My (Mostly) Secret Baby: A Grumpy Boss Romantic Comedy(40)

Fuck.

Of all the worlds in the English language, I wasn’t sure if any summed up my situation more accurately.

I’d had it figured out just fine. Life. The secrets of the universe. Existence.

I’d figured every damn thing out.

The secret to the game was that you didn’t play. Happiness? No. People who chased happiness were only inviting pain. If you weren’t greedy, you could settle for a perfect neutral existence. Wake up, work, rinse repeat. No drama, no problems.

But there she was. The wrinkle in my perfectly boring, sterile life. And she was currently sitting across from me with a sandwich the size of her head in her hands. She twisted it one way, then another, as if trying to decide how to avoid getting condiments all over her face. With a little shrug, she decided to dive in, messiness be damned.

I prodded at my burger, feeling like I’d lost my appetite.

What the hell was I doing?

First, I’d offered her a position as an acquisition agent. It was clearly a step in the wrong direction if my plan was to fire her. And if I wanted to ever experience the absolutely mind-blowing sex we’d had last night again, she couldn’t be my employee.

Or could she?

No, dumbass. Not if I didn’t want Trish 2.0. Not if I wanted to avoid potential lawsuits and the possibility of undermining the respect my employees had for me. I supposed you could make an argument that they feared me more than they respected me, but it was irrelevant.

I knew the smart thing to do, but my cock was determined to drive me the wrong way down a one-way street. Worse, I’d felt a stirring somewhere else last night.

It was only a hook-up. Just physicality. And yet no matter how much I wanted that to be true, I knew something had shaken loose in my chest when I looked into her eyes. Like an old rusted out truck in a field that had been kicked in just the right place. I never thought it’d run again, but the spark plug had revved up the old, forgotten engine in my core. Now all I could do was question why I wanted to fight it so hard, other than the obvious complication of her being my employee. Other than Trish.

“You want to trade or something?” Chelsea asked. She gestured her gnawed at sandwich toward me, which was dripping mayo-soaked lettuce on her plate.

“Considering you ate your way in from the edges to the center, I’ll pass.”

She shrugged. “I like to save the best bite for last.” Chelsea pointed to a chunk of thick bacon. “That bad boy is going to be worth the wait.”

I grinned. I’d never put too much thought into eating. Apparently, Chelsea had strategies for how she attacked her meals. Of course she did.

“About last night…” I looked up, not sure where I was going but knowing I needed to say something.

“It was just what it was,” Chelsea said. She took a heaping bite of her sandwich, speaking around the food. “We’re adults, right? We can still be professional.”

“Yeah, right.”

“So you still haven’t even told me why we’re in Savannah.”

“We’re going to wine and dine an athlete tonight. Trevor Castle. Have you heard of him?”

She set her sandwich down, dusted off her hands, and gave me a dry look. “Have I heard of the best new tennis player since Federer? No. Doesn’t ring a bell.”

She dropped the act and clapped her hands together then let out a little squeal. “Does this mean we’re meeting Trevor tonight?”

Until that exact moment, it had. Now I was second guessing myself. I hadn’t considered Chelsea’s past as a tennis player. I also hadn’t thought too hard about Trevor’s playboy status. He was single, and rumor was that he left a trail of satisfied women in every city he passed through.

Rumor also had it that he was being courted for acquisition by none other than my ex-girlfriend, Trish. And no, that fact had nothing to do with me trying to land him for Rose Athletic.

“I was going to have you stay at the hotel, actually,” I said.

Chelsea glared. “What? You just told me I’m going to be doing real work. Shouldn’t I be tagging along to see how the master himself does it?”

Annoyingly, she had a point. “I’ll consider it. But you would need to dress for fine dining if you planned to come. I’m guessing you didn’t pack anything appropriate.”

Chelsea’s eyes could’ve set a large pot of water to boil in seconds. “Considering my lovely boss didn’t tell me anything about fine dining… No. I didn’t.”

I hated how weak I was becoming for her. Just a few days ago, I would’ve grinned and taken it as an easy out. Problem solved.

Now, all I could think about was how badly she seemed to want to prove herself. I’d begun to paint the picture of her past. Of how she’d been sidelined when her real opportunity to chase her dream had come. Some asshole had knocked her up and left her to clean up the mess, and I still had no idea who or why. Asking her now would’ve only complicated things more, so I kept my mouth shut on it.

I did know I was going to hate myself if I was part of shutting down her next dream, as ridiculously sentimental as that was. “We have a few hours. You can take one of my company cards and go find something appropriate.”

She waited. “That’s all? How much am I allowed to spend? Where is this dinner, exactly?”

“Frankly, I don’t care. But you’re representing Rose Athletic. Your first lesson in acquisitions is to look the part. Athletes can sniff out incompetence from a mile away. You need to look like money, so they’ll believe you’re already making it.”