Worst Boss Ever Read online

  “If you’d been here on time, we would’ve had time to do a walk around the building.”

  “I’m only a couple of minutes late. Because I’m a couple of minutes late, we no longer have the time to do the walk around the building?” I stared at him. He stared back at me. This was a battle of epic proportions, only I was definitely in the weakest position, and it was very unlikely that I would survive past the first round.

  “Miss Waldron, I think you are going to have to review the rules of the workplace one more time. Now, I could bring them up for you, but I think that it might be better if you brought them up for yourself because I would hate for you to say that you weren’t able to see them because of something I did.”

  “I don’t even know what you’re talking about, Mr. McAllister. If you print out the rules for me, I will see what I have to do.”

  He smiled suddenly, and the expression on his face completely changed my impression of him. I mean, I’d known he was going to be handsome. The photos I’d seen him in had told me that. And even when I’d walked in, my girly bits had tingled slightly. But now, seeing that smile on his face, well, it completely took me aback. He was probably the best-looking man I’d ever seen in my life, including in movies. Dylan McAllister was an asshole, but he was a gorgeous asshole. And from the look on his face, I could tell that he knew it.

  “Maybe we should have a seat and go over the plan for the day,” he said.

  “Really?” I asked him, surprised that he was actually letting me stay.

  “Yes. You sound surprised.”

  “I don’t know. I figured you’d fire an insolent person like me.”

  “I have fired many, many insolent secretaries. I’m sure you probably already know that,” he said smugly. “Most people don’t last very long working for me.”

  “And that’s something to be proud of?”

  He ignored me. “But there’s a lot going on this week. I just got back from a business trip, and I’m going to need a lot of help. So you’re in an enviable position.”

  “Who’s envying me in this position?” I said, looking around the empty room.

  He just stared at me for a few seconds before continuing. “You’re in the enviable position of being lucky enough to be needed in this job right now. So I will not be firing you. Yet. I will, however, be ensuring that you get a copy of all the rules and of my schedule so that you are up to date. Tomorrow morning, I expect to receive my wake-up call at six in the morning, and I expect you to write down my appointments for the day. After that, I expect you to show up at work by 7:15 with my coffee and my croissant. Some days, I will ask you to get me a Buddha bowl.”

  “A Buddha bowl for breakfast?”

  “Those days I will let you know in advance.”

  “Okay. So I’m your servant, is that it?”

  “You are my secretary, and as such, you do for me the things that I ask.”

  “Look, I hate to break it to you but I can’t get to the Upper West Side and then to the coffee shop and then to work all within an hour and 15 minutes. So something’s got to give. I take the subway, okay? I can’t afford to be taking taxis here, there, and everywhere. And—”

  “You’ll have a driver.”

  “I’ll have a driver? What do you mean?”

  “I will have a car pick you up and take you around.”

  “Okaayy … I didn’t know the job came with a driver.”

  “Yes, so will that work for you, then?” There was a hint of sarcasm in his voice.

  “I guess so, but I still don’t know if that’s going to give me enough time because once I call you and—”

  “You don’t have to be at home to call me.”

  “What?”

  “You just have to have access to the internet, my calendar, and a phone. If you’re in the car, waiting outside the croissant shop when you call me, that’s up to you.”

  “So what time do you expect me to wake up?”

  “That’s not any of my business, is it?” He shrugged. “Whatever time you go to bed and wake up is up to you.”

  “But—”

  “But nothing, Miss Waldron. I think that we’ve talked enough for now. I do have a phone call, a very important phone call in about—” he looked at his watch, “ten minutes. It’s on Hong Kong time, but I have a feeling you knew nothing about that.”

  “Um,” I muttered under my breath, “I guess not.”

  “So why don’t I take the call and you reread the email you received yesterday with all of the attachments?”

  “Yes, sir. And where should I read them? Am I going to be able to sit somewhere or—”

  “Over there.” He pressed a button. And like magic, a desk swiveled around with a chair.

  “Whoa, how did that happen?”

  Again, he ignored me. “That’ll be your desk.”

  “There’s no partition or a wall or—”

  “No.” He shook his head.

  “But what about privacy?”

  “I don’t need privacy. And if I don’t need privacy, you don’t need privacy.”

  “Okay, then.”

  “Are we done, Miss Waldron?”

  “Yeah. Thank you.”

  I walked over to the desk and sat down, my mind pretty much blown. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing in this office, and I absolutely had no idea what I was doing with this man. My new boss wasn’t like anyone I’d ever met before, but I didn’t have time to process all that right now. I quickly opened my phone and looked for the email so that I could read the attachments.

  “Open the desk on the right-hand side,” he said.

  “Okay.” I opened it. There was a brand-new MacBook in unopened packaging.

  “That’s for you. Set it up and read your emails on that.”

  “Okay,” I said, pretty excited. I had never had a brand-new MacBook Pro before. This was pretty cool. Maybe this job was going to be okay.

  “Oh, and by the way?”

  “Yes, Mr. McAllister?”

  “I will be monitoring everything on that computer and on your screen, so don’t think you can goof off on Facebook or Instagram or TikTok.”

  “You can’t watch TikTok or be on TikTok on the computer.”

  “I don’t care what you can do. Just don’t think you’ll be having any personal conversations with your friends or boyfriends.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good,” he said. “Now get to work.” And then he spun his chair around and had his back to me again. This was going to be a very long first day of work.

  Chapter 5

  Dylan

  * * *

  My new secretary had a mouth on her unlike any woman I’d ever met. She looked nothing like I’d imagined when I’d spoken to her on the phone. She had a sexy, husky voice when I’d woken her up this morning, and I’d half expected a blonde bombshell to walk into the office and try to seduce me. That was how it always went with the secretaries that worked for me. They all ended up hating me, but they all wanted me. But I never mixed business with pleasure, no matter how many times they dropped something on the ground and stuck their asses in the air or pressed their breasts up against me. I’d never even been slightly inclined to bend one over my desk. The office was no place for romance or, in my case, sex. I’d never even been tempted.

  Abby Waldron was different from every other secretary that had worked for me in the past. She looked like someone’s idea of a frumpy librarian from the 1980s. I could barely even see what she looked like under her huge glasses. Her hair was bundled on top of her head, and her clothes looked like they’d just come from a thrift store.

  She was definitely not a looker, and her personality did not befit that of a winning employee, let alone one who wanted to seduce me. It was refreshing to not have to evade sexy glances and high-pitched giggles, but I could tell that she was going to be annoying with her superior air and piercing glances.

  However, I liked her spunk. I wouldn’t tell her that, of course, but I
liked that she wasn’t timid and afraid of me. And I was glad she hadn’t gone all googly eyes on me when she’d seen me. She was one secretary I would not have to worry about trying to seduce me. I’d bet a million dollars that she was still a virgin. Some nerdy little virgin who had studied English in college because she loved it and now was in debt up to her ears with no real skills that could help her in the job market.

  “Mr. McAllister, I’m ready for our meeting now.” Her assertive voice interrupted my thoughts.

  I looked up with a sneer. “And?” I tilted my chin up at her. “I’ll let you know when I’m ready to begin.” She glared at me slightly and pressed her lips together. I guess my offer of $25,000 a month had persuaded her to stay. Which reminded me, I would have to talk to HR and tell them about her new pay structure. I’d never paid a secretary that much before, but I had a feeling that she was about to walk out and leave, and I didn’t want her to. Not yet. There was something about her that sparked something in me that I hadn’t felt in years. I didn’t know what it was. It certainly wasn’t lust. I dated tens and she was a four—and even that was pushing it.

  I grabbed my pen and scribbled something on the pad in front of me. I knew I was being a jerk, but I liked to push the people that worked for me. I liked to see how much they could take and if they would crumble. I needed the strongest people working for me. My younger brother Kent chastised me all the time. He called me an OCD asshole, and maybe it was true, but I didn’t care. It was my OCD assholery that had taken us from the streets to a penthouse in the best city in the world. I was one of the most eligible bachelors in Manhattan. Which would have made the younger me laugh out loud. Dylan McAllister was not made to be a billionaire bachelor, but here I was.

  “Take a seat, Ms. Waldron.” I nodded towards the plush leather chair on the other side of my desk.

  “Thank you.” She sat down abruptly and her glasses slipped off of her face. She grabbed them up quickly, but not before I’d seen her face without them. It was surprisingly different without the glasses. I studied her for a moment. Her skin was smooth, flawless even, and her eyes looked very different when they weren’t behind the thick glass. They were light brown with green specks. She pushed her glasses back on and looked down at her lap, flustered, her cheeks a rosy pink. I glanced at her one more time to see if there was something I’d missed about her during our first meeting a few hours ago.

  “Can I help you with something?” she snapped, her eyes flashing lightning bolts at me.

  “I don’t know, can you?” My lips curled up at the side. “What skills do you have?”

  “Skills?” She looked down at her lap. “I can type forty—I mean eighty words per minute, I know Excel very well, I can make PowerPoint presentations in my sleep, I know every Shakespeare play inside and out. And I can tell you the top ten places to get pizzas in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens.”

  “Any other skills?” I raised an eyebrow. I was curious about the pizza places, but I’d get to that later.

  “Uhm, like what?”

  “Fun skills.”

  “Fun skills?” Her eyes narrowed at me. She stared at my lips for a few seconds and then looked at my chest before her eyes flew to my hands and then back to my face. So she wasn’t completely oblivious. I wasn’t attracted to her, but maybe that would make it even more interesting. I ignored the way my heart beat at the curl of her lips. They were an interesting shade of pink. And luscious.

  But so what if my new secretary had luscious lips?

  She meant absolutely nothing to me.

  Chapter 6

  Abby

  * * *

  I took in the smug look on Dylan McAllister’s face. I was tempted to make a snide comment, but I could tell that he was trying to rile me up. I wasn’t sure how I knew, but I just did. It was the way he’d asked me what skills I had as if he cared about my typing skills or the fact that I like to try as many different types of pizza as possible. I knew he didn’t care about those things. He was really asking if I had skills in the bedroom. Did he think I was going to drop down to my knees and unzip his pants and ask if I could suck him off?

  I mean, I doubted it. He was handsome. He was a billionaire. He didn’t need the likes of me sucking him off. But I knew men like him. It was all about power. He was some spoiled little rich kid. He’d probably grown up with all of daddy’s money and now he needed to show the world that he’d made it and he was the boss.

  Well, the joke was on him because I had absolutely no interest in touching him, not even with a 10-foot pole. My stomach trembled jumped slightly as I stared at his lips. Okay, I guess I couldn’t lie to my own body. Yeah, if he’d been someone else, I’d have jumped his bones in ten seconds flat. He was exactly my sort of guy, but to be honest, he was universally hot. I was pretty sure that women in Africa, Asia, Europe, Australia—hell, even Antarctica would want him. He was so gorgeous. And his eyes. Even though his expression bordered on hostile, his eyes were beautiful. There was a light there that seemed to radiate from within his soul … except I didn’t know if his soul was good or bad. If I’d had to guess, I’d have said more bad than good, but it was hard not to be attracted to him

  “So, Miss Waldron, do you have nothing else to say?” He had that smirk on his face again.

  “I was just wondering when we’d get to work, sir.” I took a pen out of my notepad and clicked it on. “Are you ready now?” I gave him my most demure smile. I knew it would rile him up. He was the sort of person who liked to see how much he got under people’s skin. As long as I pretended that he didn’t irritate me whatsoever, then I knew he wouldn’t feel like he’d gotten the better of me.

  “Do you have a boyfriend, Miss Waldron?”

  “I don’t really see why or how that’s any of your business,” I retorted. “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  “No.” He shook his head and made a face. “Definitely not.”

  “Okay.”

  “So I answered your question, you answer mine.”

  He’d got me there. I had fully expected that he’d tell me to mind my own business. “Why don’t you have a girlfriend?” I said, deflecting again.

  “You haven’t even told me if you have a boyfriend.”

  “Do I have to? Is that part of my job?” I raised an eyebrow. “Because if it is, that’d be a very interesting part of the job. I wonder what HR would have to say to that.”

  “HR? Is that a threat, Miss Waldron?”

  “No. If I was threatening you, I’d go to the EEOC.”

  “You’d go to the EEOC, would you?” He grinned. “I see. And what would you say?”

  “I would say that my boss was being inappropriate and … inappropriate.”

  “I just asked you if you had a boyfriend. You have no reason to think that it was for a harassing reason, do you?”

  “My personal life is none of your business.”

  “I don’t care about your personal life, Miss Waldron. I wanted to know because we have a lot of late nights in the office, and I want to know if there is someone who is going to get upset that you’re spending a lot of time with me. Also, I have a lot of business trips coming up and you, as my secretary, will accompany me. So, you see, that is why I wanted to know. No other reason.”

  I didn’t totally believe him, but it made sense. I sighed. “No, I don’t have a boyfriend.”

  “Hmm,” he said and pressed his lips together. “Doesn’t really surprise me.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I mean, what would you do on a date night? Read Shakespeare together?” He chuckled.

  “No, we’d act it out,” I snapped.

  “Well, you must be one of the most fun dates in all of New York City.” He stood up and straightened his already-straight jacket.

  “Like I said before, Mr. McAllister, do we have any work to do? Or should I go back and sit at my own desk?”

  “Miss Waldron.” He walked around his desk to stand next to me and looked down.

  I had to
repress the urge to jump up. I didn’t like to be at such an unfair advantage, sitting below him, staring up like I was his subject and he was my ruler—which in this setting, he kind of was, but it still didn’t make it right.

  “Yes, Mr. McAllister? What can I do for you now? Would you like me to go to Columbia and get you some fresh Colombian coffee beans? Or maybe you’d prefer that I go to Guatemala. Or maybe you’re someone that prefers an African bean. I could go to Kenya and get you some Kenyan beans. And then I’d fly right back, and I’d buy the best coffee grinder that I could find. And I would grind those beans so that I could make you a freshly brewed cup of coffee. While I’m at it, why don’t I also go ahead and take a class in France at a culinary institute from some of the best French pastry chefs in the world? Then they can teach me how to make the best croissants. And then I will wake up at three o’clock every morning so that I can bake you fresh croissants.

  “And maybe, just maybe, I can find a farmer somewhere in the city who has some cows. And maybe I can go to the farm and they can teach me how to make butter. And once I make the butter, I can give them to you with your freshly baked croissant. And oh, perhaps, perhaps I could also on the weekends, in my spare time, go down to Philadelphia and pick fresh strawberries and make you fresh jam. How would you like that, Mr. McAllister?”

  “Are you done now?” he asked cooly.

  I stared back at him, not quite believing that I’d just gone off on him. I’d completely lost the plot and I wouldn’t have been surprised if he’d fired me there on the spot. It was completely inappropriate. I knew it, but I just couldn’t help myself.

  “You didn’t tell me that you were an actress as well, Miss Waldron.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “I see you’re prone to the dramatics.”

  “What dramatics?” I said.

  “What dramatics?” he chuckled. “Hmm. Hopping on a plane to go to Guatemala and Kenya to get coffee beans to make me coffee in the morning? Is it really too much to ask you to stop at the coffee shop that is five minutes down the road, in a car that I will provide to you, just to get me some freshly brewed coffee? Also, may I add, on a corporate credit card. Hmm. I guess that’s too much. Are you going to go to the EEOC and complain about that one as well?”