Page 8 of The Bad Boy's Good Girl

Chapter 3

Exhaustion and dry mouth were the two prevailing sensations flooding Nola when she woke up Monday morning. Too much Black Friday retail therapy and too many germs at the mall were the likely culprit so she took several deep breaths while she waited for the nausea to pass. When it did, she took a quick hot shower which made her feel normal again. Mostly. She applied ointment to her tattoo and put on a pot of coffeeto make her feel better, and went in search of toast and an apple. “Oh god,” she groaned as the scent of coffee wafted under her nose and sent another wave of nausea making her stomach flip.

Nola dumped the whole pot of coffee down the sink and put on the electric kettle for tea. Ginger peppermint tea. And toast. She couldn’t be sick, not today when there was so much to be done at work. She trashed the toast and ate the leftover club sandwich before rushing out the door with a bottle of seltzer water in her hand. It was already gearing up to be a crap day and Nola knew she was in no way prepared to deal with people today.

After rushing into the office—on time, thank you very much—she fired up her computer and made coffee for Brooks as she did everyday. Only today, Brooks had shown up earlier than usual which meant her usual thirty minutes early was, in fact, late. “Here you are.”

Brooks sighed heavily. “Where have you been, Nola? I need to go over those government contracts again. Before my meeting next week. I’m expecting a call from the General this morning and I need them before then.”

She rolled her eyes at his tone, like she didn’t know he had a call scheduled with General Howard. She’d been the one to set the meeting. “Yes Brooks, I know. Sorry my being under the weather is inconvenient for you. I’ll get those contracts for you now.”Already feeling unreasonably agitated, she snatched the folder that held the contracts and slid it in front of Brooks.

“Thanks.”

“Sure,” she answered without looking back, settling at her desk and getting back to work. Mondays were always busy with answering emails so the first thing she did was pull up her to do list for today—for the party that was two months away, and one for the rest of the week. She had a full plate which meant it should be easy to sip her soda pop and keep her head down.

“You totally threw me under the bus,” Gabriela whined as she cast a shadow over Nola’s desk.

So much for that.Nola looked up at Gabriela who was dressed like office assistant Barbie in a sleeveless candy pink dress that stopped above her knees. Well above her knees to make sure not one single man in the building could look away from her. “I don’t have time for this, Gabriela, I actually have work to do.”

Of course, she kept on talking because Nola didn’t have a penis. “Too bad. Like it would have been so hard for you to just-,”

Nola stood and pointed a finger in her face, despite the five-inch height difference. “Shut up! You know what, Gabriela? You want credit for work then do some goddamn work! Don’t half ass the smallest job and come to me because your pea brain couldn’t even do that right.” Her outburst had drawn the attention of more than a few coworkers so she pulled her finger back and sat down, smoothing her blonde bun to calm her. “Like I said, I have work to do so go away.”

“All you had to do was open the door!” Her high pitched whine didn’t work on Nola.

“No. All you had to do was answer your phone. Tell me why you didn’t, Gabriela. Were you in the tournament? Or were you too busy shoving those titties in the face of the new guys?” She didn’t answer and Nola shook her head. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” Shaking her head, she refocused on the screen before her and clenched her jaw. She hated being mean to people, yelling and berating others. But she was cranky, catching some kind of bug and sick and tired of…everything.

Gabriela gasped in outrage. “You can’t speak to me that way! I’ll file a complaint,” she shot back with a smug grin.

“Go right ahead. There’s a map beside the elevator in case you don’t know how to find HR. That stands for human resources.”

“Everything okay out here?” Brooks stuck his head out of his office, blue eyes darting back and forth between the two women, looking tense and uncertain.

“Just peachy,” Nola answered without looking up or acknowledging either of them. “Did you need something?”

“Uh, no. What’s going on?”

She opened her mouth to speak but Gabriela beat her to the punch. “Your assistant was just saying some really inappropriate things to me, Mr. Corona.”

“Yeah, I expected her to actually do one tiny part of the job she wanted credit for. I’m such a bitch.”

“Nola! Are you okay, really?”

“I’m fine,” she said, her words clipped but still dripping in frustration. “Do you have a preference for where the next party is held? Or should I do everything and leave that small detail to Gabriela?” She felt a small measure of glee when the woman finally stomped off in a huff.

Brooks frowned at her but answered. “You know I don’t.”

Yeah, she knew he didn’t because Brooks so rarely attended any of those social events. He spent most of his free time criss-crossing the globe drumming up new business. “Great,” she said in a tone that indicated it was anything but.

Finally, Brooks ducked back into his office and she was left on her own. Finally. Sweetly. Twenty seconds later, she cursed her boss and friend for leaving his cup of ice cold coffee on the edge of her desk as her stomach heaved and she darted to the bathroom at the end of the hall.

When she returned to her desk, Nola groaned. It wasn’t even noon yet.

* * *

“You made my assistant cry.” The words felt odd on his tongue. Hell, he had a hard time believing Nola to be capable of making anyone cry, let alone a viper like Gabriela.

“Not my problem,” she told him dismissively, green eyes not bothering to look up at him.

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