by Hamel, B. B.
Possessive Boss
B. B. Hamel
Contents
Get your free book!
1. Val
2. Jacob
3. Val
4. Jacob
5. Val
6. Jacob
7. Val
8. Jacob
9. Val
10. Jacob
11. Val
12. Jacob
13. Val
14. Jacob
15. Val
16. Jacob
17. Val
18. Val
19. Jacob
20. Val
21. Jacob
22. Val
Also by B. B. Hamel
Copyright © 2020 by B. B. Hamel
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Cover design by Coverluv Book Designs
Get your free book!
Sign up for my mailing list and find out about new releases, giveaways, and more.
Plus, get a free book and other awesome bonus material! Click here >>
1
Val
I sit in the plush waiting room with four other people that look exactly like me, except male and maybe five years older. I ask myself again, for the fiftieth time today, what the heck I’m doing in this room right now, but the answer hasn’t changed.
“Valerie Cotter?” The young, pretty receptionist looks at me. “They’re ready for you.”
“Oh, okay.” I stand up and brush myself off. I take a breath and a guy with perfect hair and straight white teeth glances up. He looks at me like I’m something he stepped on in the subway and I smile sweetly before heading back.
I’ve been dealing with men like that since I was young. I’m a woman in finance, which means I have to put up with some assholes thinking I’m dumb because I’m a woman. I’m used to it, but that doesn’t make it any less annoying. Sometimes I want to punch their smug faces.
But I don’t, of course. I just smile politely and move on with my life.
The receptionist takes me through a short back hall that leads into an open floor plan. The inside of Ficino and Lofthouse Fund Management, or FLFM to most people, is pretty sparse. The Philadelphia office is brand new and there aren’t even desks or cubes set up yet. The main space is empty with ethernet wires for computers lying around on the floor.
“We plan on having more cubes ready by next week,” the receptionist says. “Really these interviews are meant to be preliminary.” She glances back at me with her perfect eyelashes and not a single hair out of place. “I’m sorry, what was your name again?”
I clench my jaw. She said it, like, a minute ago. “Call me Val,” I say.
“Wonderful. So, Val, the offices are for the upper-level managers. You’re applying for a floor-level management position. You’ll handle some smaller clients, maybe even bring in a few with you if you can, that sort of thing. I believe there’s room to grow, but Jacob can talk about that.”
I frown a little bit. “I’m meeting with Jacob Lofthouse?”
She looks surprised. “Of course.”
“I thought… I thought I was meeting with a hiring manager.”
She laughs a little. “Oh, no. Jacob is very hands on. He’s opening this branch and setting it all up himself.” She smiles at me like I’m a sad little puppy. “Okay, he’s right in there.”
She gestures at a conference room. Inside is the most handsome man I’ve ever seen in my life sitting at a large table with papers surrounding him. He’s leaning forward, reading something with this perfect look of pure concentration on his face. He’s wearing a navy-blue suit that fits his muscular frame perfectly. His hair is short and pushed to the side, and his eyes are a sparkling green. There’s just the right amount of stubble and, for a second, I can feel it in my mind, brushing against my cheek.
“Go on in,” she says to me.
“Right. Thanks.” I smile. “Did I get your name?”
“My name is Aimee Messina. Nice to meet you, Val.” She turns on her expensive heels and walks back up front, flowing gracefully like water.
I sigh and turn away. I step in through the door and Jacob looks up at me. He’s even more gorgeous staring right in my face and for a second, I think I might run away.
But I walk over and extend my hand. “Mr. Lofthouse. I’m Val Cotter.”
“Oh, hey, Val Cotter.” He grins and stands, taking my hand. We shake. It’s nice and firm like my father taught me. “Great, thanks so much for coming in.”
I take a seat across from him and he shuffles through some papers. “Sorry. We’re a mess right now and I’m really disorganized.”
“No problem, take your time.”
“Here you are.” He pulls out what I assume is my resume. “Val Cotter. Looking for a junior manager position.” He reads through it, mouthing the words to himself. “Huh. Notre Dame. That’s cool.”
“I loved it there. Except in the winter.”
“So you hated it most of the time.”
I laugh and nod. “Pretty much.”
“I want to ask you the most cliché Notre Dame question possible.”
“Yes, I went to football games.”
He grins at me. “Perfect. Not that I care either way, but I couldn’t help myself.”
I shrug a little. “It’s a thing there, for sure.”
“A thing? You mean, a massive moneymaker and one of the most absurdly overproduced things imaginable?”
“Yep. Pretty much that.”
He laughs and keeps reading. “Masters from Harvard. Did a yearlong residency at Oxford.” He looks up again. “Very impressive.”
“I don’t have a lot of practical experience, but I think I make up for it with my internships.”
“I see you were with a few small hedge funds. Oh, I know Beyer and Branston. John Beyer is a friend of mine.”
I perk up a little. “John was the one that took me on in the first place. He’s one of my references, actually.”
“No shit?” He winces. “Sorry. Shouldn’t curse. It’s unprofessional.”
“Oh, I don’t give a shit if you curse.”
He laughs a little. “I can see why John liked you.”
I shrug and find myself leaning toward him. Jacob has this strange magnetism. He runs a hedge fund, so he should be a huge super nerd, but that’s not this man, not at all.
I know him by reputation, and it’s quite the reputation. I always thought it must be a little exaggerated, but sitting here across from him, I actually think every word is true. He supposedly has slept with half the eligible women in New York, and turned down the other half. He makes more money year after year for his clients than anyone else, and he’s a part of the Lofthouse family, which is itself filthy rich and absurdly influential.
He’s by far one of the most powerful and well-connected men in the country, and yet he has a down-to-earth reputation. People actually seem to like him.
Which makes my job a lot harder.
“So. I want to start with the easy question first.”
“What’s that?”
“Why do you want to work at FLFM?”
“Well, it’s an amazing firm, first of all. Your year-over-year is top notch and your overall average is the best in the business. You guys bring in new clients all the time and I’ve read about some really interesting things with indexes.”
“Good answer,” he says, “but boring.”
I frown a little bit. “I’m sorry.”
“Look, any one of those people out there will tell me all tha
t. They all want to work here for the same reason. But why do you want to work here? Why you, in particular?”
I frown a little bit. It takes me half a second to see what he’s trying to say. “Well, I think I deserve it.”
That makes him sit back and listen. “Really?”
“I graduated first in my class. From everywhere I went. I had incredible returns when I was an intern at Beyer, even though I was only working with tiny accounts. And frankly, I did it all while being a woman, which isn’t a small thing in this industry.”
He laughs softly. I thought he might think I’m being egotistical, but I could tell I needed to say something out there to get his attention.
I don’t really believe all that. It’s mostly true, but I don’t believe I deserve anything or that I’m better than anyone. I think I’ve been lucky. I’m smart, sure, but I’ve been lucky.
Doesn’t matter though. I can’t tell him the real reason I want this job. I can barely even admit it to myself. I’m so afraid of him somehow reading my mind and knowing what I really want that I need to shove it into the back of my head and pretend like it doesn’t exist.
“That’s a good answer,” he says. “I mean, the whole woman thing is a little much, but you’re not wrong. Were there any other women out in that lobby?”
“No,” I say, “but I don’t want to be your token girl.”
“Don’t worry. I’ve never hired anyone I didn’t think was incredibly qualified, no matter what they looked like.” He smiles a little bit. “Even when they look like you.”
I raise an eyebrow. He’s looking at me now, his eyes drifting down beyond my face. I should be pissed off that he’s treating me like every other frat guy finance douche bag, but…
He’s handsome. God, he’s handsome, and I think he’s doing it to tease me. He wants me to get angry. He wants to piss me off.
I won’t give him that.
“Are you done checking me out?” I ask.
“I suppose. Unless you’re willing to stand and turn around for me?”
I smile despite myself and he laughs.
“I don’t think that’s appropriate for an interview,” I say. “But maybe if you hire me.”
“Oh, are you trying to bribe me with sexual favors?”
“Absolutely not, Mr. Lofthouse. How dare you.” I grin at him.
He leans closer. “Call me Jacob. And I’d gladly take that bribe.”
His eyes meet mine and I feel a strange thrill, but the tension breaks when we both laugh. I shift a little in my seat, feeling that strange desire still between my legs.
“You know, I’ve asked that question, about wanting to work here, to maybe twenty people before you. And you’re the first one to say anything remotely interesting.”
“Really?”
“Really.” He crosses his arms and flexes his neck. “The thing about finance is, it’s all numbers. And we all know the math and the probabilities. We do some things differently here, but it’s the sort of stuff I could teach just about anyone with the right background. What I’m saying is, we’re all smart, Val.”
“But you’re not just looking for smart.”
“No, I’m not. I’ve had enough smart. I want a little something…”
“More?” I raise an eyebrow.
“I want more,” he agrees. “I want someone interesting beyond the numbers. Do you think you’re that person?”
“I like to think I am. And you might think so too, based on how you’re looking at me.”
His smirks a little, head cocked. “And how’s that?”
“You’re looking at me like you don’t want to stop.”
“You might be right about that.” He sighs slightly. “But I do have to ask you a few more boring questions. For HR, mainly.”
“Okay. Ask away. I’ll try to make my answers interesting.”
That makes him smile again. “Let’s get started.”
We go down a checklist of general questions about the field, the job requirements, my outlook on work, that sort of stuff. Really general questions that any job interview would go through.
When we’re finished, he tosses down the paper he’d been reading from. I made him laugh a couple times during the questioning, which I consider a definite win.
“Not bad,” he says. “Not bad at all. So look, Val. I like you. I think you’d be a good fit here. But there’s one small thing I’m not sure about.”
“What’s that?”
He looks at me then with this intense stare that makes my heart start to race. He’s so handsome, it’s almost uncomfortable.
“I’m going to flirt with you,” he says softly. “I don’t think I can help it, if I’m honest. If that’s going to make you uncomfortable, tell me now, and we can move on from this. Otherwise, I’m going to tease you, and I think you might enjoy it.”
“That’s a very inappropriate thing to say during a job interview.”
He smirks and shrugs. “I know. But what can I do? I need to have a good working relationship, so I have to speak my mind.”
“Can I speak mine, then?”
“Go right ahead.”
“I think it would be wrong for my boss to think he could flirt with me whenever he wanted. It would suggest some… bad things.”
He arches an eyebrow at me. “Oh, yeah? Like what?”
“Like you assume things about me. That I’d… do things for you.”
“And you wouldn’t?”
I hesitate. “I didn’t say that. But the assumption is the problem.”
“I see. But?”
I smile a little. “But, I won’t be working directly under you, will I? And you’re only going to be at this office temporarily?”
“Both of those things are true,” he says.
“Then I don’t mind if you don’t.”
“Good.” He stands suddenly. “I’ll be seeing you again soon, Val Cotter.”
“I hope so.”
I stand and we shake hands again across the table. He looks into my eyes and for a second, I actually want him to look at my body. I feel flushed, my cheeks pink with excitement. I’ve never felt like this before with anyone in my life, but this man has me practically sweating after a single job interview.
“Now, go ahead and turn around,” he says.
I can’t help but smile and blush and do exactly as he commands. I walk out the door and I know he’s staring at my ass.
I want him to.
The receptionist looks up as I leave. “Have a nice day,” she says.
I smile at her and nod. I walk through the room and ignore the stares I get from all the men, not caring what they think.
I did it. I got through it. And I think… I think he actually liked me.
I hurry outside. Philadelphia is busy at this time of day. The sidewalk is full of people rushing to get to lunch before they have to make it back to their office. I’m going to be one of them soon enough.
When I’m the new employee of FLFM.
I take out my phone and dial a number. A man picks up on the second ring, his voice baritone and rolling. “Hello, Valerie. Good news?”
“Very good,” I say. “I think I’m going to get it.”
He laughs, clearly delighted. “Really?”
“Really. The interview went great.”
“That’s incredible. Do you know how many others we’ve sent?”
“No, sir,” I say.
“Six others. Six others have applied over the years and none of them have made it. You’re the first that’s come out of an interview and felt good about the future.”
“Well, I hope I’m not wrong,” I say.
“I hope so, too. I’ll save the congratulations for later.”
“I’ll update you as soon as I hear.”
“Good. Please do. And don’t worry about coming into the office until you hear. From now on, you don’t work with us.”
“Right. Makes sense. I’ll be in touch.”
“Looking forward to i
t, Ms. Cotter.”
I hang up the phone and smile.
The first agent that’s made it through. Good for me, I guess.
All it took was to be incredibly physically attracted to him. I think that probably helped.
Then again, he’s gorgeous. At least one of those six other agents had to have been into Jacob.
I know I shouldn’t feel like this. It’s dangerous to feel excited about working with Jacob Lofthouse. He’s not the one we’re after, but still, it’s dangerous. He’s mixed up in things that I barely even understand, and I know going into this that it’s going to be terribly dangerous.
Then again, it might also be really, really exciting.
I never wanted excitement. I’m just a data geek. I only signed up for this because they requested it from me specifically. Said I was the best candidate they had. I never wanted to go into the field, I just wanted to sit in a comfortable office and analyze financial statements for malfeasance.
But oh, well. Here I am, trying to infiltrate FLFM like some kind of secret agent.
And using my sexuality to do it.
I smile and hurry back to my apartment, wondering if I’m actually going to pull this off.
2
Jacob
It’s strange, how empty the office is. I’m used to the main office in Atlanta, how intense and bustling it is. Even though we’re a relatively small firm, we still have over fifty employees at that office, and we plan on doubling them with this new expansion.
Hiring fifty people is no small thing, though. My head aches from going through these interviews. The same douche bag frat boy after the next, each of them equally smart, each of them equally uninteresting.