The Boss's Orders: Alpha Male Billionaire Office Romance

by Cat Carmine

  I’ve been sued twice, and last time I really got burned. Lila … Well, I don’t want to think about that now. But I don’t want a repeat of that situation. Ever.

  Instead I take a sip of my scotch and think about Claire …

  Is it worth the risk? That little vixen got herself off in the work bathroom, so she’s clearly got a healthy sexual appetite and doesn’t mind getting a little down and dirty.

  And all I want is to see just how down and dirty I can make her go.

  I don’t make any apologies for how I am. I like money, power, and sex. Lots and lots of sex. And I like pushing women beyond the boundaries they think they have. Never rape — rape is for assholes who get off on weakness. When I’m with a woman she wants every single dirty thing I do to her. Sometimes they even beg for it.

  And damn if I don’t want to see Claire beg.

  There’s a knock on my door, and then Bonnie, the temp who’s been acting as my secretary this week, barges in.

  “You have a meeting in five minutes. In the executive boardroom.”

  I glare at her. I didn’t like her to begin with and now I find myself annoyed that she isn’t Claire. That she doesn’t have Claire’s long blond waves, or Claire’s perfect tits or Claire’s sweet, innocent smile.

  “What meeting?”

  Bonnie rolls her eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “Don’t I pay you to know?”

  She sighs and looks down at the iPad. “It just says Peterson.”

  Shit. The Peterson pitch. Something about a new shopping plaza they want to develop out in Evanston. I must have been feeling generous when I scheduled this meeting because I could tell them in five seconds why it’s a terrible idea. And now I’m going to have to sit through a half-hour presentation while they try to convince me it isn’t.

  I wave Bonnie out of the room and down the rest of my scotch. I take my time getting to the boardroom because I like to make them sweat. I shake a round of hands and take my seat at the head of the table while poor Derek Peterson begins his half-hearted pitch.

  But two minutes in, I’m lost again. Instead of listening to the pitch going on in front of me, I’m thinking about her again. Fuck. Why did she have to go and do that in the bathroom? Was she trying to turn me inside out? I’d been doing okay with the temps lately. Bonnie wasn’t very good as far as secretaries go, but I also didn’t want to fuck her, so I considered that a win.

  I try to draw my attention back to the meeting, but it goes again and again to Claire.

  That’s my first clue that I’m in trouble. Work is everything to me. I can’t afford distractions.

  I tap my pen against the briefing binder they’d handed me at the beginning of the meeting. Maybe the best thing to do is get rid of Claire entirely. I have to clean house over there at Prescott & Bailey anyway, so I could just throw her in the discard pile with all the other redundancies. Then I wouldn’t even be tempted.

  I’m sure my lawyers would be happy with that decision, even if I’m not.

  “Mr. Godrich? Sir? What do you think?”

  I realize everyone in the boardroom is looking at me and I’ve completely lost the plot.

  I wave my hand dismissively. “Sounds great.”

  Shocked faces abound around the table. I try to replay what I caught from the meeting in between fantasies of Claire, and I remember we were talking real estate. The new development.

  Well shit. I think I might have just bought an eighty million dollar shopping plaza development that’s pretty much guaranteed to tank.

  I won’t admit to the mistake — at least not right now, in front of everyone. I can always find a loophole once the paperwork starts to come through. But I curse myself for my inattentiveness.

  This is what happens when you get distracted by a woman, I warn myself. You’re thinking with your dick instead of your brain. The idea of getting rid of her with the rest of the Prescott & Bailey employees is starting to sound more and more appealing.

  As soon as I’m back in my office, I pick up my phone and call Bonnie. I’m pissed off now.

  “Get me HR on the line.”

  “Yah, okay” she says, snapping her gum. God, she sounds ignorant.

  “It’s ‘yes, sir,’” I growl, then hang up the phone.

  3

  Claire

  That night when I get home, I try to avoid my two roommates. April and Vanessa are bitches on the best of days, but I’m now three days late with this month’s rent and I may have forgotten the tampons that April asked me to stop and pick up on my way home.

  Can you blame me? I’ve had a rather distracting day.

  My plan doesn’t work though. Vanessa is on me like a shark the second I walk through the front door.

  “Rent?” she says, holding out her hand like she expects me to just have hundreds of dollars to plunk down onto her palm.

  I pull my hair back. “I’m really sorry. I know I’m late. I get paid on Friday.” I don’t mention the fact that I might also be out of a job by Friday.

  Vanessa folds her arms, making no pretence about the fact that she’s pissed.

  “You think April and I can afford to keep covering you like this?”

  “It’s just till Friday.” I hope.

  “It doesn’t matter, Claire. We’re sick of this. If you don’t get it together by next month, you’re out.”

  I bite down hard on my tongue to keep the tears from coming. The last thing I want is for Vanessa to see me cry. She’s a tough-as-nails bartender who probably makes twice what I make just in tips, and she’s intimidating as hell.

  “I said I’d have it Friday,” I say instead.

  “Fine.” She stalks off, leaving me with yet another thing to stress about.

  I go into my room and close the door. I flop face-first down on the bed.

  What a freaking day.

  I still can’t stop thinking about my new boss. And about the shame of running into him and all those people outside the bathroom.

  I cover my head with the pillow. Surely they didn’t hear anything. I was so quiet. There’s no way they could have heard anything. Right?

  But then why was he looking at me that way? Like a big bad wolf about to devour a sweet innocent sheep?

  I knew I was the sheep in this scenario, but the way I was thinking about him made me feel anything but innocent.

  I start to get antsy and restless hiding out in my bedroom, so I slip out of the apartment and head down the street to the convenience store. I think ice cream is on order today.

  As I walk there I try to clear my mind. I think about ice cream flavors and whether I should get candy too, maybe gummy bears or sour cherries. When that line of thinking doesn’t prove to be distracting enough, I try counting sidewalk cracks. And still I can’t stop thinking about William Godrich. About that jawline. The muscles rippling under the finely cut suit. The magnetic pull I felt when he looked into my eyes.

  This is my house now.

  When I get home, I grab a spoon and take my pint of Chunky Monkey into my bedroom and dig in. I swallow spoonful after spoonful of cold ice cream, hoping to numb away the fire that’s been burning in my belly since William Godrich walked into my life.

  The layoffs start the next morning.

  Just like that, the reality of this new world order starts to set in. I watch helplessly from the reception desk as Saul from accounting huffs out of the office, accompanied by two burly security guards and carrying an aloe vera plant and an armful of old newspapers. He’s followed by half the accounting department.

  I expect people to come out to my desk to gossip again, but nobody does. Probably too afraid to leave their desks, just in case they get back to find they don’t have one anymore. My stomach is in absolute knots, waiting for my turn to get called.

  A couple of hours later, I hear a commotion approaching the reception area.

  “Kelly!”

  She’s flanked by two security guards, carrying a banker’s box with all her personal b
elongings in it. I see the fake orchid she bought at Ikea poking out the top. I can tell by the slump of her shoulders that she’s crying.

  I jump out of my seat. “What’s going on? What happened?”

  Even though I know very well what happened. William Godrich happened.

  One of the guards arm bars me to keep me from getting to her. Kelly just looks at me sadly as she gets into the elevator. The guards follow her into the elevator to accompany her downstairs, presumably to make sure she actually leaves the building.

  Any attraction I had to William Godrich is quickly being replaced by fear. That man holds my job in his hands, and I have a funny feeling I didn’t make the greatest impression yesterday.

  I see more and more people walked out over the course of the day. Three more secretaries, half a dozen financial advisors, and then half the HR staff. That must have been an awkward conversation for the HR manager.

  And still I wait. Every time the phone rings, I flinch. Every time I hear someone coming down the hall, I want to look away, afraid to see who will be the next to go.

  I tidy up the inside of my drawers and start deleting personal emails just in case. My heart is racing. I wish there was something I could do to protect myself, but I’m completely at the mercy of corporate right now.

  And I don’t like being at someone else’s mercy.

  Finally, when it’s almost five o’clock, I start to let myself relax. I survived the day. I may not survive tomorrow, but I survived today, and that’s something. Maybe there won’t be any more layoffs right now, and I can relax and concentrate on actually doing my job.

  Then my phone rings.

  Somehow in my gut, I just know. I don’t want to pick it up, but I know that not answering will only delay the inevitable.

  “Hello?”

  My voice is shaking.

  “Hi Claire, it’s Gretchen in HR.” Her voice sounds exhausted, and I think she’s probably had an even worse day than I have. “Could you come down to see Erika? Right now, if you could.”

  My heart falls all the way through my chest and down to the floor. Erika is the HR manager. Which means … this is it.

  The call I’ve been dreading all day.

  My legs are quaking as I make the long walk down the glass hallway to Erika’s office. I can barely look Gretchen in the eye when I arrive at HR, but thankfully she waves me in to see Erika right away.

  I sit down in the chair across from Erika’s desk. There’s a box of tissues right next to my chair so I can only imagine what it’s been like in here all day. I think of Kelly sobbing as those security guards walked her out. My stomach is in the tightest knot.

  Erika looks exhausted but she gives me a half-hearted smile. She’s a middle-aged woman with dark hair and a streak of grey running through the front. I think she’s probably gained a few more of those grey hairs today. But I’m too nervous to feel too much empathy right now. I just sit there, frozen, waiting for her to say the words.

  “Claire, you’re being promoted.”

  Say what? My brain takes a second to register her words. Promoted? She can’t be serious.

  I must look as stunned as I feel because Erika smiles ruefully.

  “It’s okay. It’s true. I’m not firing you, if that’s what you came in here expecting.”

  I swallow. My throat feels like a spiky cactus.

  Erika looks down at the paperwork in front of her. “Our new employer, Mr. Godrich, has requested your services as his new personal secretary.”

  I can’t stop the gasp that escapes my lips. Work for Mr. Godrich? Like, in the same room, breathing the same air?

  Erika looks down at her files. I can’t read the expression on her face, but she seems to hesitate.

  “You’ll be working out of the Godrich and Associates location, where Mr. Godrich intends to maintain his office.”

  “What about my job here?”

  Erika scoffs. “Oh, they’ll be shutting this place down soon enough.” The she claps her hand over her mouth. “I shouldn’t have said that. Forget you heard that.”

  My mind is reeling. How could I survive working for that man when I could barely make it two minutes in his presence?

  “Do I have time to think about it?”

  “Honestly? Not if you want to continue working here.”

  Well, that answers that.

  “When would I start?”

  “Tomorrow morning.”

  Holy crap. My stomach is doing flip-flops.

  “Why me?”

  Erika shrugs. “Your guess is good as mine. All I know is he requested you personally.”

  I swallow. That man wants me. All I can think is …

  For what?

  A shiver runs down my spine.

  “Your pay will increase, of course.” Erika opens the file folder in front of her and raises her eyebrows. “Substantially, it seems.”

  Well, at least there’s a silver lining here. Even if the rest of me is filled with white hot terror.

  My mind keeps replaying all the things I’d read online about William Godrich yesterday. I can’t help but wonder just what kinds of duties being his personal secretary will entail.

  And of course, then I think back to yesterday in the bathroom. When I couldn’t help but touch myself, thinking about him… and when I had walked out of the bathroom and found him standing right there. Had he heard me? Did he think I was that kind of girl? Oh God, maybe that’s why he was hiring me.

  Well, I wasn’t that kind of girl. Yesterday may have gotten a little away from me, but surely you could blame that on the stress. Whatever he thought he was getting when he hired me, he was in for a rude awakening. I would go to that office tomorrow, and I would be the consummate professional. In fact, I would be the best damn secretary he’d ever seen.

  “I accept,” I say, feeling determined.

  Erika gives me a tight smile. “I didn’t think it was a question.

  4

  Claire

  I’m determined to prove to William Godrich just how professional I am, and how completely unintimidated by him I am, so in the morning I put on my most severe work outfit — tight black pencil skirt, black suit jacket, office blue button-down — fully buttoned up, of course. A small string of pearls around my neck, and matching pearl studs in my ears. I could be on the cover of Business Woman Weekly, if there was such a thing.

  Godrich and Associates is in the West High Tower building, down near the waterfront. When I arrive I stand outside for a moment, looking up at the skyscraper, my new workplace, and take a deep breath.

  “You’ll do great,” I tell myself. “You’ve never been intimidated by a man before and you certainly aren’t intimidated by him.”

  It’s a lie of course. I’m fucking terrified.

  Still I bite my lip and ride the elevator up to the 39th floor.

  When I tell the receptionist who I am, her eyebrows shoot up immediately. She tries to recover, but I’d heard the sharp intake of breath when I told her I was Mr. Godrich’s new personal secretary.

  I want to question her on it — from one receptionist to another — but before I can, an HR rep is walking me down a long glass hallway to a small office where we’ll do paperwork and get my IT access set-up.

  By the time I’m finally shown to Mr. Godrich’s office, almost a whole hour has gone by. My nerves are absolutely wrecked. Even though I’m dreading going in there and seeing him, I also just want to get it over with.

  Grant, the HR rep, gets me set up at my office. My desk is in a small room through a door off the hallway, and then William Godrich’s door is inside my office. He’ll have to walk past my desk every time he comes and goes. Which I can appreciate is an ideal set-up for a boss and his secretary, but which does nothing to quell my nerves about the whole thing.

  Maybe I should ask Grant if telecommuting is an option.

  I look around my new workspace. No stuffy office furniture here — they have me set up with a beautiful white Parsons desk
with a shiny new iMac sitting on top. Definitely an upgrade from my old set-up, I’ll give him that.

  Unfortunately I can’t even appreciate it because I’m too busy sneaking peeks at Mr. Godrich’s closed office door. Grant sees me looking.

  “He’s out for the morning. Won’t be back until after lunch.”

  “Oh.” I relax a tiny bit, but I find that a small part of me is disappointed. “Is there anything I should work on in the meantime?”

  “Oh, plenty. We’ve had temp secretaries in here for the past two or three months. None of them ever lasts more than a week so the filing system has all gone to shit. You also have to log Mr. Godrich’s expenses into the company expense system, and I don’t think anyone’s been doing that. The paper receipts should all be in the filing cabinet somewhere and email ones are saved in a folder on the shared drive.”

  After he leaves I get to work. I’m glad to have stuff to do to take my mind off Mr. Godrich’s impending return, and especially stuff that I’m actually good at. The filing is indeed a complete mess and even though I work right through the morning, I barely get through half a drawer.

  Eventually I decide to take a lunch, half hoping that Mr. Godrich will be back by the time I return and half hoping he won’t. I kill half an hour walking around down by the waterfront. The fresh air off the lake is enough to make me feel downright optimistic. Maybe this job won’t be so bad. Maybe I won’t even see him that often. Maybe I can do this.

  I even stop a little market on way back to the office and buy a bunch of yellow tulips, my favorite, to set on my desk. That’s how optimistic I feel.

  When I return to the office, Mr. Godrich still isn’t there, and that leaves me feeling even more cheerful. I set the flowers on my desk. With him out of the office, I can pretend this is just a normal job. I get back to my filing, humming to myself, and time passes.

  “Who are you?”

  I’m bent over, ass up in the air, rummaging through the very bottom drawer of the filing cabinet when I hear his voice.