Page 23 of The Boss I Can't Stand
“I just want her to feel special on her wedding day. This isnotme being a pushover. That’s not me anymore. Look at all the arguments I’ve been having with Finn that I’ve been winning.”
I immediately regretted the words because Ro’s favorite topic of conversation lately involved teasing me about Finn.
“Ah, yes.” She shot me a kissy face. “We both know how standing up to Finn is going to end.”
I rolled my eyes. Ro liked to screw with me by insisting that all thearguments were some exaggerated form of foreplay. “You need to let this go.”
“I can’t. Not when the tension is that delicious.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Maybe you should start visiting his office after hours more.”
“If you mention me bent over his desk one more time,” I warned, “I’m going to change the locks.” I’d heard so many versions of Ro’s dirty fantasies of me and Finn lately that they were starting to seep into my dreams. And that was a no-go. “Finn’s my boss.Ourboss. I donotneed to be thinking of him in that way, thank you very much.”
Ro smirked. “You’re attracted to him. Admit it already.”
“I admit that he’s handsome,” I said, closing my bead tray. “By societal standards.” And by my standards, too. But while he might be good looking, that snarky, bossy personality should warn everyone to keep clear.
Of course, in my dreams, his mouth wasotherwise occupied, which made it a lot harder to remember why I found him so aggravating. Especially when dream-Finn did that thing with his tongue…
“Sure,” Ro said, doing air quotes. “Societal standards.”
“What does it matter anyway?” I said, pushing dream-Finn’s tongue aside. “A guy like Finn would never look twice at someone like me. Not when he’s had a woman like Violet Stone on his arm.”
“Someone like you? You mean someone talented and gorgeous and kickass?” Ro said. “He’d be lucky for you to look his way, and he knows it.”
That was delusional thinking. “Honestly, the only person in Finn’s office who cares about me in any way is Brenna. I think she must be the one who’s been ordering me dinner every night I’ve stayed late.”
I’d stayed late my first day to create a mockup of the costume double I’d pitched to Finn after his mom and X had gotten in a fight over authenticity versus movie magic. He’d been suitably impressed and it was after midnight by the time I made it home, but I’d wanted the costumes to look perfect before presenting it to X for his approval.
“Aww,” Ro said. “What a sweetheart. That girl needs a raise.”
“Abso-freakin-lutely. That’s what I keep telling her.”
August has crept up on me too quickly, I thought, glancing at the giant calendar we’d taped to the wall, counting down the days remaining to finish the costumes. The end of preproduction was just around the corner and, as always, there were daily hiccups causing delays in our progress, forcing me to spend another late night in the costume shop hunched over the industrial sewing machine.
“Work, you piece of—” The machine buzzed, zipping through the material I fed through it. “Now is not the time to be temperamental.”
I pulled the pair of pants off the machine and tried to unpick more of the stitching Trin had accidentally botched. It was purely from inexperience, and thankfully not an impossible fix. If we’d had more time in the schedule, I would have encouraged her to give it another go. Ripping stitches and starting over was how you learned the ropes in this business. Unfortunately, we didn’t have that kind of time, so I’d taken over the fix myself. I shoved the fabric back under the presser foot, but it wouldn’t lower, locked in an open position.
“C’mon,” I muttered, giving the machine a whack and hoping it would release itself.
“Maybe you should try being a little nicer to it.”
I gasped, jamming my heel down on the foot pedal as the presser foot dropped, sending the machine flying across the fabric.Shit. I wheeled around, eyes narrowed, ready to lay into Finn for ruining something that was taking forever to fix, but the words died on my tongue.
He stood there, as suave as ever, holding a plate of food. It looked exactly like the plates of food that had been magically showing up since I’d started staying late.
“Why do you have that?” I asked.
He shrugged. “The person from craft services who usually handles the deliveries already went home.”
“So you offered to bring it over?” I eyed him suspiciously. That didn’t sound like Finn Lockhart. At all.
He set the plate down on a table. “Are you actually complaining about being fed?”
“…No,” I admitted reluctantly, turning back to the pants that had just been munched by the machine. “I’m too stressed to complain about anything right now. But I’ll try to remember tomorrow.” I reached for another RevX, cracking the can open and taking a sip.
“Really?” Finn said. “More of that poison?”
I tipped the can in his direction. “It’s poisonyousupplied me with.”
