pretty great.”

  “And you’re not worried at all about losing this? When we move?”

  Will shook his head, placing an elbow on either side of my head and looking down at me. “Absolutely not. It’s always fun with you. Remember San Diego for Ben and Chloe’s wedding?”

  “You mean when we barely left the room?”

  Will grinned. “Exactly. You’re going to kick ass at Harvard and be the most amazing professor they’ve ever had. I’m going to figure it out with Max, maybe even open a second office, and we’ll make things work. Just like we always do, Plum.”

  I gripped his hip, pressing into the H he had tattooed there, and realized he was right.

  This? Was a constant. We could move halfway around the world and nothing would change.

  We were going to be just fine.

  Seven

  Will

  Max and Jensen patted the table with their hands, a rumbling drum roll.

  “How was the honeymoon?” Sara asked, and everyone groaned.

  “I don’t care about the rudding honeymoon!” Max play-yelled. “I hear enough about their sex life on a normal day. Tell me where you’re moving.”

  “I can’t take it,” Chloe said, gripping the sides of her chair. “I swear to God I am going to lose my shit in a violent way if you’re even thinking of moving to the West Coast.”

  “We’ve decided,” Hanna said to the table, “and we are moving to . . .”

  She looked over at me, and in unison we proclaimed, “Cambridge!”

  A chorus of cheers rang out, with everyone congratulating us both, congratulating Hanna on landing Harvard. We raised our arms in a toast, glasses clinking loudly.

  “Boston?” Chloe said when she returned her wineglass to the table. “That’s like two hundred miles.”

  “Are you happy or annoyed?” I asked her. “I can’t really tell.”

  “I’m . . . not sure, either,” Chloe admitted, brow furrowed. “I was preparing myself for something really traumatic.” She squinted across the table at us. “Boston is sort of an annoying distance. It’s too far to drive regularly, but feels silly flying. Plus, it’s Boston.”

  “Not to me,” I told them. “I’ll be down here three days a week.”

  Sara passed me the baby, searching her purse for something a little quieter for Anna to play with than the spoon she was currently banging against the table. I turned her to face me, puckering my lips for a kiss.

  Anna reached forward, grabbing my mouth in her chubby fist.

  “Are you staying up there for the holidays?” Sara asked. She returned with a rattling plastic thing before noticing Anna’s death grip on my face, which, no surprise, Max was happily witnessing. “Oh, jeez, Will, that must hurt!”

  Sara urged her daughter to swap my mouth for the toy, and Annabel promptly used it as a hammer against my forehead.

  “Oi!” Max yelped, finally leaning forward to steady her hand. “Ouchie, lovey, be soft. That hurts Uncle Will.”

  “Apparently Anna isn’t thrilled about Boston,” Bennett said dryly.

  “It’s okay,” I told Sara, leaning in and kissing Anna’s cheek. “She should learn these moves. She’s one now; you never know when she’ll get into a fight in the alley behind the daycare.” I kissed her little nose. “And it depends on what Hanna’s folks want to do around the holidays,” I said. I glanced at Hanna, who just shrugged.

  “Chloe and I will host,” Bennett interjected. “Dad and Mom are headed to New Zealand for the month, so we’ll have it at our place. And I don’t want Sara having to do anything strenuous with a one-month old.”

  We all stared quizzically at Bennett for a beat before deciding in unison to not question his sudden sentimentality.

  I eyed Sara’s protruding stomach. “You look like a movie prop.”

  She groaned. “I know. Just get her out of me already.”

  “When was your due date again?” Hanna asked.

  “Yesterday,” Sara whined, sweetly. “They say the second one usually comes early. They lie.”

  “You know what usually helps with inducing labor . . .” Chloe sang and Sara glared at her.

  “We tried that.” She held up her hand, ticking off on her fingers: “We tried sex, and spicy food, and walking. I swear the only thing left is a scalpel.”

  Max winced bodily beside her and Hanna leaned closer to her other side, putting her arm around Sara’s shoulders.

  I listened as my wife laid out the details of Harvard’s hiring package, and leaned back in the chair, making faces at my goddaughter. Relief coursed through me like a drug and I couldn’t help but feel the tightness of emotion rise in my throat. We’d built a life here, and I didn’t want to lose these friends. I didn’t want to be too far from the people we loved.

  We had looked online at houses in the area; we had talked about how our schedules would mesh. We had discussed our shared need to remain near our family: both hers and the chosen one here with us now. In Cambridge, we would be close enough to the Bergstroms that it would be Hanna’s turn to hassle Jensen about dating, and close enough to these idiots to share holidays.

  I glanced at Hanna as she chatted happily, bubbly as ever. She grabbed a napkin and drew the layout of her lab, before looking guiltily up to me and then flipping over the napkin and drawing the floor plan of the house she thought she liked.

  Massachusetts had no idea what was coming for it, but I did.

  This beautiful boss across the table from me was about to take over the whole goddamn state.

  Acknowledgments

  When readers ask for more of certain couples, it’s fun for us to try to make it happen. And, more often than not, it feels a little like a family reunion to sit down and write another, small glimpse into their world.

  Will and Hanna hold a special place in our hearts because it was the first book we wrote together where we both felt like authors, rather than women-in-other-careers who happened to also write books. And we think this grounding resonated with readers in a way that has really endured. So first and foremost, thank you to each and every reader and blogger who has picked up our books, read them, and then told us what you loved, what you didn’t love, and what you wanted more of. Without you, there would be no us.

  Thank you to the constant MVPs in our world: Holly Root (agent extraordinaire), Adam Wilson (editor with the best margin notes and YouTube links), Kristin Dwyer (our precious, also our publicist—hehe), and everyone in our Gallery family: Jen Bergstrom, Louise Burke, Carolyn Reidy, Liz Psaltis,
Diana Velasquez, Theresa Dooley, the amazing sales force (seriously, we want to buy you all dinner and drinks), and each and every person who had to correct our Oxford commas and/or question our “sexclamations” with a professional tone. You deserve a bonus. There’s one for each of you in Adam’s office.

  We would be a mass of inarticulate garbage without Erin Service and Tonya Irving. Our social media would be a barren landscape without Lauren Suero steering the ship and Heather Carrier making things pretty. Our families keep us smiling, and we keep each other sane, but you, sweet reader, make all of this the best job in the world.

  Turn the page for a sneak peek of

  Wicked

  SEXY LIAR

  Book Four in Wild Seasons

  from Christina Lauren

  “A hypersexy, sophisticated romance that

  perfectly captures the hunger, thrill,

  and doubt of young, modern love.”

  —Kirkus Reviews

  Chapter ONE

  London

  THERE ARE A number of things that happen when you haven’t had sex in a while: You inadvertently emit a sound during the kissing scenes in romantic movies—a noise that falls somewhere between a snort and an audible eye roll and which almost always elicits a pillow being lobbed at you from the other end of the couch. You can name at least three online adult toy stores from memory, accurately quoting their shipping rates, reliability, and speed. At least two of these stores auto-fill after only a single letter is typed into the URL bar, and you are always the roommate expected to replace the batteries on the remote control, hand vacuum, and flashlights.

  Which is ridiculous when you think about it because everyone knows the best sex toys are corded or rechargeable. Amateurs.

  You become good at masturbating, too. Like, really good, Olympic sport good. And by that point, having sex with yourself is the only option because how can any man possibly hope to compete with your own hand or a vibrator with 120 volts and seventeen variable speed settings?

  The side effects of a less-than-social vagina are particularly noticeable when you’re constantly surrounded by three of the most disgustingly happy couples around. My roommate, Lola, and her two best friends, Harlow and Mia, met their significant others in a totally insane, it-never-happens-in-real-life weekend of debauchery in Las Vegas. Mia and Ansel are married and barely come up for air. Harlow and Finn seem to have mastered sex via eye contact. And Lola and her boyfriend, Oliver, are at that stage in a new relationship where touching is constant and sex seems to happen almost spontaneously. Cooking turns into sex. Watching The Walking Dead? Obviously arousing. Time for sex. Sometimes they’ll just walk in the door, chatting casually, and then stop, look at each other, and here we go again.

  TMI alert? Oliver is loud, and I had no idea the c-word was used quite so readily in Australia. It’s a good thing I love them both so much.

  And Lord, I do. I met Lola in the art program at UCSD, and although we didn’t really start hanging out regularly until she moved in as my roommate last summer, I feel like I’ve known her my entire life.

  Hearing her feet dragging down the hall, I smile. She emerges, hair a mess and face still flushed.

  “Oliver just left,” I tell her around a spoonful of Raisin Bran. He’d stumbled out less than ten minutes ago, sporting a dazed grin and a similar level of dishevelment. “I gave him a high five and a bottle of Gatorade for the road because he has to be dehydrated after all that. Seriously, Lola, I’m impressed.”

  I wouldn’t have thought it possible for Lola’s cheeks to get any pinker. I would have lost that bet.

  “Sorry,” she says, offering me a sheepish smile from behind the cupboard door. “You’ve got to be sick to death of us, but I’m about to leave for L.A. and—”

  “You are not apologizing because you’ve got a gorgeous, sweet Australian guy banging you senseless,” I tell her, and stand to rinse out my bowl. “I’d give you more shit if you weren’t hitting that daily.”

  “Sometimes it feels like driving all the way to his place takes forever.” Lola closes the cupboard door and stares off, contemplating. “That is insane. We are insane.”

  “I tried to convince him to stay,” I tell her. “I’m leaving for the day and have work tonight. You two could have had the place to yourselves.”

  “You’re working again tonight?” Lola fills her glass and props a hip against the counter. “You’ve closed every night this week.”

  I shrug. “Fred needed someone and the extra hours don’t hurt.” I dry my bowl and reach to put it away. “Don’t you have panels to finish, anyway?”

  “I do, but I’d love to hang out . . . You’re always at the beach or working a—”

  “And you’ve got a fuckhot boyfriend and a blazing career,” I say. Lola is probably the busiest person I know. When she isn’t editing her new graphic novel, Junebug, or visiting the set for the film adaptation of her first book, Razor Fish, she’s jetting off to L.A. or New York or wherever the studio and her publisher want her. “I knew you were working today and would probably spend the night with Oliver.” Squeezing her shoulder, I add, “Besides, what else is there to do on a beautiful day like this but surf?”

  She grins at me over the rim of her cup. “I don’t know . . . maybe go out on a date?”

  I snort as I shut the cupboard door. “You’re cute.”

  “London,” she says, pinning me with a serious expression.

  “Lola,” I volley back.

  “Oliver mentioned he has a friend coming in from home, maybe we could all get together.” She looks down, feigning fascination with something on her fingernail. “See a movie or something?”

  “No setups,” I say. “My darling of darlings, we’ve had this conversation at least ten times.”

  Lola smiles sheepishly again and I laugh, turning to walk out of the kitchen. But she’s there, hot on my heels.

  “You can’t fault me for worrying about you a little,” she says. “You’re alone all the time and—”

  I wave a flippant hand. “Alone is not the same as lonely.” Because as appealing as the idea of sex with an actual person is, the drama that inevitably comes along with it is not. I’ve got enough on my social plate trying to keep up with Lola and her tight-knit and ever-expanding group of friends and their significant others. I’m barely past the Learning Their Last Names stage. “Stop channeling

  Harlow.”

  Lola frowns as I lean forward to kiss her cheek.

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” I tell her, then check the time. “Gotta go, mid-tide in twenty.”

  * * *

  AFTER A LONG day on the water, I step behind the counter of Fred’s—the place nearly everyone lovingly calls “the Regal Beagle” due to the name of its owner, Fred Furley—and tie an apron around my waist.

  The tip jar is just over half-full, which means it’s been pretty steady, but not so crazy that Fred will have to call in an extra hand. There’s a couple talking quietly at one end of the bar, half-empty wineglasses in front of them. They’re deep in conversation and barely look up when I step into view; they won’t need much. Four older women sit at the other end. Nice clothes, I notice, even nicer handbags. They’re laughing and possibly here to celebrate something, which means they’ll probably be entertaining and great tippers. I make a mental note to check on them in a few minutes.

  Raucous laughter and the sound of cheering draw my attention toward the back, and I spot Fred delivering beers to a group of guys circled around the pool table. Satisfied he’s got them covered, I begin checking inventory.

  I’ve only been at Fred’s about a month, but it’s a bar like any other and the routine has been easy enough to pick up. It has stained glass lights, warm wood, and round leather booths, and is a lot less seedy than the dance club where I worked my last two years of college. Still, it has its share of creeps, an inevitable drawback to this kind of job. It’s not that I’m particularly attractive, or even the best-looking woman in the place,
but there’s something about seeing a female on this side of the counter that sometimes leads even the most well-intentioned men to forget their manners. With no barback here, I have to do a lot of the running and prep myself, but Fred is a great boss and fun to joke around with. He’s also better at spotting the creeps than I am.

  Which is why he’s dealing with the guys in the back, and I am not.

  I’m pretty particular when it comes to setup, and start my shift by arranging everything behind the bar exactly the way I like: ticket spike, knife, peeler, muddler, juice press, Y peeler, channel knife, julep strainer, bar spoons, mixing glass. Mise en place—everything in its place.

  I’m about to start cutting fruit when a customer leans over the counter and asks for two White Russians, one with ice, one without. I nod, lifting two clean glasses from the rack, when Fred steps behind me.

  “Let me know if those kids give you any trouble,” he says, and nods to the pool table group, which is currently whooping about something boy-related in the back.

  They seem pretty typical for the UCSD guys who come in here: tall, fit, tan. A few are wearing graphic tees and others wear collared shirts. I study them in tiny flickers of attention as I mix the drinks, taking an educated guess from their height, physique, and tans that they’re water polo players.

  One of them, with dark hair and a jaw you could probably have sex with, looks up just as I do, and our eyes snag. He’s good-looking—though to be fair, they’re all pretty good-looking—but there’s something about this guy that makes me do a double take and hold his gaze for the space of a breath, not quite ready to let it go. Unfortunately, he’s gorgeous in that unattainable, brooding douchebag sort of way.

  With that reminder of the past, I immediately disengage.

  I turn back to Fred and pull a second glass jar labeled CAR FUND from under the counter and place it in front of him. “I think we both know you don’t have to worry about me,” I say, and he smiles, shaking his head at the jar as he finishes his pours. “So is it just the two of us tonight?”