by Hazel Kelly
Tamed by the Boss
Hazel Kelly
© 2015 Hazel Kelly
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted, copied, or stored in any form or by any means without permission of the author. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
All characters in this story are fictitious. Any resemblance to actual persons is purely coincidental.
“The only way to get rid of temptation is to yield to it.” -Oscar Wilde
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Ella
Chapter 2: Will
Chapter 3: Ella
Chapter 4: Will
Chapter 5: Ella
Chapter 6: Will
Chapter 7: Ella
Chapter 8: Will
Chapter 9: Ella
Chapter 10: Will
Chapter 11: Ella
Chapter 12: Will
Chapter 13: Ella
Chapter 14: Will
Chapter 15: Ella
Chapter 16: Will
Chapter 17: Ella
Chapter 18: Will
Thanks
Chapter 1: Ella
I held the box closed with my knees and taped the top shut. Then I sat back on the edge of my bed and took a drink of water to cool down.
Packing my things was surprisingly draining, but at least I was over half way done. Truthfully, I was lucky I didn’t have more stuff considering I was going to have to move it all myself.
“Come in,” I said when I heard a knock at the door.
My Mom poked her head in and looked at the neatly packaged boxes. “It looks like you’re making good progress.”
I nodded. “I’m going to call it quits for today soon.”
“Do you need a hand with anything?”
“Do you know if there’s another roll of tape knocking around? I’m nearly at the end of this one.”
“I’m sure there is,” she said. “I’ll have a look.”
“Thanks.”
“You’re welcome to leave stuff here, too, you know. It wouldn’t be the worst if you had an excuse to come visit me.”
I laughed. “You’re acting like we’re going to be in different time zones.”
“Different subway lines is practically the same thing.”
I rolled my eyes. “I’m sure once I get settled, I’ll be seeing you all the time.”
“There’s a Lifetime Movie on in an hour if you want to watch it with me.” Her face looked hopeful.
“Oh?”
“It’s about a woman who discovers that her husband has a whole other family she doesn’t know about.”
It didn’t sound like the kind of thing that would lift my spirits.
“I’ll make you cheese on toast.”
“Fine. If you’re going to bring my Achilles’ heel into it, I suppose I could do with a snack.”
She smiled at me like I was four. “I’ll have a look for that tape.”
Suddenly, I heard the faint sound of my ringing phone. “Shit.”
“That sounds like it’s coming from one of the boxes,” my Mom said, turning her ear towards the floor. “Maybe you should call it a day.”
I dropped to my knees and pulled the tape off the ringing box, digging through the notebooks and pictures inside until I found the source of the vibration. “Ah ha!”
My Mom smiled and closed the door.
“I’m so glad you called,” I said.
“Aren’t you always?” Jackie asked.
“Yeah, of course, but if you hadn’t called just now my phone would’ve been lost in one of my moving boxes.”
“Ahh! So exciting!”
“I know,” I stood up and plopped down on my bed again. “But also exhausting.”
“It will be worth it,” she said. “I’m so jealous you’re moving in before me, though. I wish I could be there to help you.”
“Me too.”
“So?”
“So what?”
“You never called to tell me if the skating guy with the good hair was a gay criminal.”
“Sorry.”
“Well?”
I lay down on my side and lifted my slippered feet onto the bed. “He’s not.”
“He’s not what?”
“He’s not gay. Or a criminal. He’s neither.”
“Why do you sound so disappointed?”
“Cause my luck is actually worse than that.”
“How could that possibly be? Did you not have a good time?”
I sighed. “Actually, we had a great time and really hit it off.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But after we skated for a while, I asked him what his last name was so you could run an official background check.”
“Yeaah.”
“And that’s when he told me it was Abbott.”
Silence.
“Jackie? You still there?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Why is my gut telling me that’s not some kind of tweak coincidence?”
“Oh it’s a coincidence alright. Of all the men in New York, I tried to take my mind off Will by accepting an invitation to go out with his son.”
“Fuck off.”
“I know.”
“His son?” she asked. “I didn’t even know he had a son.”
“That makes two of us.”
“Jesus.”
“I almost kissed him, too.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
I shook my head. “Neither did I. I just said I didn’t feel well and went home.”
“Have you seen him since?”
“Yeah. I had to tell him the truth. He would’ve been relentless otherwise.”
“Who knew billionaire lovers were like buses?”
“I was thinking maybe you should go out with him.”
“What?”
“He’s sexy as hell, Jacks. You’d like him.”
“As much as I could use a bachelor in my life that was actually eligible, I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
“Why not?”
“Well it would be totally unsupportive for one thing,” she said. “Aren’t you trying to get over Will right now?”
“Yeah.” It wasn’t a lie. I was trying to get over him. Just because I gave into him again didn’t mean I wasn’t still moving in that direction. After all, hooking up with a guy who didn’t care about me wasn’t something I wanted to make a habit of, especially when that guy was my boss.
At the same time, I didn’t want to tell Jackie about what happened in his office. As much as it was beyond hot, I didn’t want her to know how pathetic I was.
“So I’m not going to go out of my way to spend time with his family members.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Though I suspected she would make an exception if she saw him.
“How’s it going, anyway?” she asked.
“What? The getting over him?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s hard,” I said. “It’s not easy to resist him when I know what I’m missing out on.”
“Understandable. It’s never easy to go cold turkey on a guy you like, especially a guy with his special skill set.”
She didn’t know the half of it. “It was easier to ignore his advances when I thought I had another prospect on the scene, though.”
“So why don’t you fake it till you make it?”
“What do you mean?”
“Just pretend there’s someone else.”
“I don’t know-”
“Seriously. That’s probably the best strategy for you. Think about it. It will help Will get the hint, it will give you some temporary courage, and you won’t actually have to deal with
the stress of trying to have someone on the side.”
“Mr. Invisible sounds like the perfect guy. How soon can I start seeing him?”
Jackie laughed. “As soon as you want. Plus, you know the whole law of attraction thing?”
“Sort of.”
“Well, I don’t know how much I believe in that stuff, but supposedly if you picture what you want with enthusiasm, you’re more likely to get it.”
“So if I start focusing on Johnny Depp-”
“I’m sure he’s immune, but maybe you could snag a lookalike.”
I rolled my eyes. She had to be kidding. There was only one Johnny Depp.
“Honestly, Ella, the more I think about it, the more I think a fake boyfriend is exactly what you need right now.”
I sighed. She had a point. I desperately needed a strategy that would help me stay strong in resisting Will so I wouldn’t get seduced into thinking another office romp was a good idea.
“You have to act like it’s serious, too,” she said. “If you only seem vaguely committed to someone else, he’ll just interpret that as a challenge.”
“It’s starting to sound like more trouble than it’s worth.”
“I’m not saying you have to do it, but if you’re genuinely having that much trouble convincing yourself you’re not interested in him anymore-”
It wasn’t so much the convincing myself as it was the keeping my knees together when he was around that was proving difficult.
“It might be worth considering.”
“Okay.”
“God you sound miserable. Perk up, will you?”
“I will, yeah. I’m just tired from packing stuff.”
“I’ll be there soon, Elle, and we’ll find you a real man then.”
“Sounds good.”
“Until then, just picture the perfect guy and pretend you’ve never been hotter for anybody.”
“I’ll try.”
“Good because a break from real men is exactly what you need.”
“I couldn’t agree more.” I hung up with Jackie and rolled onto my back. Then I tried to picture the perfect man in my mind for a few minutes.
There was just one problem.
When I closed my eyes, all I could see was Will.
Chapter 2: Will
I stepped into the hot tub and felt the warmth spread through my body.
“I almost got you today,” Frank said, dipping his toes in to test the water.
I sank down in my favorite spot, eager to let the strongest jets blast the base of my spine. “We obviously disagree about the meaning of the word almost.”
“At least it was competitive.”
“I suppose that’s true. You shouldn’t be ashamed to go home anyway.”
He rolled his eyes.
“Does Becky even know how badly you lose to me all the time?”
He smiled as he took a seat on the partially submerged top step. “Becky thinks I win about half the time.”
I shook my head. “Pathetic.”
The smell of chlorine from the nearby pool was overwhelming, but I liked the rhythmic sound of the lap swimmers’ slapping arms.
“I take it things are going better with Ella?”
“Why? Cause I played better today?”
He nodded. “You don’t seem quite as distracted.”
I sunk down low and leaned my head against the tiled ledge behind me. “To be honest, they aren’t going better at all.”
“No?” He tilted his head. “What happened?”
“I haven’t told her how I feel yet, and I don’t think she’s impressed with me.”
“I wouldn’t keep putting it off.” He dragged his fingertips along the surface of the water.
“Why?”
“Cause she won’t wait forever.” He finally sunk down to his chest. “Plus, you don’t have forever.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
I scowled at him.
“I’m just saying you’re not as young as you used to be.”
My thoughts went to Ben. I wondered if I could’ve competed with him if he’d met her first. “What the hell? Neither are you.”
“You’re absolutely right,” he said. “The difference, though, is that I’m not in denial about it.”
“What are you saying?”
He shrugged. “I’m saying you seem to have a pretty short term view of relationships, and I worry about you.”
“You worry about me?! What a ridiculous thing to say. You’re wasting your energy.”
“I don’t think it’s that ridiculous.”
“Of course it is.”
“Look at it this way. I know you and Becky don’t always see eye to eye-”
I groaned.
“But she loves me more than any other woman on this godforsaken planet.”
“So?”
“So as much as I like having sex on tap and a strong, beautiful woman on my arm who is also capable of raising my kids properly, at the end of the day, that’s not what I love most about her.”
“I’m listening.”
“What I love most is that someday when I’m a mean old geezer-”
“I think someday is upon us.”
“Shut up for a second.”
I pursed my lips.
“Anyway, someday when no one else can remember what any of my redeeming qualities were and I’ve lost my looks entirely-”
I bit my tongue.
“Becky will still be there.”
“Obviously.”
He raised his eyebrows. “I just think you overestimate how much fun it will be to get old without a woman around to help you count your money.”
“God that’s depressing.”
“I hope neither of us ever knows that kind of loneliness.”
I swallowed.
“And it’s not just the money thing.”
“Oh?”
“Men without women in their lives are fucking useless. Not only do they lack inspiration and motivation, but eventually they start going around with hair growing out of their ears and-”
“Jesus, Frank.”
“I saw an old guy the other day. He had hair coming out of his nose all the way down to his top lip.”
“Shit.”
“It’s comforting to know that Becky will never let me fall apart like that.”
I shook my head. “I don’t need a woman in my life to keep my nose hair from braiding itself. I’m not a Neanderthal.”
“Yet,” he said. “You spend the rest of your life without a real woman’s touch and you’ll be feral compared to me.”
I sighed. “You’re so dramatic.”
“Maybe,” he said. “But maybe I’m right and you know it.”
“What’s your point?” I asked. “What does your fear of nose hair have to do with Ella?”
“All I’m saying is that if you think this woman is special, you should make a move-”
“I told you I’m going to. I was thinking of surprising her for Valentine’s Day.”
“Good. The sooner the better. You can bet that if I’m sick of you holding your cards so close to your chest on this one, she is, too.”
“You may be right about that.”
“I know I am.” He pulled an arm straight across his chest and stretched his shoulder. “I think if she weren’t under your skin, you would’ve moved on already.”
“Probably.”
“Then again, if you don’t like her for the right reasons, you should move on.”
“The right reasons?”
“If you only like her because she’s young and has an ass like a-”
“Hey now watch it.”
“Or if you think she only likes you for your money-”
I shook my head. “You want to know the truth?”
Frank nodded and pulled his other arm across his chest.
“I’ve never gotten the vibe that she was after my money. I think she’s much more interested in sex
and having my respect.”
Frank rolled his eyes. “I mean she sounds too good to be true, but if what you’re saying is for real, then she’s a keeper alright.”
“Yeah. She’s a keeper.”
“So what’s the hold up? You don’t want to be responsible for keeping her?”
I shrugged.
“But you would probably go ape shit if someone else tried to take her away.”
He didn’t know the half of it.
“So man up,” he said, massaging the bottom of one of his feet.
I grimaced. “Do you have to do that right now?”
“My body is a delicate machine, Will. So yes. Yes I do.”
I scooted over so the most powerful jet could hit a new spot on my lower back.
“Women can be a pain in the ass, but life is a bigger pain in the ass without them, I assure you.”
“How would you even know what it’s like to live without them?”
“Remember when Becky took the kids to the lake house for two weeks last summer, and I couldn’t go because I was trying to close a deal with that prick from Wember?”
I laughed. “I remember you telling me he was a prick alright.”
“Well it wasn’t just him that made that the worst two weeks of my life. I nearly burnt the house down without Becky.”
“Surely you’re exaggerating.”
He shook his head. “No. I literally started a fire on two separate occasions.”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I wish I could argue with you, but even if I wasn’t incapable of taking care of myself, nothing I do would mean as much without her. None of my success, none of our holiday homes. It would all be meaningless if I didn’t have someone to share it with.”
I tried to remember what it was like to share my success with Laura back in the day, and it probably was more fun than building my empire alone.
“All I’m saying is a good woman raises your game in immeasurable ways.”
“What’s the most romantic thing you’ve ever done for Becky?”
A mischievous smile spread across his face. “I’m afraid that’s classified.”
“Don’t be crude. I’m being serious.”
He looked up at the ceiling and took a deep breath. “You know I’ve done lots of romantic things for her over the years, but I think she would probably tell you it was when I cooked dinner for her when we first started dating.”
