Page 6 of Bigfoot Boss
“Next time, I am going to need you to take actual notes, Ms. Thorn.”
“Of course, of course!” I insist. My stomach flips. I’m not in trouble at all?
“Just—send an email to Pleasant’s assistant, Kara. Ask her to share her notes with you.”
“Absolutely!” I breathe in a deep sigh of relief. “I mean, yes, sir.”
There’s another twitch in his jaw. I can’t stop myself from grinning. I can’t believe he isn’t going to fire me. He’s supposed to be a monster that no one can get along with, and here heis, laughing at my joke and letting me off the hook. I might be developing a little crush on him.
When I get back to my desk, I have an email from Chris in IT. He wants to set up a date for Saturday. I don’t think he’s going to be the one, but it’s a nice distraction from the guy I’m more interested in.
4
RANDOM HIPSTER
Sacha
Magnes Loch strolls into my office without any preamble, ducking his long green neck to clear the door frame. The human-sized plesiosaur is wearing a dark gray suit—his usual color of choice—with an emerald button-down shirt under it. It compliments his scaly yellow-green skin.
The suit is a custom Brooks Brothers. I know because there’s only one decent tailor in town who can make a suit for an odd body shape like one of ours, and both Ness and I use him.
Back in college—when Cryptech was just a start-up—Magnes, Pleasant and I could make do with t-shirts and whichever pair of pants we found in extra-tall, but these days, we have to look good to be taken seriously by humans. I don’t mind the buttoned-up look, but Magnes really thrives in it. He was meant to be rich; he’s so comfortable with the advantages that come with this life.
“New assistant? Again?” Magnes asks in his thick Scottish brogue. He still hasn’t dropped the accent since he moved to America after the Decrypting.
I grunt a non-response from my sport behind my desk. “She’s a temp. Just got here today.”
“She’s bonnie.” The Scottish bastard twists his neck completely over his shoulder to peer through the door. I feel my blood pressure rise.
“Stay away from her, Ness,” I say without thinking. For a talking dinosaur, he’s always found it easy to sleep with humans. His accent, money and fashion sense seem capable of seducing any type of woman. He had a fate-mate once, but since Caddy left him, neither my heart nor my memory can keep up with the bevy of partners that sweep through his bedroom.
The dinosaur’s head jerks back to me, and he raises one smooth eyebrow. The jerk has the gall to smirk. “Feeling possessive, are we?”
“No.”
He folds his large frame into one of my chairs. He’s technically a few inches taller than me, if you include his neck, but his limbs and torso are closer in scale to a human man. “You can be distracted after we close the Illiad deal.”
“I’m not distracted,” I reiterate.
“It’s the biggest account we’ve ever had. It could double our capital.” He continues the conversation as he pulls out his phone and uses his large green fingers to unlock the screen. Face recognition technology doesn’t always work with his odd physiology.
“I’m the fucking CFO, I know what the stakes are.”
“Double the capital means double the pussy.” Ness grins lasciviously at his phone. “Until this is finished, I need you on your A-game, buddy.”
“I’m fine,” I snap. “I’m not you.”
“Obviously.” Ness snorts. “I know how to handle myself around women I want to fuck.”
I hiss at him to be quiet. “I don’t—” I stop, stepping past him and crossing to the door between my office and Bay’s alcove. I reach for the handle and catch her eye; she gives me a gut-wrenching smile. Her blue eyes brighten, and her cheeks plump up as she grins.
I feel my face struggling to respond correctly. I hope she can’t see the lust battling with sheer excitement in my brain. I barely know the woman, but my inner beast roars when she looks at me.
“You were saying, Sacha?” Ness laughs.
I close the door and whirl at my company co-owner.
“I don’t want to fuck her,” I hiss, hoping she won’t hear past the door.
