Page 9 of Royal Bosshole

That is only because I have to.

“Well, come on,” she said, nodding to the door, her eyes still simmering with fire. “I guess we’ve got to do this tour before we get really into this argument. I don’t think your staff will enjoy hearing the newest employee and their boss having it out in the hallway.”

I frowned again, Lily Jones having surprised and confused me once more. She was strong, feisty, and she didn’t take any shit. But she didn’t get overly crazed about it like some people did. The fleeting thought came to me:she fights with class: austerely, logically, democratically.Thrown off guard, I went to open the door to the office.

“Yeah, let’s start.” I smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back.

“Oh, and by the way,” she said, turning back to look at me once we got inside. “Before we start, I have a few conditions of my own. Like an advance on my salary.”

“Hmm…” I said, not responding fully right away.

“Also, my business is my business. It remains as it is, and nothing involved there should be hindered by my work here. Or vice-versa.” She was watching me with barely concealed disdain.

I threw her my charming, ice-cold smile. “And what if I ask for your pumpkin-spiced latte recipe?”

“Not a chance in hell, buddy.”

Buddy?

She didn’t wait for my answer, having started walking away. I rushed to catch up with her. I was the one giving the tour, wasn’t I? Christ, this woman made me feel like three inches tall with a mere expression, and she knew what she wanted and how to ask for it. Hell if that didn’t turn me on just a little bit.

CHAPTER4

LILY

I waitedfor April at one of our favorite kombucha places. It was the thing those days, kombucha on tap. My fingers drummed along the wood of the bar, thinking about that afternoon. I’d just gotten out of the tour of Coffee on the Go headquarters, and my head was spinning.

Mostly because of how many people I’d met, and how much stuff I’d have to do. It had nothing to do with the super-hot man in the exquisitely tailored suit and perfectly gelled hair with an ass that kept me looking at it again and again, unable to focus.

Nothing to do with that at all.

“Thanks,” I said to the barman when he passed me my pint.

Pomegranate kombucha would save me, and maybe then I could start to think clearly again. The dream from last night hadn’t faded with the day, and talking to James with that hot accent, and seeing the way his suit pants clung to his ass, was just not helping my composure. And I was composed. I was always, always composed. I had to be with my life the way it was at the moment. Stevie worried and fretted and bounced about always looking concerned. I did not.

“Hey,” April said, kissing me on the cheek and then sliding into the seat next to me. She looked at the barman. “Mango juice, please.”

He nodded, and when he left to get her juice, April frowned. “It’s the worst that I can’t drink kombucha while pregnant.”

“Worse than no wine?” I asked, with a raspy laugh.

“Okay, no. That is much, much worse.” When her juice came, she clinked my glass. “So? How was it?”

“What?” I asked, taking a large sip of my drink before the fizz hit my throat and I started coughing.

April was just grinning at me. “That bad, huh?”

“No! It wasn’t bad,” I said, once I recovered. “It was fine.”

But as soon as the words left my mouth, I knew that April wouldn't leave them alone. We all knew what fine meant. Every woman on the planet knew what fine meant.

“Hmm,” she said. “Let me think. You were completely overcome by his hotness, and you couldn't focus on anything that he had to say to you.”

“That isn't fair.” I couldn’t think of anything else, and April started giggling.

“God, you have it bad, girl. And I get it. That boy ismui caliente,” she said, still laughing.

“Do not get all Spanish on me. It was fun. He came to the coffee shop. I told him that I was in for the job. He drank one of my pumpkin-spice lattes and loved it, and then we went to take the tour. We might have gotten in an argument along the way.

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