Page 4 of The Boss

Nate.

That would be Nate Lexington. CEO and co-owner of Manhattan Records. The face of the company. Everyone’s boss of bosses.

I’d seen him from a distance a few times but hadn’t ever actually spoken to him, and I was fine with that. I’d put everything I had into a nice, neat package and give it to Mr. Hancock to use as he saw fit. Anything other than information gathering and doing whatever my immediate boss in the A&R department told me was well above my pay grade.

Four

Nate

When the phonein my desk buzzed again, I sighed and pulled out the phone. It’d been going off at least once an hour since I’d gotten up this morning and I didn’t need to look at it to know it was Roma. I had two phones. One for women and the other for everything else. It made things much simpler to keep sex and my actual life separate.

Occasionally, the women I dumped would try to cling to me, calling, texting, that sort of thing, but ignoring them generally got the point across. A day or two of a few tearful voicemails or angry text messages and then it was done. At least I assumed the voicemails were tearful. I never listened to them. The only reason I didn’t delete and block numbers immediately after ending an arrangement was because I’d learned early on that some women, if provoked too much, would go that extra mile to find my personal number or harass me at work.

Hudson MacIntosh.

I’d learned a lot about how to handle women from that nutcase. Ghosting her had pissed her off but blocking her number had been the last straw. She’d showed up at my place, pounding on my door and making an embarrassment of herself. When that hadn’t gotten her anything but a police escort back to her car, she’d come into work and stood in the lobby when security wouldn’t let her upstairs. Manhattan Records had just been getting their feet underneath them at the time, and it’d been a headache I hadn’t needed. Eventually, strings had been pulled, and I’d been able to quietly take out a restraining order against her.

I opened my messages and scrolled to the bottom, not bothering to read the litany of insults and curses being hurled my way. The other benefit of having a separate phone for all communication with my ‘girlfriends’ was that I had everything readily available should I need to take legal action.

Again, Hudson MacIntosh.

She’d followed the restraining order and stayed away, but that hadn’t prevented her from going to a tabloid with stories of our bedroom exploits. Fortunately for me, that’d backfired on her. She hadn’t realized that telling people I’d used handcuffs and blindfolds had reflected on her more than me.

Sexist, sure, but that wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t make society think the same way about a man with certain kinks as they did about a woman who had them too. Just like those anonymous pictures of her on her knees, sucking me off while I watched the NFL draft had sent her back to Nebraska with her tail between her legs while I’d pretty much just gotten a headshake and eye roll.

At least she hadn’t tried to say it hadn’t been consensual. I still had the footage the pictures had come from, and there’d be absolutely no doubt in anyone’s mind that she’d consented if I released that tape. I hadn’t done it, of course, because she’d backed off, but I would’ve.

That was the whole point of me getting permission to record everything. The women I was with knew that no matter where we were or what we were doing, chances were high that I was recording every movement in some way. I’d worked too fucking hard to get where I was to have some bitch lie about me and steal it all. Most of them thought I liked to watch it later and jerk off to it, but the truth was, everything was stored away in case I needed it for some legal reason.

I didn’t do re-runs.

Speaking of which…

There’s no further discussion warranted. You agreed to all terms prior to entering into our agreement. Don’t contact me again.

As I sent the message, I wondered if perhaps I should start drawing up actual contracts. I hadn’t wanted to go that far since I’d most likely need to bring an actual lawyer into it to make them binding. I had a business degree from NYU and could find my way around a record contract, but something like this would need more than that little bit of knowledge to make it worth the effort. A poorly written contract could fuck me up worse than not having one at all.

Since I hadn’t yet replaced Roma, I turned the phone off and returned it to my desk. Work was going to be my only focus for a while. I’d had enough of women for at least a couple weeks.

I’d barely started going through my email when someone knocked on the door. A wave of relief went through me when I looked up to see my partner, Finley Kordell, standing in the doorway. I waved him in.

Finley was eleven years older than me and actually resembled me enough for people to occasionally wonder if we were brothers. His hair was a rusty, cinnamon sort of color rather than nearly white-blond like mine, and my eyes were dark brown while his were blue, but we were both tall, with broad shoulders and square jaws. I was a couple inches taller, but for a guy heading toward fifty, Finley probably could’ve knocked me on my ass if he really tried. I always thought it was something about the eyes.

Luckily for me, he was laid-back enough that in the ten-plus years we’d known each other, we’d never once come to any sort of physical altercation. In fact, Finley was one of the few people who could call me on my shit and get away with it.

Judging by the expression on his face at the moment, he was about to do just that.

“I’m hearing rumors that Zed is being a pain in the ass again.”

“I wasn’t aware that he’d ever stopped,” I said dryly. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“He’s harassing A&R about special perks for the event this weekend.” Finley sat on the couch against the far wall rather than in the chair across from me.

“Suzie came to you?”

He shook his head. “I happened to overhear Stu’s assistant telling him about the call. I didn’t stick around to find out details since we both know he’ll come to us if it’s something we need to know.”

“How did Stu’s assistant get the call?” I asked. I vaguely remembered something about hiring a second assistant for A&R so Stu and Suzie could each have their own, but I didn’t recall having met the person.

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