Page 1 of Hard on the Boss

One

William

“Just so you know I’m dreading this.”

“I know you are. You are going though?”

“I’m pulling up now.” I exhale deeply. It comes out more grumble than out-breath. Not used to talking much, not even to my agent. I’ve become something of a recluse ever since…well. Let’s just call it theincident.

I am not a big believer in fate—I believe we make our own destiny. That few things that happen in life are out of our control. This…incident…however, was something that very distinctly happened to me.

It was five years ago. And after that shit train was over, I packed everything I owned and moved where I could be on my own, deep in the woods in a cabin that became my refuge as well as permanent home.

I liked my new life, isolated up on the mountain. Liked it a lot actually.

I was doing quite all right until about three years later—two years ago—when I was offered a book deal. Some hotshot publisher wanted my take on the incident, which I passed up to write my own damn book. It was time for me to do something meaningful anyhow. I finished that story in a year. My story. Not a tell-all, fiction.

And then I got the surprise of my life, a movie deal.

Second surprise I should say. This one being more well received than the first.

Ever since then, it’s been one thing after another. I’m being asked about for book tours, autographs, and most recently to be the keynote speaker at a splashy writers’ conference in Washington. Evidently I am a “success.” My agent uses a different word—famous—but I’m not partial to that one. She thinks the keynote will be good for me but insisted I get some help with my…what’d she call it, manners.

Or lack thereof.

I cut the engine. “Why couldn’t we do this over the phone?” I ask my agent, Alexandria, as I make my way up to the restaurant where I’m having dinner with the prospective etiquette coach.

“Ms. Marin wanted to meet you in person.”

“Ah. She’s interviewing me, then.”

“No…” Her voice dips, dripping with sarcasm.

“You tell her her work’s cut out for her?” I chuckle.

“Did I ever,” Alexandria teases back.

I hold open the door for an elderly couple, then step in after them.

I swing my gaze around the restaurant. Yeah, it’s bougie AF in here. I already feel like I stick out like a sore thumb. I’m no stranger to the feeling like you don’t belong, like you’re set apart for this reason or that, all your life. I don’t love the feeling but I don’t dislike it either. Once you stop caring altogether what other people say or do or think you manifest this certain feeling.

This…peace.

“What’s she look like?” I ask.

“Mid-twenties, pretty. Long blonde hair, probably seated with her back to you so that you can have the view of the door—William?”

I barely hear Alexandria though. My gaze is hyper-tuned to the movement across the room, those wheat-gold waves swishing over, revealing a slender, pink nape. Then slowly, as if she can sense my presence from across the dining room, the brightest blue eyes I’ve ever seen slide over her shoulder and land on mine.

It’s hard to explain what happens next. Even for me—a writer. So I will lean on every cliché in the book. A shock to my senses. A magnetic pull. A punch to the heart from Cupid’s arrow.

All that shit, and then some more. Something, something telling me that she is the woman I’m here to see, and that she is for me.

“William,” my agent’s voice tersely cuts back in through the sudden static that’s filling up my head, as if there’s a dial in my medulla that slipped a turn, right then left cranking forward and back, tuning in and out of thoughts gingerly then desperately until I am channeling reality once again, however reluctant.

Aw yeah—now there are some words I like.

“She’s my baby sister-in-law, don’t forget.”

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