Page 4 of #Bossholes

Fuck.

The blood whooshes in my ears, and my stomach twists. Shit. Shit.Fuck. I told him he was a Dementor. An emotional vampire. I said those words to his face. His stupidly handsome, I’m-the-boss-of-you face.

I’m hyperventilating.

I’m going to be fired, and I really need this job. The bills are piling up, waiting for my first paycheck. My brother is counting on me to keep a roof over our heads and groceries in the fridge.

There’s no way he’s not going to fire me. I’m fucked. I’m so fucked.

“How do you know when you’re having a stroke?” I manage to wheeze out, frantically looking around for Maverick fucking Wallace—our goddamn boss—but he’s nowhere to be found. Of course not. I just insulted the man and his partners to his motherfucking face.

“When you tell your boss he’s a Dementor,” Brianna says gravely, shaking her head. I can see it all over her face, Margo’s too. I’m done for. Finito. Fired.

I’m so fucked.

I’ve gone from dumped to fired.

There’s no way this day can get any worse.

THREE

Maverick

“Didn’tyou tell Ember Lynn to keep a low profile during her very public and very messy divorce?”

I glance up from my computer as Brantley stomps into my office, closing the door behind him with a resounding thud. He slams his hands down on the other side of my desk, leaning toward me, his eyes narrowed, steam practically radiating from his body.

A normal person would be intimidated by his entire demeanor, but I’ve known Brantley and his brother Wyatt almost my whole life. He doesn’t scare me.

Not when he jumped out of his closet with a Jason mask when he was seven. Not when he challenged me to a game of chicken and plowed his bicycle straight into mine. Not when he tore his ACL playing high school football. The only time he came close was when he found Jennifer, his college sweetheart and fiancée, in bed with his law school rival, but it was a different kind of scary.

The man went weeks without eating, without sleeping. He was lost. He buried himself under a mountain of work so great, we didn’t think he'd ever come out of it. It took me a good sevenmonths to get him to crack a smile. Not even a full smile. A fucking lip twitch.

But this—this version of Brantley Ellis— doesn’t intimidate me in the slightest.

And to prove my point, I lean back in my chair, prop my feet on the edge of my desk, and wave a hand toward him. “Please, come in. Make yourself at home. Don’t worry at all about me or the work you interrupted.”

He grunts, giving me a droll look—his version of rolling his eyes—and runs his hands through his hair. Something he must’ve been doing repeatedly on his way to my office. To say his normally tame hair is wild is an understatement. “I’m not in the mood for your bullshit today, Maverick.”

Of course not.

“I’d have never guessed. You seem like your usual jovial self.” I tilt my head, a smile tugging on my lips as his frown deepens.

“Ember Lynn.” He finally lowers himself into the leather chair across from me with a heaving sigh that tells me exactly how annoyed he is. At Ember? Me? At the chair? I don’t know, but at this point, it’s probably everything. “Have you talked to her recently?”

“Nope.” And if I had my way, I’d never talk to her again. Nothing against her, but her entire personality sucks. She might be a world famous country music star, but deep down she’s nothing more than a spoiled little rich girl. And our new client. “What’s she done now?”

He gives me another look, this one expressing his sheer displeasure, and slides his phone across the desk.

Jesus fucking Christ.

She’s posted not one but two—oh, I’m sorry, four—videos of her absolutely slamming her soon-to-be ex-husband. I did, in fact, tell her to lay low and keep quiet about the divorce until it’s final, but I can clearly see my astute legal counsel has beenignored. These things can, and will, be used against her in court, of that I’m sure.

Especially, since she’s calling out his mistresses, and if the comments are anything to go by, people are bringing up her twenty-two-year-old boy toy. The one she had before the divorce was initiated. The one no one had known about until she was caught dry humping him outside her trailer on her last tour.

She’s not very good with discretion.

I slide his phone back across the desk and this time let out my own sigh. “We’re going to need Julie to set up a meeting with her ASAP.”

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