Page 2 of My Forbidden Boss

Maddy doesn’t mind when I help Mom to bed and make sure she’s comfortable. She helps me with the dishes and comes with me to the laundromat. She even helps carry bags back from the grocery store. She said she would check in with Mom and tell me how she is.

My gut sinks, filled with thousands of sharp-sided stones. I clench my fist over my stomach and lean against the sink. I take a deep breath, as though that will stop the stones digging into my gut.

I can do this.

I don’t have a choice.

At least the thrift store hair dryer works. I do my best. I’ve never had to get ready like this before. School socials? Didn’t turn up. Prom? Not on your life. Dates? Non existent. Guys at Moss Creek think poverty is a disease.

When I’m finished, my straightened hair falls to my shoulders. I pat down the blond flyaways and reach for the mascara. It’s all the makeup I own. I apply, blinking at my darkened lashes. They’ve always been long, but now they stand out, making my blue eyes pop.

I’ll keep the noodles for dinner tonight, so there’s nothing stopping me from sliding my feet into second hand pumps and grabbing my purse. I hope it doesn’t appear too scratched and worn. I head for the door, hoping my belongings, such as they are, will still be here when I return. With a building like this, I’m not sure. At least the bed is bolted to the floor, so I’ll have the frame to sleep on at the very least.

My cell rings inside my purse as I step onto the sidewalk. The air slices through my clothing and I silently curse that I couldn’t find a coat at the Moss Creek thrift shop, but the voice on the other end of the phone makes my blood boil enough to ward off the chill.

“Don’t be late for your first day.”

I bustle along the sidewalk to keep warm and bite my tongue to stop myself from spewing words I want to say. “I’m on my way now.”

Max, my father, grunts. “I pulled a lot of strings for you.”

He pulled strings for himself. If it were up to me, I’d be back in Moss Creek looking after Mom and flipping burgers. It’s not a flash life, but I never pretended to be anything I wasn’t.

Until now.

“I told you I know nothing about working in an office,” I say. Part of me hopes he’ll stop this level of stupidity, that he’ll laugh off the past week, tell me this is all a joke and actually help us the way he always should have.

He presses on. The joke continues but I’m not laughing. “The only job you have is to get me what I want, then you get what you want.”

He makes it out like I’m some sort of gold-digger, that I’m challenging him for his immense fortune, none of which I’ve seen. All I want is for Mom to be pain free and have a roof over our heads. Maybe even a decent meal now and then. Basic things. Things he’s using against me.

“I don’t know where to look.” Or what I should look for. I’ve never stepped foot in an office, let alone one the likes of One Vanderbilt. I don’t assume the wood-paneled wood office at Bob’s is anything like where I’m headed.

“Work it out. Don’t make me wait.” The dial tone sounds in my ear.

I curse him. I curse the angels and I curse god in heaven for allowing men like that the ability to breed.

If I could afford a cab, I’d grab one. As that’s something to be wished for, along with owning a Californian bungalow, wearing Jimmy Choos, and eating meat that hasn’t been ground or processed to the point of being plastic, I set it aside. It takes me a while to walk the New York city blocks, and by the time I reach the foyer of One Vanderbilt I’m warm enough despite my red nose and frozen fingers and toes. I make a mental note to visit some more thrift stores over the weekend as I walk to the elevators and make myself appear like I belong.

I step inside, alongside office workers buried in calf length coats and sturdy shoes, and press floor forty nine. My stomach growls and I stare at the wall, pretending it isn’t me. I smooth my hair, hoping the damp won’t make it too frizzy now it’s gotten wet, and brush it off my shoulders. Hopefully, the building will be warm inside and it won’t take me long to dry off. Now I’ve stopped walking the cold is seeping into my bones.

Hopefully, when my father said he’d ‘worked everything out,’ it meant that this lie was believable. Hopefully, David Chandler won’t take one glance at me and call the employment agency for the person he actually hired. Hopefully, he won’t and ring the police, because I was well aware what I was doing was illegal. Hopefully, my guilt isn’t plastered across my forehead.

The elevator pings open and I step onto plush carpet and an interior that screams wealth and what-the-hell-are-you-doing-here. On my left, a large floor to ceiling window frames New York, stretched below and filled with possibilities and places to disappear.

A long reception desk made from natural materials and hidden lighting looms before me, behind which a brunette with perfect red lips sits, turning her mouth down at me. Her gaze flits across me from head to toe and I know she sees me. Sees the small town girl way out of her depth.

“May I help you?” Her voice remains professional. Stretched, but warm enough not to contain icicles. I give her two minutes for frozen blades to appear.

Big Sky is etched into the wall in large blue letters with electric blue lighting behind her. The sign is a statement, and, in those words, I read my doom.

This is all wrong. I don’t belong here. The woman is years older than me. She looks like she should be here. She looks like she knows what she’s doing. As though she deserves her employment, to look good, to wear those clothes and to be behind that desk. I’m a fake. And she knows it.

What was I thinking? That I could waltz in, strut my stuff and do a job I know nothing about? That the second someone sees me, they won’t do what everyone else has done and kick me to the curb because there’s no freaking way I’m anything like this woman?

I should not be here. I’ll find another way to help Mom. I just haven’t found it yet.

“I’m sorry, I should go. I, uh…” I step back, wishing I’d also found lipstick with the mascara at the very least and my back collides with something broad, warm and hard.

---