Page 1 of One Bossy Disaster

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A Little Misunderstanding (Shepherd)

Some people just don’t know how to keep things simple.

I lean back with a scowl that’s melting my face, the executive leather chair creaking under me as I watch the latest sludge interview on my tablet.

My blood pressure is already surging to levels that will make my doctor yell at me.

Some peopledo notknow how to keep things fucking simple.

We were business associates.Professionals.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Vanessa Dumas promised me from day one of this stupid arrangement that she was unfussy. Uncomplicated. Oh so easy to work with.

She was, to the best of my knowledge, a smart woman with an eye for strategy who understood our mutual potential to lend each other a hand.

Yeah.

Everything I thought I knew was dead wrong.

She doesn’t know the meaning of the wordprofessional.

On the screen, it’s the typical gaudy crap. The interview room is plush with a red sofa and white walls and a hostess with a giddy smile like she’s just walked onto the set after three shots of vodka.

The blonde hostess—Martha Rubina—is clearly doing her damnedest to prevent age from stampeding all over her face with plumped lips and an artificially tight forehead.

Opposite her, Vanessa has made a special effort for this spectacle. Curling her hair, wearing too much stoplight-red lipstick.

She licks her lips as her gaze flicks at the camera and then away nervously.

Fake nervously.

“So, can you tell us how it all started with Shepherd Foster?” Martha asks, leaning forward like Vanessa’s answer is the most interesting thing since Al Gore invented the internet.

It’ll be a lie, of course.

I’ve read the headlines.

Not that good old Martha will mind.

She wants a story, viral links, and water cooler talk for the next week, and Vanessa knows how to deliver.

“Oh,” Vanessa says breathily. A voice she never bothered using with me when she knew that airy, giggly shit wasn’t my thing.

Hell, she knewshewasn’t my thing.

Our 'relationship' was a casual forgery from day one—I made that clear from the outset.

I needed a plus-one to shut up the press and fend off swarms of real single women.

She needed a lifeline with my connections, and the networking at the various events I’m obliged to attend were perfect. Preferably without a thousand nasty rumors swirling in my wake.

I thought I had a woman on my arm who would dissuade the real gold diggers and shit-rakers from the tabloids, and she had her chance to send her career into the stratosphere.

Win-win—or so I thought.

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