Page 6 of Stuck with the Hot Boss
‘Don’t worry,’ Evie told him. ‘I’ll make sure Janice never finds out.’
Chapter Four
‘You’re telling me he’s totally your type, but also totallynotyour type?’
Nicky spooned lime pickle onto her plate. Monday was curry night, because knowing you didn’t have to cook made starting a new working week bearable. Tuesday could also be curry night, as could Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and the weekend. When Nicky and Evie had taken a ten-day break in Ibiza, they’d received a text from the owner of The Bombay Tiger checking that they hadn’t died.
‘Helookslike my type,’ said Evie.
‘A guy who wears a plaited leather cord around his wrist even though he only surfed for three days one summer in Cornwall?’
‘That guy crossed with a young David Beckham,’ said Evie. ‘Though I might have imagined the tattoos.’
‘So, basically, a Shaun-Tony-Jason clone,’ said Nicky. ‘But his personalityisn’tlike theirs? He’s not an grifting narcissistic chancer?’
‘Very, very harsh,’ said Evie. ‘They were all nice guys. Fun to be with.’
‘Until they got bored and buggered off.’ Nicky ripped a Peshwari naan in two and gave half to Evie.
‘Yes, yes,’ Evie sighed. ‘We know I’ve made bad choices. Even if I had no clue that I was making them. But now I have my eyes wide open, I’m still confused. Leo’s smoking hot but – I don’t know – it’s like he’s two people, one being smothered by the other. I gottinyglimpses of a real human, but mostly I got boss-bot.’
‘Boss-bot?’ Nicky laughed. ‘You mean, he says things like “let’s blue-sky this” and “it’s all about disruption”?’
‘We discussed “low-hanging fruit”,’ said Evie. ‘And “increasing mindshare”.’
‘Mate.’ Nicky shook her head. ‘This is the universe testing you. It heard you committing to a journey of self-discovery, so now it’s putting a shiny object in your path, the kind you can’t resist, and watching to see if you’ll give in yet again. Probably taking bets on how long it will take beforeyoustart throwing around words likescalableandgoing forward.’
Evie took a bite of naan and chewed thoughtfully.
‘Hewaswearing a very sexy cologne,’ she said. ‘But I could never fall for a man who doesn’t have a sense of humour. And you donothave one if you can say “incentivise” with a straight face. Plus, he doesn’t eat sugar or dairy. He wouldn’t touch Janice’s scone.’
Nicky looked shocked. ‘And she let him live?’
‘I secretly ate it for him,’ said Evie. ‘Probably the only bonus I’ll get for the foreseeable.’
‘Mate,’ said Nicky. ‘What did you do in a past life to deservethis?’
One of the attractions of working for Double K was that head office was within walking distance of Evie and Nicky’s flat. Or itwould have been if Evie ever got up early enough. Luckily, the bus went practically from door to door, and on the days that she managed to get to the stop on time, dropped her off with five minutes to spare.
This morning was not one of those days. Evie arrived at her desk at nine-fifteen. To find Leo waiting for her with a stony look that did not bode well for the coming seven-point-five hours plus lunch break.
‘I expected you forty-five minutes ago,’ he said.
Evie hadn’t had enough coffee for mental arithmetic, but it seemed expected of her.
‘Eight-thirty?’ she tried not to squeak. ‘No one’s here at eight-thirty. How did you get in?’
‘I asked for a security key,’ Leo replied. ‘I assumed everyone would have one.’
‘Did you have to walk through the whole office and switch on all the lights?’
Leo’s expression became stonier. ‘Yes,’ he said, shortly.
‘Oo, annoying.’
Evie knew she was pushing things, but there was something about him that brought out the imp in her. It was the sense she had that he wasn’t quite being himself. That he was playing a part: the ambitious professional, in charge and in control, no room for mental or physical weakness. The kind of man who got up at five in the morning to do high-intensity exercise and had some wearable thingy that monitored all his vitals. Who read biographies of tech billionaires and posted quotes from them on LinkedIn.
Okay, it was probably because hedidlook a lot like her exes, but Evie was convinced there was a more relaxed and, well, normal, Leo behind the façade. Who might emerge if she poked himjusta little.
