Alphas on Top

by Harper Sloan

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance of characters to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Ella Fox holds exclusive rights to this work. Unauthorized duplication is prohibited.

  Editing: Gemma Rowlands

  Formatting: Stacey Blake, Hayson Book Formatting

  Cover Design: Melissa Gill

  This story is dedicated to lovers of romance everywhere. We are quite a team! I hope that your stories are as powerful as the romances that we all love to read. If you have not found that exceptional someone, get out there and make it happen! Believe in love, and I know that the best is always yet to come.

  The above dedication was written at the start of my self-publishing journey. So many wonderful and amazing things have happened since then, and I owe it all to YOU, fabulous reader. I wouldn’t be where I am now if it weren’t for the readers who supported me & pushed me forward. I also wouldn’t have gotten here without the book bloggers who took a chance on a newbie. From the bottom of my heart I want to thank Lisa Schilling Hintz and Milasy Mugnolo (The Rock Stars of Romance Blog) -Trish Mint (Schmexy Girl Book Blog)- Christina Gobin (Books Unhinged Blog)- Lisa Pantano Kane (Three Chicks and Their Books Blog) - Lara Ross Petterson (A Book Whore’s Obsession) Melissa Gill (Feisty Girls Book Blog and book cover designer extraordinaire) and Kathy Bankard for discovering Dante early & getting the word out about this book. I am grateful to everyone that took the time to read and promote my books. You changed the course of my life, and for that I will be forever grateful.

  Thank you to my street team, Ella’s Angels. Special thanks to Midian Sosa and Chelsea Carter for being head Angels! You ladies rock. Thanks to my brand new assistants, Rebecca Bennett and Nicole Huffman (Author Groupies Blog) for climbing on board this crazy train to help me do the one thing I consistently fail at—keeping things organized!

  Special thanks to my family for being so awesome—especially my mom.

  Finally, I’d like to give an enormous shout out of love and gratitude to the other Alphas on Top authors. The Alphas on Top box set idea came from the fabulous brain of Harper Sloan, and I am honored to have been included. I love the AoT ladies- BIG TIME! Every single day K Webster, Tessa Teevan, Harper Sloan, Aurora Rose Reynolds & Rochelle Paige make me laugh. That’s worth its weight in gold- or sexy pix of naked men. Thanks for being so awesome, ladies.

  My morning began on a sour note because I was due at work at nine, but hadn't even woken up until after eight thirty. I was usually on the freeway by that time, so to say I was late was a serious understatement. Nothing was worse than being behind schedule, flustered and annoyed all at the same time. Being late for work always sucked, but right then I was really pissed at myself for being such an idiot. I'd had my job for over a year, and had only been late twice—but the fact that both times had been in a two-week span really made me feel like an idiot.

  It was my own fault that I was so exhausted that I had slept right through the alarm. After a few years of watching ‘Dancing with The Stars’ and pondering the idea of taking dance lessons, I'd finally decided to take the leap about three months ago. I knew that I needed something to occupy some of my time so that I wasn't constantly spending time with the one man that I could never have, and I figured that dancing was a healthy hobby to escape into.

  As it turned out, I actually had dancing skill. So much so that my teacher, Dina, asked me to step in and dance the tango in a competition with a fellow student named Marcus. Marcus desperately needed a new dance partner after his last one abruptly quit, and with Dina’s assurances that I could do it, I decided to go ahead and give it a whirl.

  Marcus was younger than me, immensely talented, and really friendly. A bit too friendly, to be honest. He was one of those guys that was really hot, knew it, and used it to his advantage. He'd made it abundantly clear that he was interested in me, but I didn’t feel any kind of a spark, although I wished that I did. I had wondered if I should agree to go on a date with him to see if he would grow on me, but the reality was that I knew that he wouldn’t so I just kept right on declining his invitations.

  The constant rehearsing for the competition was taking a toll. It was exhausting, and I was at the end of my interest in dancing. I’d gone in too hard and too fast, and I was totally burnt out. I’d decided that once the competition was over, I’d back off for a while and consider whether I wanted to even do it for fun anymore. I liked it but I didn’t want to compete which meant that all the rehearsing felt more and more like a chore each and every day. The previous night’s practice had been especially grueling, and it made me question why anyone could commit to such a rigorous practice schedule if they weren’t career dancers. Marcus and I had practiced for six hours in anticipation of next weekend’s competition, and I was completely overdone afterward.

  Unfortunately, even though I came home exhausted, I couldn't stop thinking about my boss, Dante Hart. Like every other night, I was too hot to get to sleep without satisfying myself while I thought of him. The man was driving me wild and even though I was beyond tired, I'd had to bring myself to orgasm twice before I was able to get to sleep.

  Waking up in the morning, my muscles were sore, my body ached and I was totally out of sorts.

  Groaning, I realized that I needed to tell Dante that I was running late. After grabbing my iPhone, I sent him a text. “Dante, so sorry I’m running late. Be there ASAP - Sabrina”. Once the text was sent, I ran for the shower. No surprise that as I was lathering up, I started thinking of Dante again. He was always on my mind in one way or another.

  I spent the first few months I was working with him perfecting my poker face. I was fairly certain that he had no idea that I was incredibly attracted to him, which was a blessing. I loved my job, and it made me feel good to know that because of my salary, my sister's education would be paid off like mine was. It would be ridiculously awkward if Dante were to suspect that I had feelings for him, and I wasn't in a position to allow emotions to rule my life.

  My parents died in a car accident two years ago when I was twenty-three, my sister twenty. My father had been a trauma surgeon, so we'd always been fairly well off to begin with, but we were very lucky that the life insurance our parents had taken out allowed us to pay off the mortgage on our Brentwood house, along with the final year of my college education and the first two years of Brooke’s UCLA tuition.

  When I had applied for a job at Hart International, I’d done so because I wanted a solid job with a good salary that would allow me to pay for the rest of Brooke’s college. Since mine had been paid for in full, it was only fair that hers be fully covered as well. I was delighted when I got the job at Hart. The company reputation was stellar, so I knew it would be a massive boost to my resume. The salary was out of this world, which was a factor as well. I was fortunate enough to have been hired fourteen months ago as an assistant to one of the junior executives.

  Just a few weeks after I had started working, Dante’s longtime executive assistant, Helen, got engaged to the head designer at the office in Greece. She then very quickly relocated to be with him. Other assistants within the company started being called up to try their hand at Helen’s job. Seven had the chance, but they all quickly returned to their original jobs.

  The building was abuzz with gossip from disgruntled would-be assistants who claimed that Dante was too difficult to work for. "Too demanding," they all said. Normally, that was followed by, "He's so cold and impersonal." They made him sound like a machine; old before his time.

  Another twenty assistants above me had found ways to defer having to try out, which is how I wound up as an executive assistant to the head of the company within a few months of starting. The morning that I met him will be etched into my memory forever.

  I’d seen his photo before, of course, but I'd never met him. Hart was a Fortune 500 company so he was regularly featured in business publications, and every picture of him showed a man who was crazy beautiful. I say beautiful, but I should add that he also looked h
ard—dominant, even. It was almost impossible to believe that he was so young. After hearing all the gossip from the would-be assistants, I assumed that what the pictures actually depicted was an uptight killjoy. With everything I’d heard about how difficult he was (to everyone except Helen) I knew it was expected that I’d be number eight of the assistants that were not up to his standards.

  None of the previous seven had lost their jobs at Hart, and all claimed to be relieved to go back to their original assignments, but I didn’t want to end up like that. I wasn't sure what I could do to ensure that my experience with him would be different than the others, but I knew I had to try. Not having the tenure the other assistants had, I felt that I couldn’t afford to fumble in my first months on the job. I was certain that, if I could show that I could do it, I’d be able to assure longevity for myself within the company.

  I'd arrived on my first day as Dante’s trial assistant wearing a pale gray suit, gray heels and my hair pulled back into a tight chignon. I looked the part, and was ready to “Swing for the fences” as my dad used to say. Although I was thirty minutes early, Dante was already there. Taking a deep breath to calm my nerves, I’d gone to the door of his office and looked inside.

  That morning he had a newspaper spread out in front of him and he was engrossed in whatever article he was reading. Honestly, I was thrown off kilter by how incredibly gorgeous he was. Pictures didn’t do Dante justice, and that’s saying something since I’ve never seen a lousy photo of him. I’d been prepared for handsome. In actuality, handsome was an understatement. Dante was stunning.

  I drank in the sight of him like I’d never done with anyone before, and that alarmed me. His dark hair was tousled, which is something I later came to find was his default hairdo no matter what style he started with in the morning. He runs his hands through his hair when he is thinking, happy, stressed or tired, so it's totally unavoidable. Having mussed up hair didn’t diminish his initial appeal to me. If anything, it added to it. Later on I would find out that the office gossips referred to the style as “the freshly fucked look.” I have to admit that there’s something to that assertion, because his hair has always looked like some lucky woman just had her hands in it.

  That morning, his shirt sleeves were rolled up to reveal tanned arms with a steel watch at his wrist, his shirt stretched across what was obviously a beautifully muscular chest. I got tingly in my stomach just looking at him that day, which is something that hasn’t changed in the year I’ve worked for him. If anything, it’s gotten more extreme.

  I took a few deep breaths to center myself and gave myself a stern warning to be professional before clearing my throat quietly. It was extremely fortunate that I’d had time to compose myself and school my expression, because when Dante looked up and our eyes met for the first time, I felt a jolt of energy travel through my body like a remarkably strong static electric charge. I felt it everywhere, from the top of my head to my toes, and most shockingly in my sex, which clenched in response. It took everything I had not to swoon or blush, but somehow I managed it. I wanted him from that very first moment, but I had priorities that didn’t include genuflecting at my bosses feet.

  We stared at each other for what felt like an eternity. Somehow, I maintained a professional façade, even though in my mind I was ripping my clothes off and throwing myself on his desk begging for him to touch me. He raised an eyebrow at me, assessing me quizzically for a moment, as if he were waiting for something. Eventually, I came back to earth and stepped forward to offer my hand. Deciding that being forthright was the way to go, I introduced myself. “Good morning Mr. Hart, I’m Sabrina Tyler, otherwise known as assistant try out number eight.”

  He chuckled at the audacity of that statement. I smiled brightly at him as he took my hand in a firm handshake, but as our hands connected, the insides of my sex tingled and clenched again. It was as though the touch of his skin was sending a direct message to my erogenous zones. It took a terrific deal of effort not to gasp, but I managed it. To this day, I am ridiculously proud of that accomplishment.

  Dante stared into my eyes for a moment and then smiled. I mean he really smiled. It lit up his whole face, made him look young and carefree. His smile reminded me of a cloudless sky on a sunny day. Instead of letting him know he was turning my body to Jell-O, I stood straighter and maintained eye contact as I returned his smile with one of my own.

  He looked surprised for a moment, but then he smiled at me again, bigger this time before he said, “Miss Tyler, it’s a pleasure to meet you. I suddenly feel tremendously hopeful about trying out assistant number eight.” I raised an eyebrow at him, cocked my head to the side and laughed.

  Dante gestured to a chair in front of his desk, and I took a seat. We spent the next forty minutes talking and going over job duties and expectations. I was surprised at how friendly he was, considering how quickly all of the other temporary assistants had defected after claiming that he was too difficult to work with. He didn't seem difficult or cold, and the things he was asking for weren't ridiculous at all. Dante seemed totally reasonable to me, pleasant even. He revealed to me later that I was the first of the assistants not to stutter, stammer or flirt my way through the interview with him.

  "I could never fucking work like that," he told me.

  I understood what the others had been reacting to, I just happened to be lucky enough to have a few moments to school my reaction. My week as his temporary assistant turned into a month. After the month, I got offered the job full time. The salary was double what I’d been making as a junior assistant, the benefits were amazing and I would get a top of the line company car every two years. I was delighted to take the job.

  At the conclusion of my first week as his official Executive Assistant, Dante had taken my sister Brooke and me out to dinner to celebrate my promotion. We’d had so much fun that he took us out twice more, and a few weeks after that he brought the two of us along to a family dinner with his brother Damien, his twin sisters Delilah and Dominique, and his honorary brother, Spencer. I didn't see it as odd that he asked us to go, but my sister asked me if I thought maybe Dante liked me. I laughed and told her no, but inside my answer was that I wished he did.

  I loved his family immediately. His brother Damien was twenty-five and a total joker. Dominique and Delilah were twenty-one year old twins, and beautiful as they were, they could not be nicer girls. They had an honorary fifth sibling, Spencer Cross, who was Damien’s best friend. He and Damien were quite the pair, and I loved how funny they were. They were both just younger versions of Dante as far as personality and outlook goes, even Spencer who obviously wasn’t related by blood.

  For all intents and purposes, Dante and Damien have been like parents to the girls, and I knew that Spencer had been through everything with them as well. Mrs. Hart committed suicide when the twins were just toddlers, and their father was a drug addict who died of an overdose when Dante was seventeen, Damien was fourteen and the twins were ten.

  Dante and Damien flatly refused to speak about their parents in any detail. If either of the parents was brought up in more than a fleeting way, one of them shut the conversation down immediately. Their reactions made it obvious that whatever happened, it wasn't good—and I knew better than to press. The fact that Spencer wont speak of his parents either tells me that whatever happened back then wasn’t good, and having met his mother, I shudder to think about what that means.

  After Dante and Damien’s father passed away, they all lived with their mother’s younger sister, Sandra. She'd moved from across the country to assume guardianship, even though they had never even met her prior to their father’s death. Somehow she wound up with Spencer too, but no one has ever explained how that came to be. Whatever the reason, I think that her taking him in likely saved him just the same as it saved the others. Sandra Thomas is an amazing woman, and both Dante and Damien credit her with providing the first stable home they’d ever had. Because of her, the twins grew up from then on in a secure
environment—something that it’s clear was the most important thing to Dante, Damien and Spencer.

  As if taking care of five children weren’t enough responsibility, Sandra also saved their grandfather’s company. Drugs and legitimate business decisions didn’t go hand in hand, and their father had almost destroyed the company in the years between his father’s passing, his wife’s suicide, and his own death.

  When Sandra had stepped in and taken over the reins at Hart International, she was able to stop the downward spiral and start building it back up to what it was before all the craziness had happened. That allowed Dante and Damien to finish high school and college with the company in place. Dante became the President of Hart International and Sandra the Vice President. Damien was appointed as the chief engineer who oversees all the builds and installations, and Spencer took the position of the head architect. The business became more successful than ever, and I loved working there.

  During the past year, my sister and I had gotten close to Dante and his family. We all met at Dante’s house most Sundays to barbeque and watch movies in his theater room. Brooke and the twins were virtually inseparable, which was a delight. Dante, Damien and Spencer had a running joke that the twins became triplets once they met Brooke. After the loss of our parents, Brooke and I had no family left. It meant everything to both of us to feel connected as a family again.

  Over the last year, Dante and I had gotten extremely close. He became my best friend and he was the person I turned to when I wanted to share things. We met at the gym several mornings a week to run on the treadmills, we went to dinners, to movies, concerts and other events. He was very gung ho to do things with me, always coming to me with tickets and plans. It started out slowly, but within two months of taking the job, we were spending a lot of our time together, and as the months slipped by, we began spending more and more time together. Until these last few weeks when I started dancing all the time, all of my free time was spent with Dante.