Page 25 of The Guy Who Became My Grumpy Boss

But, before that, I needed to speak with our CEO, Amelia. I contacted her personal assistant, who said he would have her call me back within the hour.

My desk phone barely got the first ring out before I picked it up.

“This is Peter.”

“Peter. This is Amelia.” Unlike so many CEOs in the city, who were serious and ruthless, Amelia loved to laugh and have fun. She could also be cutthroat—as demonstrated by her crippling, then acquiring two other investment companies over the past two years—but whenever she could avoid being serious, she did.

“You’ve heard about the retreat?” I asked.

“Tyrell brought me up to speed about an hour ago. He said you would have some ideas for me by the end of the day.”

“Correct, but I’d like to ask you if you have any expectations for our activities?”

“Something fun,” she said.

I needed more, so I mentally flipped through the list of questions I’d compiled for this conversation. “Is there anything you’d rather not do?”

“Nothing stupid.”

That didn’t help. “What about cooperation? Is that an aspect that you’d like to have us include?”

“Of course.”

She didn’t offer more, so I asked, “Escape rooms?”

“Too small, and one or two people end up doing all the work.” She sounded like she wanted to elaborate, so I waited. “People often react better to activities like this when they feel like it’s helping someone else. So maybe a service component?”

I could work with that. “Anything else?”

“Make sure it’s fun.”

A voice that I couldn’t understand sounded from her end of the line, and she said, “I have to go. Get me your ideas by the end of the day.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I hung up and rubbed my brow where I could feel the tension building into a headache.

I needed to relax, and since there were no flowers to arrange, I did the next best thing, I brought up the Curvy Girl Crew’s YouTube channel and watched them open a storage unit in Boston. There were six other women, but the only one I had eyes for was Jessica.

She smiled and laughed and acted like a freer version of herself than she did here in the office.

Could I have that in my life? The ability to feel free?

When the video ended, I closed my eyes and prepared myself for my next meeting.

Before I opened the note app on my laptop to start listing questions, my cell phone buzzed. I almost let out a groan when I saw it was Marissa.

According to her parents, who had flown in late the night before, Marissa was still on extremely potent pain killers and had been in and out of sleep since they’d arrived.

Apparently, she’d woken up.

What could she want? My mind reached out like a search engine, trying to figure out what we would talk about so I could prepare.

I felt as if I was working with slow speed internet, because my thoughts wouldn’t connect properly.

The phone kept buzzing.

I almost let it go to voice mail, but what if she had information about the retreat that I needed? I should probably take the call.

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