Page 10 of Enemy Boss

She trails off, leaving the rest unsaid. Having her here is the last thing I want. The attraction between us is still obvious, but so is the dislike. I don’t want someone so uptight working for me, and I certainly don’t want a secretary who dislikes me as intensely as Max does. But I do need a secretary and I haven’t bothered contacting the agency since my mom gave me this solution, and I can’t exactly let her go without my mom asking why and me having to admit to her that it was because I have slept with her, and it made things uncomfortable would be too much.

I find myself nodding my head.

“I’ll give you a chance,” I say. “But like I told my mom, your connection to her got you in the door. It won’t keep you here. You have to be able to do the job to my standards to remain here.”

“That won’t be a problem,” she says. “I have no issues keeping my personal and professional life separate.”

“Good,” I say. “You’ve done this kind of job before?”

I know she has, but I want to hear more about it. Max nods her head and tells me about her last role. If anything, it sounds more involved than what she will be doing here, and I am confident she will do just fine.

“Lisa goes on her leave next Friday,” I tell her. “That gives her two weeks to show you how our systems work and what not. Will you be ready to hit the ground running?”

She nods her head and I lift up my desk phone receiver and call through to Lisa.

“Can you come into my office for a moment?” I say.

“Sure,” Lisa replies.

She ends the call and a second later, she is tapping on my office door. I call for her to come in and she does, smiling questioningly at me.

“Do you need something?” she says.

“Lisa, meet Lucy, Lucy, this is Lisa,” I say. The two women smile at each other, and I turn my attention back to Lisa. “Lucy will be filling in for you while you are on maternity leave. She has experience of this kind of role so you will only really need to train her on company specific software and our routine, that kind of thing.”

“Ok,” Lisa says. She smiles at Lucy again. “Let’s get you set up on the system first and then we’ll go from there.”

Lucy stands up, ready to follow Lisa out of my office.

“If either of you need anything, let me know,” I say. “Oh, and Lucy? The most important thing you need to know is coffee, cream no sugar.”

I stop myself from smiling as I see Max bristle. She is going to absolutely hate having to bring me coffee and run my errands for me and what not, but unfortunately for her, it’s a part of her job, and if it gives me a little bit of pleasure to ask her to do those things, well that just makes it a little bit more interesting doesn’t it.

When the two women have left my office and the door has been pulled closed behind them, I wait a moment to give them a chance to get to Lisa’s desk in case one of them comes back for something. When I’m sure they have gone, I turn to my computer and reluctantly sign into my hardly used Facebook account. I type the name Lucy Granger into the search bar and hundreds of results pop up. Only half a dozen or so have mutual friends and I spot Max in the profile picture of one of them. I click into it and begin to scroll.

Max’s profile isn’t private, and I can see all of her posts and pictures. She doesn’t seem to post anything too private or controversial, hence the lack of privacy on the profile I suppose but she has posted some funny memes that I can’t help smiling at, and even more so, I can’t help smiling at her photos. There are photos of her with her friends on nights out and holidays, and there are selfies where she’s pouting and others where she’s laughing, presumably at herself for doing the pout pose.

I spot her standing on the beach in a skimpy orange bikini, her hair blowing out behind her and the sea in the background and my heart skips a beat. God this woman is absolutely gorgeous, and the irony of the situation is not lost on me. I am finally feeling ready to find a partner and settle down and this beautiful creature comes into my life for the second time, but as gorgeous as she is, I really fucking dislike her.

Chapter 8

Max

I’m still reeling as I sit down beside Lisa at her desk and watch as she logs in to her email account and types out a message to the IT department asking them to create logins for me to access all the company’s programs. Once she’s sent it, she starts showing me some of the programs she uses. I’m familiar with most of them, but a few are company specific, and I pay particular attention to those, although I have to admit that I’m finding it hard to concentrate on much of anything right now except for the fact that I have somehow managed to get myself employed by Cullen of all people. Honestly, it’s something if someone else told me, I wouldn’t believe it was a genuine coincidence. I thought shit like this only happened in movies but nope, here I am, starring in nothing but my disastrous life.

I couldn’t believe it when I walked into his office and saw him sat there. I almost just turned around and walked back out again. Maybe I should have. But I seem to like torturing myself. And it seems that the universe is happy to comply with me on that one. I mean, come on. Out of every single person in the world, like seriously, what are the chances of me ending up working for the one guy I had a one night stand with who pretty much called me a slut afterwards?

If it wasn’t for the fact that I am a week or two away from being absolutely broke and not being able to even make my rent, I would have turned around and walked out right there and then. But of course, the universe hates me so that wasn’t an option. And to make things even worse, of course I still fancy the ass off of Cullen. I know he’s not a nice person and he appears charming until after he gets what he wants and then he shows his true nature, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t hot to look at. It’s just one more level of ridiculous in my life. The one guy I really fancy is a total douchebag and I know it, and yet I am still sitting here remembering how good his cock felt inside of me.

Walking into his office brought back a flood of memories and for a second, I felt like I was right back there on that night, like I wanted to walk around the desk, straddle Cullen on his chair and have him fuck me into oblivion. As nice as that does sound, there’s no way I am going to let myself go there with him again. I don’t care how good looking he is, or how good his body looks in his suit. I don’t care that he made me orgasm in a way I didn’t even think was possible. I don’t care that he made my body sing in a way I haven’t felt before or since being with him. I am not going there again. Never ever.

“Lucy? Are you ok?” Lisa asks from beside me.

I nod my head. I realize I wasn’t really listening to her, that I had drifted off into a world of my own, but the program she is talking about is one I’ve used a lot and I know it inside and out, so I don’t think I’ll have missed anything important. She’s looking at me strangely though and I feel like I need to say something.

“I’m fine why?” I say.

Lisa shakes her head.

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