CEO'd By Him Complete Series Box Set

by Nella Tyler

  He looked gorgeous. His hair was styled properly—not greasy, not slicked back, but actually styled, and I couldn’t get over how the dark color of his hair complimented his piercing green eyes. He wasn’t wearing a suit, which I was thankful for, because my outfit wasn’t formal, but he was wearing a nice button-down and a pair of slacks.

  I noticed, for the first time, the broadness of his shoulders, and noticed for the second time his strong jawline. “Hey,” I said, and let myself smile.

  “Hey.” Dexter’s eyes left mine as Nina walked out of the bathroom. “Hello,” he said, offering an almost fearful smile to my friend. He looked back to me, and his smile broadened, softened somehow. “You look lovely,” he told me.

  “You don’t look so bad your damn self,” Nina murmured.

  I rolled my eyes and promptly walked out of the room, closing the door behind me before she could say anything too horribly embarrassing. Dexter was laughing when I looked at him again, though. And damn it if Nina wasn’t right, if not a bit too out there. He did look good, and I couldn’t believe I was going on a date.

  As if he could read my mind, he spoke up almost instantly about the oddness of our situation. “I’m really sorry about the incident earlier. Coming to your hotel room and all. It was really terrible etiquette,” he said.

  I couldn’t remember the last time I’d heard a person use the word ‘etiquette.’ It was charming. “I’ve forgiven it,” I said. “Mostly. If this date goes well, maybe I won’t call the cops.” I smiled at him, and he smiled back.

  “I was just nervous,” he explained as we went down the elevator. We didn’t talk for a few minutes as we shuffled in a crowd of people to get to the cab.

  When we got to the cab, he said, “I was just nervous. You’re very approachable, and I just got a bit frightened.”

  I wasn’t sure that I really bought that. “The woman you were with was beautiful, and you didn’t have a problem around her.”

  “Well, I sort of did,” he said. “Just a different problem.”

  When the taxi got to the restaurant, I thought about what Nina had said about getting a nice, free meal. This place was nice. It wasn’t anything over-the-top fancy, as I’d suspected from Dexter not wearing a suit, but it was definitely nicer than most chain restaurants that I liked to stop by. Nicer than the places that Jason had taken me to back when he’d taken me anywhere at all.

  Dexter had called ahead and made reservations, which made my eyebrow go up. He’d been at least cocky enough to assume I wouldn’t flake on him, and while I expected that to put me off, it actually made me respect him a bit more. Any more floundering on his part and I would have started to see him as just a nervous weirdo.

  When we got seated, he pulled my chair out for me and spoke politely to the waiter. We were brought waters, and then we allowed the conversation to continue.

  “In any case, it won’t happen again, with the hotel room,” he said. “And if you’d still like to call the police, I’m perfectly fine with that.”

  “Good to know.” I flashed him a grin. It was awfully irresponsible of me not to hold him accountable for his actions, but this was supposed to be a fun, risqué adventure. No consequences, no need to worry about doing the ‘right’ thing. In a week, I’d be gone. “But I would like to know more about you, if that’s all right.”

  “Of course.” He seemed relieved, if not a bit in disbelief, that I’d forgiven the incident so easily.

  “Where do you work?” It was a much less direct way of asking him whether or not he was wealthy. And it was a common first date question, so it wasn’t like I was being too terribly forward.

  “I work at my father’s investment firm. Mason Investment,” he said.

  I’d heard of that company, or more specifically, I’d seen commercials. If he really was the son of the founder of that company, then he had to be unreasonably wealthy. My eyes widened slightly and I dreaded the return question.

  “What about you?” He asked.

  “I plan weddings,” I said. I began to think back to my job and remembered how much I loved it, and I couldn’t be embarrassed, even by my modest wages and lack of an office space. “I actually meet clients at the library. It’s a fledgling business run from my tablet, but I really love it.”

  “Do you meet interesting people doing that?”

  “Oh my God, yes. A lot of relationships that seem doomed to fail. Those are the worst ones. If they can’t decide on a floral arrangement, they probably can’t decide on anything else.” I smiled, thinking of a particularly nasty couple I’d sat down with at the very beginning of my career.

  “I’d imagine Houston’s a good place for that. It’s a big city and all.” Dexter pointed out.

  “Yeah. I live downtown, so I’m right in the middle of it all, or at least that’s what it tends to feel like.” That wasn’t really entirely true. When I lived with Jason, I lived in downtown Houston. Now I lived with my dad in a more suburban area outside of Houston. For the purposes of this conversation, though, it wasn’t necessary to mention any of that.

  I thought to turn the question around. “What about you? Anything crazy happen in the investment industry?”

  “Jesus, no,” Dexter said. He smiled at me. “It’s arguably the most boring thing in the entire world. It’s important to the clients that come to us, of course, so it’s good to take it seriously. But I interact mostly with stuffy men with Ph.D.’s in accounting and mathematics.”

  I cringed. “Yikes. I planned a wedding for a stripper and her wife once.”

  “That sounds like fun.”

  “It was. They decided to have a courthouse wedding, save money for a huge reception, and instead of doing floral arrangements, they had six different cakes.” I shook my head, remembering the planning for that. It had been a ridiculous wedding, but never had I seen such a party.

  “Do you have to go to all the weddings you plan?”

  The night before, Dexter had surprised me by investing so much of the conversation in me. Tonight, it seemed to be much the same way. He looked genuinely interested in the things I said, and I couldn’t understand why. A millionaire from Florida couldn’t possibly give a shit about some wedding planner from downtown Houston. And yet, even when the waiter came to distract us with the menu and dinner, he kept his attention on me.

  “I go to all of them,” I told him. “It’s honestly exhausting. And little harrowing. I’ve missed a few of them, but it’s rare that I miss them. I’ve been to what, 30 weddings?”

  “Thirty?” Dexter balked. “I haven’t been to even 10 weddings in my entire life.”

  “Really? Maybe it’s because I’m surrounded by it all the time that it doesn’t really seem like that much to me,” I said. Marriage and weddings had become the norm. It was part of why I’d been so flabbergasted with Jason and didn’t understand how he couldn’t marry me. People got married around me all the time.

  “Maybe. But then, I don’t seek the company of investors in my free time,” he said.

  I smiled and wondered whether he actually thought more or less of me now that he knew I wasn’t particularly wealthy. I decided to ask some more questions to see if he would, at any point, realize that I wasn’t the right match for him.

  “Here’s another question. Where did you go to college?”

  Dexter looked up at me as if I’d asked him a complicated math problem. “I went to a few colleges,” he explained. “I spent a little while in Harvard, and then I transferred to a private college.”

  “You went up north, then?” I asked.

  “Yeah. That’s actually where I found New York,” he said. “And how I decided I loved it so much. Honestly, the biggest downside to working here is that I’m here and not there.”

  I smiled at the idea that anyone could work on a beautiful beach and hate it. The grass was always greener on the other side, I supposed, but that didn’t mean it made much sense to me. Still, it was charming to me, and I thought about it for a moment bef
ore he inevitably asked me the same question.

  “You, where did you go to college?”

  “State college in Texas,” I replied. “Graduated top of my class, and became a wedding planner.”

  “What else would you do?”

  “Actually, I could have gone into investment. I have a business degree.” I laughed a little at the idea that the situation could be that I was having dinner with my boss if I’d gotten a job at an investing firm. Most of the small branches in the south were Mason Investment branches.

  “Investment firms could use more people like you,” he said. “It gets dreadful.”

  Damn it, he was charming. He asked questions about me, he listened when I spoke, and he even laughed at the stupider jokes that I made. I felt like he understood me even though we hadn’t known each other for a long time. When the dinner finally started to wrap up, I found myself not wanting the date to end.

  It did, though. He rode with me back to the hotel and walked me back up to my room. I wanted to see him again, even though I wasn’t sure it was such a good idea.

  “Thank you for letting me take you out,” he said to me.

  I shook my head and grinned. This idiot honestly thought that it was his pleasure to have dinner with a woman who hadn’t even seen more than 10,000 dollars in one place in her life. His fingertips brushed my wrist, and my heart fluttered.

  In a stunningly fast sequence of events, several things happened. He drew much closer to me, and I to him. His hand held my wrist, and the other touched my waist tentatively, and I was unsure whether he kissed me or I kissed him. The moment that we did, though, my heart set on fire, and I pressed closer to him instead of backing away.

  The hand on my waist grew firmer instead of more hesitant. He angled his head to the side, and our lips parted. We began to explore this new territory, and my whole body felt like I’d been engulfed in flame, and suddenly, I pulled away.

  “I, um… we probably shouldn’t.” I was out of breath. I couldn’t remember the last time that I’d been kissed like that.

  Dexter’s breathing was equally ragged. “Probably not,” he agreed, despite the ruddiness in his cheeks. “I want to show you something. Tomorrow. If you don’t have any plans, anyway; if you’ve got some time.”

  I raised my eyebrows, and he laughed. “Not like that. Nina can come, too.”

  “She’d love to!” Nina’s voice through the door made me groan and roll my eyes.

  “Fantastic!” He laughed and stepped away from me. I almost protested the sudden space between us. “I’ll see you at 8, then.”

  And just like that, he was gone, and I went into the room to have a serious talk with Nina about respecting personal boundaries.

  Chapter Nine

  Dexter

  “I wanna go,” Tyler said.

  I raised my eyebrow at him. “Absolutely not.”

  Tyler groaned and pushed back in his seat. We’d come to the coffeehouse at a particularly busy hour, about 7 o’clock on a Wednesday, so when he pushed back, he bumped into someone waiting in line to order. “Sorry,” he said to the person, and then pulled his chair back up.

  “You wouldn’t like it,” I assured him.

  “There’s gonna be girls. I love girls.”

  “And making fun of me, and ruining things for me, and being an ass.” I tapped my fingers on the table and glanced at the counter to see if my coffee was ready. I’d called earlier and gotten coffee orders from Nina and Briella as well.

  “So why did you invite her friend, then? Are you… you do not get to use the boat for threesomes. That’s fucking unfair.” Tyler sat up in his seat suddenly.

  “I invited her because I wanted Briella to say yes, not because I’m a fucking pervert,” I said. I rolled my eyes at Tyler’s insinuation. Honestly, inviting Nina had been more about the nervousness of the moment. I wanted to make it crystal clear that I wasn’t suggesting we have sex, we were just hanging out, and inviting Nina cemented that nothing sexual would happen. Frankly, even if I got put in that situation, I wouldn’t have known what to do and probably would have opted out anyway.

  “Whatever. I’m still a little pissed.”

  “That’s fine. But you’ve gotta understand that I don’t want you scaring her off,” I said. “Briella’s… she’s special, I think.”

  Tyler made a face at me. “Gross. Fine, whatever. Tell me about it later, or don’t, if it’s gonna be more romantic bullshit.”

  I could tell that he was clearly still annoyed with me about the entire situation, but I didn’t have time to dwell on it. The coffees came out in a little carrier, so I picked them up and went on my way. One black coffee for me, one mocha for Nina, and an Earl Grey tea for Briella. Or, rather, hot water, and I’d brought an assortment of tea bags after Nina told me that Briella preferred tea to coffee.

  The drinks were still hot when I reached the hotel room. Briella opened the door, and I almost wanted to cry at my situation. She was unbelievably beautiful, impossibly charming, and definitely leaving in about a week. Yet here I was, prolonging this interaction as though there was no chance that I would be hurt immeasurably when she left.

  “Good morning. Nina’s still getting ready. You can come in. Might take a while to find a place to sit down. It’s been trashed,” Briella said, referring to the bedroom.

  It had been trashed. There were shopping bags, clothes, and beach towels laying around everywhere. I suspected that Nina was the culprit of the mess. One side of the room was significantly cleaner than the other, and it was the side that Briella sat down in, and motioned for me to join her.

  I offered her a cup, and she shook her head. “I don’t drink coffee,” she said.

  “It’s water,” I explained. I pulled the plastic bag filled with tea bags out of my pocket, and she grinned.

  “Nina told you!”

  “Yeah. I didn’t know what kind, so I got… whatever they had at the store, honestly.” I’d grabbed one of everything. I didn’t drink tea, but there was plenty of it in my house now.

  Briella selected an Earl Grey tea and unwrapped the package to drop the bag in the water. “Thank you so much. Where are we going today?”

  “I wanted to keep it a surprise,” I told her.

  She put the cap back on the drink and raised an eyebrow at me.

  “It’s all perfectly legal,” I said. Realizing how dodgy that sounded, I shook my head. “Not that I would do anything illegal. Or, you know—”

  She laughed. “It’s okay.”

  “You’ll have cell service, so you’ll definitely be able to call the cops if you hate it,” I told her solemnly. “Or, Nina can kill me.”

  “I think it’s more likely Nina would kill you,” Briella agreed. “She’s small, but she’s very fierce. And protective. Although, I’m not sure where we’re going that she would need to be protective.”

  “Not telling,” I repeated, and she stuck her tongue out at me. I had the urge to kiss her at that moment, to return to what felt absolutely natural, and Nina emerged from the bathroom.

  Most of the way to the docks, the girls tried to get me to tell them where they were going. I made sure that they were comfortable with that it was a surprise. I didn’t want them to think I was a murderer or some creep—I’d done enough to suggest I was a horrible psychopath. So instead of telling them where we were going, I let them know that when we got there, they had full freedom to decide whether or not they wanted to go.

  That made no sense until we arrived.

  “A boat?” Nina walked up to the boat and peered at it like it wasn’t real. “This is a fucking yacht.”

  “Or, just a regular one,” Briella offered, and I laughed at the snappy joke.

  “I’m a little bit, um… I hate the ocean,” Nina said.

  “You love the beach!” Briella returned.

  “The beach, yes. The ocean, no,” Nina said. “Remember that cruise we took?”

  “Oh, right. Seasick.” Briella nodded slowly.


  I frowned. “Nina, I can drive you back if you’d like. Or we can find something else to do. I don’t want anyone getting sick.”

  “Nuh-uh. I’m not missing any of this.” Nina resolved.

  Briella looked almost disappointed that her friend would be coming with us, which excited me. She seemed to want alone time with me. I helped her and Nina both get onto the boat, and talked to the captain, a man who went by ‘Sarge’ and spoke mostly in grunts.

  When the boat started to move, Nina went below deck to lay down. I went up to the sunroof with Briella, and we sat with the sun on our backs, watching the water while the wind lapped at her hair.

  “I’ve never been on a yacht before,” Briella said. “My family rented a motorboat once, and we drove that all up and down Lake Houston. But that wasn’t a yacht.”

  “I hope it doesn’t come off as… pretentious,” I said.

  Briella smiled. “It does,” she assured me. “But I like it.”

  That was a very fair assertion. It reminded me of the previous night when we’d had our date. She was honest, above all, and didn’t seem to think of me as anything more important than I was because of my money. I probably should have found that irritating, and instead, I was thrilled to find someone who wanted to talk to me and not to my wallet.

  “I’m still surprised you’ve chosen to talk to me,” I admitted, after a moment of appreciating the quietness of the water.

  “What?” Briella glanced at me like I’d grown a third head.

  “Well, you know, I’m an investment firm worker. Those are arguably two of the least sexy words in the English language,” I pointed out. “You plan weddings and talk to people from all over the place and go to weddings. It’s a lot of fun. At least it sounds like it to me.”

  “Having a yacht sounds like fun to me,” Briella pointed out. “I think the grass is always greener, you know?”

  That was a solid point. Regardless of situation, people always tended to want something other than what they had. I thought of how I had Tiffany and wanted Briella. Or did I have Tiffany?