Page 38 of Bossy Trouble

“No, I’ve lost my taste for that particular brand of coffee.” He finally looked up at me, and there was a trace of a smile on his lips. “Something about having it cold and nearly gagging knocked the craving right out of me.”

I smirked. “Yeah, well, next time, you might want to consider the hour of your consumption.”

“Noted.”

“So, do you want me to get you another type of coffee?”

He shook his head, turning back to the paper. “Don’t worry about it. Kenny will take care of that from now on.”

“Kenny?”

“My driver.”

My good humor disappeared. “Wait, you have a driver, and you made me take an Uber halfway across town to get coffee for you?”

“Of course. I couldn’t make Kenny do that. Man has a family to take care of.”

My eyebrows went the rest of the way up my hairline.Did Mr. You-treat-your-employees-too-well just admit to slightly inconveniencing himself just so his employee could spend time with his family? Was he confessing to having a heart now?

“I have a daughter,” I mentioned wryly.

“I didn’t know that then. But I know that now, so you don’t have to get coffee for me anymore.”

“Oh.” I wasn’t expecting that and didn’t know quite how to respond. “Thanks?”

He looked up again, this time tapping a pen on the table. “You don’t look so sure about your gratitude.”

“Oh, I am. I’m just…confused. Because, you know, you gave me that whole speech about how I needed to be firm and strict with my employees, and well, look at you, putting yourself out for one of yours.”

“Being firm doesn’t mean being heartless,” he said. “Plus, Kenny is a good driver. Those are hard to find these days.”

“Right.” Of course, it would make sense that Donovan was only being nice in a calculated effort to retain his best employees. But somehow, I didn’t think that was all there was to that story.

“I need you to send over these documents to sales.” He handed me the report he’d been going through. “They need to edit it and send it back. And then you need to go meet with the Moniche warehouse manufacturing and make sure everything is going on well.”

“I already met with them,” I told him. “Before you took over. We’re ready for production. They’re likely a bit confused about the shift in ownership, though.”

“Tell them it’s a mutual agreement. You would essentially still be running the day-to-day operations in addition to your work here, assisting me.”

“I can do that,” I said, nodding. It sounded stressful, but I couldn’t think of anything I wanted to do more.

“Good.” Donovan smiled. “Set up a meeting with everyone important. I would like to see them in person myself so that we can get all their questions squared away and let them know how things will be running from now.”

“Alright. Anything else?”

“No, that’s it for now. Check-in before lunchtime.”

“Roger.” I headed out to do my duties.

Still, as I worked, the strangeness of the morning kept bugging me. Donovan was weirdly calm, especially after the explosiveness of last night. I expected something more today. Maybe for him to dial up the snark. I thought his pride would be hurt after I turned him down, or he would try even more slick moves to get me.

But he didn’t do any of that.

Instead, for the rest of the day, he treated me with the same regard as he did with any other employee. He didn’t give me useless tasks that only wasted my time, didn’t make me interact with Ellen, and let me leave work when he had no more tasks for me, which coincidentally happened to be around 3 p.m. when Avery would be done with kindergarten.

Except I didn’t actually think it was a coincidence.

Donovan was being extremely nice to me.

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