I felt my jaw unhinging and bit my lip to keep my mouth shut.
“I appreciate your assistance in this matter, Mrs. Vaughn.” He ended the call and returned the phone to his pocket. “You can take as much time as you need getting ready, Miss Lauren. Thanks to you, no B-level or C-level employee is allowed to leave this building until this meeting is finished, so it’s up to you whether people get to go home and enjoy the rest of their day, or whether they get to be a part of some game you’re attempting to play with your far-more skilled boss.”
Son of a bitch …
I stood there, glaring at him—hating that my nipples were hardening under my tank top.
“Would you like some help getting dressed?” he asked, looking down and noticing my body’s reaction to him. He gently tugged the strap of my tank top. “I’m not opposed to helping you take this off at all.”
Shamefully wet, I stepped back and stormed out of the room.
He’d won this round, hands down. But I would definitely win the next.
The next morning, I leaned back in my office chair—hitting ignore on my phone each time Preston called me.
After ten straight rejections, he walked into my office and narrowed his eyes at me.
“May I help you with something, Preston?”
“Preston?” He raised his eyebrow.
“Oh, that’s right. Am I supposed to call you ‘Mr. Parker’ if we’re in the office?”
“I would prefer that, since no other executive employees are allowed to do otherwise.”
“Okay. Well, I’ll try to remember that for next time, Preston.” I shrugged. “How may I help you this morning?”
“It’s the goddamn afternoon.”
“Is it?” I smiled and turned around in my chair, looking up at the clock. “It is two o’clock, isn’t it? Wow, time is really flying these days.”
“Miss Lauren …”
“Yes?” I spun around to face him again. “You were saying you needed me to do something?”
“For starters, since you’ve given the interns unauthorized time off and you were beyond late again, you can go to Sweet Seasons and get me some afternoon coffee.”
“I don’t think so. You don’t need Sweet Seasons coffee anymore,” I said, standing up and walking over to my beverage cabinet. “I have something even better and faster for you.” I rolled out the mini Keurig I never got the chance to use, and I could literally feel him losing his shit as I plugged it into the wall.
“This takes like two minutes to heat up, and the coffee is usually ready seconds after that,” I said, opening a package of cheap Colombian-like coffee pods. “And I know how particular you are about the chocolate drop that Sweet Seasons places at the bottom of every cup, so …” I unwrapped a Hershey’s kiss and dropped it into a paper cup. “There.”
I placed the cup on the brewing plate and hit start. “Now that you’re seconds away from enjoying some ‘just like’ Colombian coffee, what else do you need me to do for you?”
The vein in his neck swelled, but he kept his expression stoic. “After you go to Sweet Seasons and get me the coffee I prefer, the next thing you’re going to do—”
“I haven’t agreed to the first thing.”
“I know damn well that you’re going to do so.” He glared at me. “The next thing you’re going to do is bring me the report on the top ten budget hotels that you’ve been working on for the past four months, so we can go over the calculations.”
“I stopped working on that a while ago,” I said. “But I’d be happy to send you the ten percent that I completed. I’m sure you can complete the other ninety percent on your own. You are the CEO of this company, after all. It wouldn’t kill you to get your hands dirty for a few days.”
He sucked in a slow breath, looking as if he was about to give me the “You’re fucking fired” I rightfully deserved, but he didn’t. Instead, he stepped back and smiled.
I waited for him to get the last word, to hit me with one of his final lines, but it never came.
“Enjoy the rest of your day, Miss Lauren,” he said. “It was good to get your insight on these matters.” He left my office without another word, without looking back and smirking. Nothing.
Confused, I rushed over to my desk and flipped through my “Ways to Make Him Fire Me” notes. The coffee was the most egregious thing on the list, and not completing my work was a close second.
This wasn’t his typical behavior, and I wasn’t quite sure how to make my next move at all.
I waited two hours before printing out my report (I really did work hard on it), but I wasn’t going out to get his coffee. I made my way to his office and found him sitting behind his desk, sipping from a Sweet Seasons cup.
He looked up as soon as I was halfway across his floor. “I was just about to call and give you the good news, Miss Lauren.”
“Am I finally being fired?”
“I said good news, not things that will never happen.” He took another sip from his cup. “I just got off the phone with the CEO of Sweet Seasons. I was telling her how much I enjoy their coffee, and how a certain employee of mine has somehow purchased over six figures of it over the past two years.”
“You can afford it …”
“Yes, I can definitely afford it. Can’t I?” He smiled. “So, that’s why I’ve just talked them into their first licensing deal, and they’re going to build their first office café here in my building.”
I shook my head.
“They were so impressed with the amount I offered,” he said, continuing, “that they’re going to operate a mini stand for a few hours a day starting tomorrow until the official store construction is complete.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “So, that way, you can simply go downstairs to get my coffee when I ask for it, and I won’t have to deal with you blaming your lateness on coffee runs and traffic anymore.”
I bit my lip to prevent myself from screaming and considered walking out of his office.
“Anyway,” he said, taking another dramatic sip of that damn coffee. “May I help you with something?”
“Unfortunately. Here’s my report that you wanted.” I held it out for him, but he didn’t make a move to take it.
“I already have your report.” He smiled, picking up a stack of sheets. “It doesn’t look like you stopped working on this at all. In fact, you seem to have updated it as recently as last night. I’m quite impressed with some of the changes. It’s even color-coded the way I like.”
“How did you get my report, Mr. Parker?”
“Mr. Parker?” He looked me up and down. “I’m back to being your boss now?”
“How did you get my damn report?”
“You left it on your cloud, on the company server that I own, so I logged in.”
“You called the tech department to hack into my account?” I crossed my arms. “And you honestly wonder why I want to quit?”
“No, I was planning to call the tech department to hack into your account, but I guessed your password right on my first attempt.” He smirked. “I personally thought you would come up with something far more creative than FuckMyBoss, but if that’s a fantasy you’d like me to finally help you fulfill, I’m more than happy to bend you over my desk right now.”