The Billionaire Boss Next Door Read online

  “Morning, Paul.”

  He nodded.

  “Brian.”

  “Mr. Brooks.”

  The button for the elevator glared its illumination prior to my arrival—more help from the overzealous employees, I’m sure—and the indicating ding of its descent to the bottom floor preceded the opening of the shiny mirrored doors by less than a second.

  I stepped in promptly without another word, offering only a smile. I knew anything else I said would only cause stress or anxiety, despite my efforts to convey the opposite. For a lot of people, their boss was never going to be a comfortable fit as a friend—no matter how nice a guy he was. The best thing I could do was recognize, accept, and respect that.

  I sunk my hips into the rear wall as the doors slid closed in front of me and shoved my hands into the depths of my pants pockets to keep from scrubbing them repeatedly up and down my face.

  I rarely overindulged, so I wasn’t hungover, but Thatch’s antics, both in person and online, were wearing me out. It wasn’t that I didn’t think the gargoyle dick was funny—because it was—but it was really one of those funnier-when-it’s-not-happening-to-you things.

  In fact, that rang surprisingly true for most of Thatch’s prank-veiled torture.

  The direction of my thoughts and the weight of my phone bumping against my hand had me pulling it out of my pocket against my better judgment.

  I hovered my thumb over the TapNext app icon.

  With one quick click, I had the ability to make a bad situation worse.

  The screen flashed and the app loaded as soon as my thumb made contact.

  BAD_Ruck (7:26AM): Despite what the gargoyle dick conveys, I promise I’m NOT a sexual terrorist.

  Clutching the phone tightly in my fist, I shamefully knocked it against my forehead multiple times.

  “Fucking brilliant.”

  I should have just dropped it. Moved on. I didn’t fucking know this woman, for God’s sake, but I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t stand for even my fake dating profile persona to be remembered like this.

  Here lies this man to rest. He will be remembered: Sexual Terrorist, Social Media Nuisance, Unfortunate Genital Development.

  The elevator settled smoothly to rest on the fifteenth floor, and as the doors opened, I stepped out. My receptionist stood waiting with a stack of messages, having been warned of my arrival by the staff one hundred and fifty-some-odd feet below.

  Neat and conservative clothes encased her sixty-eight-year-old frame, and stark white hair salted its way through her dark mocha bun.

  Her smile was genuine, though, years of age, wisdom, and experience coloring her view of her thirty-four-years-young “boss.” When it came to the infrastructure and real office inner workings, she ran this show.

  The ends of my lips tipped up, forming wrinkles at the corners of my eyes.

  “Good morning, lovely Meryl.”

  She clicked her tongue. “You better find some other roll to butter up, Mr. Brooks. It may be early, but my allowance of saturated fats is all used up for the day.”

  “Geez.” I winced, clutching my chest in imaginary pain. “You wound me.” A grin crept onto one end of my mouth and a wink briefly closed the eye on the same side. “And it’s Kline. Call me Kline, for shit’s sake.”

  “Ten years. Same conversation every day for every single one of them,” she grumbled.

  “There’s a lesson in there somewhere, Meryl, and I think it has to do with bending to my will.” I took the messages gently from her hand and bumped her with just the tip of my elbow.

  “I’m consistently persistent.”

  “So am I,” she retorted.

  “Don’t I know it.”

  “Four urgent messages from new potential investors on top, and multiple urgent IT problems below those,” she called to my back as I walked away.

  I shook my head to myself. Potential investors were always urgent.

  Pausing briefly and turning to look over my shoulder, I asked, “And you’re giving me the messages from IT, why?”

  Things like that normally came from my personal assistant.

  “Because I am,” she called back, not even looking up from her desk. “And because Pam is at home with a sick baby.”

  I leaned my head back in understanding and bit my lip to stop a laugh from escaping.

  “Ah. And we all know the only soft spot in your entire body is reserved for the babies.”

  “Precisely,” she confirmed unapologetically, looking over the frames of her glasses and winking.

  I turned to head for my office again, but she wasn’t done talking.

  “But don’t you worry—”

  Shit. Anything that started with Meryl telling me not to worry meant I should worry. I should really worry.

  “Leslie’s here to pick up her slack.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t know if it was in disbelief or resentment, but whatever it was, I couldn’t stop the motion.

  Meryl’s eyes started to gleam.

  “And since you hired her and all, I figured you wouldn’t mind taking her directly under your knowledgeable wing for the day.”

  Fuck.

  I let my head fall back with a groan briefly before resigning myself to a day from hell and getting back on my way.

  One foot in front of the other, I walked toward my doom, knowing the only people I had to blame, other than myself, were my family. And I couldn’t even really blame them. I was an adult, a business owner, and the leader of my own goddamn life. It had been my choice to hire the airhe—Leslie—whether I had done it out of obligation or not.

  Still. “Fuck.”

  “Good morning, Mr. Brooks,” she greeted as soon as I rounded the corner, the last syllable of my name trailing straight into a giggle.

  God, that’s painful.

  Her eyes were bright, lips pouty, and her forearms squeezed into her breasts. Her black hair teased and sprayed, several curls rolled over her shoulders and hung nearly all the way down to her pointy nails. And she eye fucked me relentlessly, pounding me harder with every step I took.

  I plastered a smile on my face and tried to make it genuine. She was really a nice person—just devoid of each and every quality I looked for in both lovers and friends.

  “Come on, Leslie.” I gestured, turning away from her nearly exposed—completely office inappropriate—breasts and walking straight into my office with efficiency I knew Cynthia, my head of Human Resources, would appreciate.

  The boss in me wanted to tell her to put them away. The man in me knew I wouldn’t be able to do that without opening some sort of door for a sexual harassment suit. Situations like this were ripe for postulation.

  “You’re with me today,” I went on, walking straight to my desk and shucking the suit jacket from my shoulders to hang on the hook to the back and right of me.

  “Here,” I offered when she didn’t move or speak, holding the messages from potential investors Meryl had handed me not five minutes ago out to her. “Take these to Dean and have him make some precursory calls. He can schedule calls for me this afternoon with any of them that show signs of legitimacy.”

  A fake-lashed blink followed by a blank stare.

  I even shook them a little, but she didn’t respond.

  Right. Small words.

  “Ask Dean to call these people back. He’ll know if it’s worth my time talking to them, and if it is, I’m free to do so this afternoon.”

  “Got it!” she said with a wink, jumping from one heel to the other, spinning, and sashaying her way out of my office.

  I wasn’t a psychic, but one thing was increasingly clear—I was going to need to stop and buy an extra bottle of scotch tonight.

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  First of all, THANK YOU for reading. That goes for anyone who’s bought a copy, read an ARC, helped us beta, edited, or found time in their busy schedule just to make sure we didn’t comple
tely drop the ball by being late. Yeah, that’s us—sliding in fifteen minutes behind schedule just like Greer. Thank you for supporting us, for talking about our books, and for just being so unbelievably loving and supportive of our characters. You’ve made this our MOST favorite adventure thus far.

  THANK YOU to each other. Monroe is thanking Max. Max is thanking Monroe. This shouldn’t surprise you since we’ve done this in every book we’ve published together so far. Or maybe it does surprise you because you don’t ever read those acknowledgments. If that’s the case, joke’s on you. We happen to be hilarious, even in our acknowledgments. But you’ll still have a chance to find out next time because we’ll probably do this forever.

  THANK YOU, Lisa, for being your amazing, hilarious, graciously accommodating, and eagle-eyed self. We SWEAR the next book is coming to you early. We know we’ve said this before, but we really mean it this time. REALLY. Why are we getting the impression you don’t believe us? HAHA

  THANK YOU, Stacey, for making the insides of our book look so much prettier than organs. And for acting like you don’t hate us when we send you one million updates. ☺

  THANK YOU, JoAnna & Sandra, for being superior Counselor Feathers. You ladies amaze us on a daily basis, and you are the reason Camp Love Yourself is the coolest place to be. Seriously, you do a better job of running it than we do.

  THANK YOU, Banana, for rocking our covers. And for spending lots of time covering nipples and enhancing crotches when we ask you to. It’s a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it.

  THANK YOU, Social Butterfly PR for doing So. Many. Things. If you were one of our kids, you guys would be our favorite child.

  THANK YOU to every blogger who has read, reviewed, posted, shared, and supported us. Your enthusiasm, support, and hard work do not go unnoticed.

  THANK YOU to the people who love us—our family. They support us, motivate us, and most importantly, tolerate us. Sometimes we’re not the easiest people to live with, especially when there is a deadline looming. We honestly don’t know what we’d do without you guys.

  P.S. You don’t know what you’d do without us either, so suck it.

  THANK YOU to our Camp members! You guys make us smile every day! Especially when we pop into camp when we’re supposed to be doing something else and we’re really easy to please. It’s like being really hungry—everything tastes good. HAHA! J/k. J/k. You’d taste good even if we were overfull.

  As always, all our love.

  XOXO,

  Max Monroe