The Bad Boy Issue

by Jessica Hawkins

  The Bad Boy Issue

  Jessica Hawkins

  The issue with bad boys? I’m not one—but I’m not about to admit it. My taste for fast cars, late nights, and beautiful women helped get me to the top of a New York men’s magazine known for its tongue-in-cheek humor and over-the-top masculinity. But after an industry exposé maligns me as a womanizer, the reputation that made me is suddenly threatening to end my career. Damage control comes in the form of a pretty, pint-sized “fixer,” yet from the moment I meet Georgina Keller, I can’t help thinking she’s eager to land the final blow—and maybe even my job.

  The issue with bad boys? They run right over good girls like me. But after a confidence-shattering breakup, I’m determined not to let anyone at my new workplace push me around—not even the brooding Sebastian Quinn, who's made it clear I'm the enemy. I’m ready to help Modern Man shed its bad reputation, but to do that, I'll have to start at the top . . . and no amount of charm or inconvenient attraction is going to distract me.

  Because it's true what they say—there’s a thin line between love and hate.

  And it cuts right through the middle of our office.

  If you pre-ordered The Bad Boy Issue and Kobo mistakenly delivered this file, please contact Kobo Support. The following is a sample of chapter one.

  Chapter One – Georgina

  A dragon disguised as a businesswoman breathed down my neck.

  I’d been in that position more times than I could count—a desperate grab at coffee before work, applying mascara in line, praying sidewalk congestion wouldn’t make me late. But on this particular day, it was the woman behind me breathing fire down my neck as she muttered, “It’s not like I have the most important meeting of my life in five minutes.”

  I was actually early in hopes of making a good impression on my first day at a new assignment. Behind the counter of the café, my best friend Luciano scribbled on a paper cup while arching a manicured eyebrow at me. He shook his head—a warning to stay put—and tapped the name he’d written on the cup.

  GEORGE.

  Message received, loud and clear. But Luciano hadn’t been the one standing there for three minutes, withering under the anger behind me. Although it was a big day for me, I really wasn’t in a hurry, because even though I’d been assigned this job less than a week ago, I’d planned ahead. The night before, I’d lain out a respectable white blouse and navy skirt suit to lead a meeting dominated by men before mapping out all possible routes from Brooklyn Heights to Midtown. I wasn’t normally in the habit of choosing my outfits the night before like a grade schooler. The norm for me was hitting snooze too many times, which resulted in whatever ensemble I could throw together before leaving my fate in the hands of the public transportation gods.

  But this assignment was different for me. I’d be working with men instead of women, and I’d had less than a week to prepare—not only my notes, but my mindset too. Modern Man, a men’s interest monthly magazine, had already been losing market share before its editor-in-chief had been called out in a scathing exposé about sexism in the workplace—amongst other things. That’s what I was walking into, and as George the Businesswoman, I could hold my own in that environment.

  But that side of me generally didn’t surface until I entered work mode. Now, I was just Georgina. With another furious sigh against my hair, I turned and smiled at a blonde woman in a patterned blouse who tapped out something on her phone.

  “You can go ahead of me,” I said.

  She took a moment to finish what she was typing before looking up. “What?”

  “It sounds like you have somewhere to be. I’m early, so go ahead.”

  “Great.” She stepped in front of me.

  The man behind her moved up in line, passing me. “I’m late for work too,” he said.

  I straightened my shoulders as he turned away, effectively moving me to the back of the line.

  My cheeks warmed. So he’d just assumed I’d let him go ahead too? That I wouldn’t speak up? Giving up my spot in line was a good deed—I didn’t have to do that. Well, maybe karma would handle this.

  “Karma? That bitch was squashed by the M-fourteen bus while trying to catch up with my ex,” Luciano had told me once.

  I didn’t agree. Karma may not have been swift, but it always caught up with you. I raised my hand to tap the man’s shoulder, then hesitated. Hadn’t he said he was also late to work? And it was true what I’d said about being early. The commute to my new job was thirty minutes, so in an uncharacteristic move, I’d factored in all possible scenarios, from A-train delays to splurging on a cab and even the possibility of jumping on the ferry. I’d accounted for all of that and left myself enough time that, should disaster strike, I’d still be able to get my daily mocha latte—because not having one was on par with said disaster.

  Of course, the subway had been smooth sailing and the commute a breeze.

  So, I wasn’t just early to work. I had another twenty minutes before I needed to walk off the elevator and into Modern Man magazine’s offices on the thirty-fifth floor of Dixon Media Tower.

  I lowered my hand but stared daggers at the man’s bald spot. Do your worst, Karma.

  Did backing off make me a pushover? Some people might say so. People like my ex-boyfriend, my current therapist, and of course, Luciano. But he called me that to encourage me. Like the time I’d paid full price for a Mexican blanket at the Brooklyn Flea so I wouldn’t have to haggle. Or when I’d apologized for slipping in an unidentified puddle and knocking over a candy display at Duane Reade. And every time I paused at crosswalk to let a cab go first.

  “A true New Yorker would never,” Luciano had said. “Pedestrians have the right away, even on a green light.”

  This was the sort of thing—getting pushed to the back of the line—that I was supposed to be working on. I wasn’t doing such a great job of morphing from Georgina to George before I entered Modern Man, and I now had less than twenty minutes to make it happen. And I would, just after I’d gotten my latte.

  Luciano sighed as I reached the counter. “It’s not even nine in the morning, and you’ve already let at least two people walk all over you.”

  “I’m early,” I said, handing him exact change. “It was the nice thing to do.”

  “Too nice.” He tapped the screen of his iPad to enter the order. “You’re too nice.”

  “So what’s wrong with that?”

  Luciano responded the way he always did. “Nothing, if you want to remain a spinster. Men love bitches, and bitches get what they want—like swift coffee or dates.”

  “Dates?”

  “Yeah, you know when two people decide they want to get to know each other better over dinner or drinks . . .”

  I rolled my eyes as I put away my wallet. “Men might think they love bitches, but eventually that wears off.”

  “You’re wrong, and I would know—I am one and I date them exclusively.”

  “A man or a bitch?”

  “Both. I just don’t get how you can be so fierce at work, and the opposite in your personal life. It’s like you feel guilty taking up space. Make your presence known, G.”

  Was my personal life so bad? Gainfully employed dog mom, royal women enthusiast, reality TV connoisseur, and thirty-year-old spinster who’d been on exactly zero dates in six months . . .

  I could almost get away with telling Luciano I was happy to grow old with just my work and my dog, but he knew me inside out. We’d bonded over juice boxes and a mutual hate for our given names—learning cursive, writing Georgina or Luciano on every single paper, fending off cutesy nicknames like Gigi or Lulu, correcting pronunciation of classmates and teachers alike. Back then, they would’ve killed t
o just be Gina or Luke. Now, though, Ginas and Lukes were a dime a dozen and we’d come to appreciate our names.

  “Now get out of the way,” Luciano said. “I have customers to serve.”

  “Oh, sorry,” I said, hurrying over to the pick-up counter.

  I took out my phone and reviewed some notes for my upcoming presentation, quizzing myself on statistics as people filtered in and out of the café. My boss had taught me to practice public speaking surrounded by distractions. That way, nothing could take me out of the zone come game day. I’d pulled together today’s presentation in only five days, yet I had the statistics down to an art. In a way, it was an art, compiling them in a digestible way that wouldn’t make enemies out of the team I was about to join—or invade, depending on how they looked at it.

  “Mocha latte,” Luciano’s co-worker called out and set my drink on the bar.

  I tucked my cell back into my purse and went to take the drink just as the woman next to me picked it up.

  “Oh, I think that’s mine,” I said as she started to turn away.

  “Mocha latte?” She looked over her shoulder at the barista, who nodded. “That’s what I ordered.”

  “Me too,” I said.

  She checked the cup. “This says George.”

  “Yes, that’s me,” I said.

  “George is a man’s name. There are no men on this side of the counter.”

  “I know, but . . .” I sighed with frustration. “You were actually behind me in line.”

  “Impossible,” she said, finally turning to me. “I didn’t even wait in line. I walked right up to the counter.”

  I looked to Luciano, five feet away, for help. With one word, he could fix this for me, but instead he hummed Britney Spears’ “Stronger” to himself and pretended not to hear us. “I mean that you came in after me,” I clarified. “I saw you.”

  “You saw me come in?”

  “Yes.” At least, I was fairly certain I had. I’d looked up from my iPhone, quizzing myself my presentation’s statistics when she’d walked in. Unless it had been another brunette woman tall enough to wear flats with a power suit. I’d been distracted, but flats with a suit weren’t exactly common. “I think—”

  “I don’t have time for this,” she said and walked away with my drink.

  Make your presence known. I knew what Luciano was thinking. Now three people had cut me in line before nine in the morning, and that was especially bad today of all days when I needed to be on point. I couldn’t mess up this assignment and first impressions were everything in my industry, especially considering I was a woman walking into an office full of men. And not just men, but so-called “bad boys.” Then again, what if she hadn’t been the woman I’d seen? If she really had ordered the same thing, then the next one should be coming up any second, so why make a scene?

  As she exited the café, Luciano placed a new drink on the counter. “Skinny mocha latte.”

  “Skinny? Are you kidding?” I made a face. “Whole milk?”

  “Non-fat.”

  I groaned. “Whipped cream?”

  “Nope. And the mocha sauce is sugar-free.”

  “Lu,” I whined. “I can’t drink this garbage.”

  Luciano took a cup from the register and started the next order. “Well, I made a regular one and even added extra whipped cream for your big day, but you let someone else take it.” He shrugged. “Should’ve spoken up.”

  He was punishing me, but it wasn’t as if I hadn’t tried to convince her it was mine. “She didn’t give me a chance. Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “Because she was right. There was no George around.” He stopped and looked at me. “Let me ask you something. If a colleague of yours waltzed in right now and demanded she give your presentation today, would you roll over and let her?” With a sigh to let me know how disappointed he was, he leaned over the counter and took the skinny drink back. “I’ll remake this,” he said, disappearing behind an espresso machine.

  “I just don’t want to start my day with confrontation,” I called after him. “Especially today.”

  “Nobody does,” he said. “But if Georgina doesn’t respect herself, why should anyone else?”

  Respect wasn’t an issue—at work. I was a fixer, and a damn good one. When I walked into a failing media company, I joined the team and guided them toward solutions. Yet when my ex had been struggling to finish school with a full-time job, Georgina’s automatic solution had been to shoulder the burden. How could I argue that saving for a trip to see the sixty-fifth anniversary of Queen Elizabeth’s coronation was more important than his education? I hadn’t even made him ask—I’d suggested I do England another time and cover our rent and bills so he could quit and earn his Master’s. And he had. Right before he’d told me he couldn’t be with a woman who let others walk all over her.

  The café door jingled behind me, and a man’s voice filled the space. “No, I’m at the coffee shop downstairs,” he said and paused. “I know. I can’t believe I’m starting my morning without Dunkin’ Donuts, but this will have to do. It’s for a good cause.”

  For anyone to infer that Dunkin’ Donuts was better than this café, which carried specialty, single-origin Blue Bottle Coffee, was absurd. I turned. A man on his cell was at least a head taller than anyone else. With boyishly brown hair, a sharp, tailored suit and an even sharper jawline, he looked as if he’d walked right out of a magazine. Considering all the media companies on these blocks, it was entirely possible that he had come from a photoshoot.

  “Hang on,” he said into his cell as he approached the counter. He lowered it to his side and read Luciano’s nametag. “Morning, Luciano. Can I get three coffees, two black and one iced with extra cream and sugar?”

  “Name?”

  He hesitated. “Can you write ‘number one boss’ on the iced coffee?”

  Luciano nodded. “Coming right up.”

  “Thank you.” The man passed over his credit card before stuffing a five-dollar bill in the tip jar.

  A generous tip and a sincere thank you? What planet had he come from? Not only was it out of character for a New Yorker, but it was even less so for such a beautiful specimen. Good god, he was something to look at with thick hair the color of my beloved morning mocha and broad shoulders that tapered to a lean waist. Tall and imposing, he seemed vaguely familiar, like an actor who’d suddenly started popping up in every hit movie, or the treadmill hunk who kept all the girls—and some guys—motivated at the gym. Except I had no doubt I would’ve remembered seeing him at my gym.

  If I’d belonged to a gym.

  He definitely did, if the bulges under his sleeves were any indication. Luciano loved men’s pecs. My boss worshipped at the altar of ass and thigh. But I was all about the face. I loved jaws and noses as strong and distinguished as British royalty, features passed through generations. He had parentheses for laugh lines, and when he half-smiled, a semi-colon formed in one cheek—one perfunctory, deep dimple just slightly above a curved one at the edge of his mouth. I read him like a book that made you forget how—right to left, top to bottom, backward and forward.

  What was he after with his tip and polite demeanor? A face like that didn’t need to do all that. Beautiful men could walk all over others and use people as a means to an end. I knew from experience—four years of it—that handsome men got everything they wanted, and I meant everything. I’d been blinded before by a striking face before, not once but twice, and had come out the other side with a broken heart.

  By my side at the pick-up bar now, the man cleared his throat.

  To cover up the fact that I’d been staring, I glanced at the ground and continued rehearsing. Was there any greater distraction than a gorgeous man who smelled as if he’d spent the morning foraging for wood—or at least in the men’s product aisle at Target? Fresh Blast, Classic Old Spice, Cool Rush—he was one of those, probably whichever smelled best. If I could remember my presentation in
his presence, then I’d nail it later on.

  “The iced coffee isn’t mine,” he said. “Honest.”

  I paused, then looked up and met his eyes—the perfect summer green of the grass in Sheep Meadow where I’d sunbathed just last month. “Pardon?”

  “I didn’t just knight myself number one boss. I’m actually buttering up my boss.” He shrugged. “And I’m not above excessive flattery or caffeine.”

  I glanced around to make sure he wasn’t talking to someone else, but we were alone. Could he possibly have been flirting with me? As soon as the thought hit me, my brain short-circuited. Just because I’d dated an attractive man didn’t mean I was at all adept at talking to them. It hadn’t been my flirting or halting attempts at conversation that had landed me my first date with Neal. If anything, it’d probably been his innate ability to sniff out insecurities that could be manipulated and molded the way he liked.

  This man with a chiseled jaw and shiny brown hair so perfectly styled was a marble statue away from being hailed as a Greek god. My throat had gone bone-dry. Seconds ticked by, and I still hadn’t answered.

  “Hopefully this place does the trick,” he said gently, as if he sensed my discomfort. “I’ve never had the coffee here.”

  Slowly, I nodded, grasping at words. “It’s good. He’s a master. At the coffee-making. I mean, Luciano is a great barista.”

  He wasn’t just intimidatingly large with equally impressive posture. Every piece of his look was perfectly in place, from a shiny gold tie that cut straight down the middle of a crisp, white dress shirt to mahogany-colored wingtip brogues so polished I could probably see my own reflection in them. Heat crept up my chest and neck.

  “So he’s a friend of yours, Luciano?” he asked. “Or . . . something more?”

  That didn’t leave much room for misinterpretation. He was showing interest, but in who? It would almost make more sense that a man this handsome and well-dressed would be talking to me to get to Luciano. Except having grown up with a gay best friend, my radar for these things was usually pretty accurate, and I wasn’t getting that vibe at all. “Just a friend,” I said and tested the waters with, “He’s available.”