Page 6 of Forbidden Boss (Manhattan Billionaires)

“How did the call with Garcia go?” asked my chief operating officer, Cole Christianson, naming the designer behind the perfume bottle that had been destroyed earlier today. He reclined in the seating area across from my desk, one arm thrown across the back of the black leather couch.

I grimaced. “He wasn’t happy. It’ll take two months to get a replacement bottle of that size. We’ll try to use CGI to get the campaign over the line, but he’s old school. I think he’ll want us to reshoot it, which will push back the launch.”

“Old school,” Cole repeated with a snort. “I’m guessing that’s why they filled the thing with actual perfume instead of dyed water?”

A sigh slipped through my lips. “We talked about water when we initially pitched the idea, but he said the light refracts through perfume differently. He insisted on the real thing.”

“So CGI is definitely not going to work, but we’re going to have to spend the money to try.”

“Basically, yeah.”

“I’m guessing the chick who caused this has been fired?”

I’d met Cole about a decade earlier. He’d been working on Wall Street making more money than he knew what to do with, but he was bored. My company, at the time, was going through its first big growth spurt. I considered it a coup to convince him to work for me at the time, and that sentiment hadn’t changed. He was detail-oriented in work and in his personal life, all the way down to the way he matched his socks to his outfit and made sure his beard and hair were trimmed twice a week.

As I watched him lean back, crossing his legs at the ankle, I wondered how long it would take for him to move on from this company. He wasn’t a sentimental man, and I was sure he could see the sharks circling around us.

“She’s been let go,” I confirmed. “Ophelia made it happen this afternoon.”

“At least you were able to tell Garcia that.”

“He doesn’t care,” I answered, shaking my head. “All he cares about is art.”

“Is that what we’re calling the giant glass dick we’ve been advertising?”

I huffed, unable to stop myself from thinking of the dark-haired beauty we’d just fired—the only other person who’d called a spade a spade—and done it to my face.

Well. She’d been behind the protection of a steel door at the time, but she still said what no one else had.

But she was gone now, and I couldn’t afford to give her one more moment of my time, even in my thoughts.

This perfume campaign was crucial. I couldn’t afford to mess up. Making sure Garcia was happy with our performance would help us get one step nearer to closing the deal with the other whale in the cosmetics industry: Wilbur Monk. The billionaire owner had been flirting with us for eighteen months about taking over their advertising work for half a dozen of his subsidiary companies. The contract would be worth nine figures. It would lift us out of shark-infested waters and see us through the next few years. I needed that contract—badly.

Which meant I needed the distraction of a woman with red-painted lips and ebony hair like a hole in the head. But she was gone now. Away from this building and away from me. I wouldn’t have to worry about feeling her weight in my arms again or having any more of my shirts ruined with bleeding gashes caused by stray shards of glass.

That was a good thing. Everything would be okay.

After a deep breath, I felt calmer.

A chime sounded. Cole checked his phone and let out a soft grunt. “Monk confirmed he’s attending the children’s hospital fundraiser next week.”

I groaned, and Cole laughed.

“Guess I have to go now,” I said, grimacing as I jiggled my mouse to wake my computer up. I checked my calendar, only to see that my assistant, Clara, had already scheduled the event in. I scanned the screen and saw more events—dinners, galas, garden parties—sprinkled into every available slot. Monk would be at most of them, and winning his business would mean my attendance would be mandatory.

Sometimes I really hated my job.

“Got a plus-one?” Cole asked with a broad grin.

I gave him a dark look. “You know I haven’t.”

Cole hummed. “Monk won’t like that.”

“What I do in my personal life has nothing to do with him. We’ll win the contract because we’re the best advertising agency in the city. Not because I have a hot date to every social event he attends with his wife.”

Cole put his palms up, backing off. “Fine. I was just saying.”

Gritting my teeth, I glared at the calendar. The worst of it was, Cole was right. Wilbur Monk had just celebrated his fiftieth wedding anniversary. His wife was his muse and had been since before he’d started working in cosmetics. He credited Roseanne with all his success.

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