Page 1 of The Guy Who Became My Grumpy Boss

Chapter 1

-Jessica-

The last thing I’d expected to find today was a storage unit that had literally been made into a creepy village of vintage dollhouses. Complete with eerie old dolls and plenty of spiderwebs.

“That one is staring at me.” My friend, Ashley, pointed.

“Let me finish getting pictures and we can close it,” I said. Not that I wanted photos of the beautiful but downright chill-inducing scene before us, but this way we wouldn’t have to open the unit again until we were ready to sell something.

The others jumped in to help, and in a matter of minutes, we’d captured everything.

“The dolls could be worth a lot of money,” Teresa said as Ashley pulled the door down and locked it.

Teresa’s husband, Marcus, snorted. “Areyougoing to put them up for sale?”

That got him a slap on the shoulder. “No way. I already feel iffy about just having some images of them on my phone.”

The others laughed.

Today was the first time in months that we’d been able to get more than two of us together in the same location. Brooke and William were in New York (him on business and her to look at wedding stuff for their upcoming marriage), Teresa and Marcus were here from Boston visiting a friend, and Ashley and Natelived nearby.

The other three members of the Curvy Girl Crew—and their respective boyfriends or husbands—lived in Alaska or were in Europe.

Our fun, bonding activity of buying random storage units and filming as we opened them, then putting it up on our YouTube channel, had become an organizational nightmare. There were a lot of factors to this, but if I had to sum it up, I’d say that we’d outgrown it.

The other six girls had met a special someone. They were all either married or engaged. Juggling seven grown, successful women’s schedules had been challenging, but I’d been able to manage it. Toss in six men, dating, and marriage, and getting four of us together today had been a miracle of biblical proportions.

“Good job finding this one,” Teresa said to Brooke.

Brooke, who was here from Texas, grinned. “He picked it out.”

Her fiancé—billionaire investor and ranch enthusiast—William shook his head. “I should have asked you guys just to send me a picture. I can’t unsee that.”

This wasn’t the first time that one of the guys had chosen the storage unit for us to open, but today it made me bristle.

We were the Curvy Girl Crew. We hadn’t started out with a club meeting and a list of rules written in crayon on a paper plate, but we were six women who had met via an online weight loss program. Teresa, who was our only thin participant, had been Nanette’s roommate, and we’d gladly taken her in.

The Crew had never been about excluding men. It had never been about the fact that all of us had been single when we’d met. So why was I bugged that the boys were getting more and more involved?

It’s not like I didn’t like the guys. I actually enjoyed all ofthem. Each had their own quirks, and each of them treated my friends like they were royalty.

“You okay?” William asked.

Brooke’s fiancé had become a good friend to us all, but he’d started taking the time to visit me whenever he was in town. Brooke probably made him do it, but I appreciated it anyway. For being a billionaire businessman, he was surprisingly attuned to people’s feelings.

“Uh, fine.” I smiled. I cursed myself for getting distracted. No wonder he’d asked about my welfare; I’d stopped halfway through putting the recording equipment away.

He frowned at me, and I waved my hand. “Just trying to figure out how to put the video together.”

Brooke, our short, sassy Texan, sauntered over to her man. She slipped her hand into the crook of William’s arm but spoke to me. “Have you thought more about what we should do for the channel?” Her southern drawl only added to her adorable nature, and no one would ever guess that she’d likely fixed a barbed wire fence or wrestled a cow the day before.

I shrugged as I zipped up my bag. “I’ve thought about it.”

“You know, William can pay to fly any of us to the locations we want to be at together.” She gave him a smile. “First class.” She winked at me. “We could do it on the weekends. Even the Alaska crew could get here and be back in time for their work week.”

I looked at William. “Did she talk to you about this, or is this the first you’re hearing of it?”

He ducked his head. “It was my idea.”

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