Table of Contents
Victoria
Xavier
Louis
About the Author
Two Dirty Bosses
Menage Romance
Sienna Chance
Copyright © Lovy Books Ltd, 2017
Sienna Chance has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This book is a work of fiction. Names and characters are the product of the author’s imagination and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
In no way is it legal to reproduce, duplicate, or transmit any part of this document in either electronic means or in printed format. Recording of this publication is strictly prohibited and any storage of this document is not allowed unless with written permission from the publisher. All rights reserved.
Respective authors own all copyrights not held by the publisher.
Lovy Books Ltd
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Contents
1. Victoria
2. Xavier
3. Louis
4. Victoria
5. Xavier
6. Louis
7. Victoria
8. Xavier
9. Louis
10. Victoria
11. Xavier
12. Louis
13. Victoria
14. Xavier
15. Louis
16. Victoria
17. Xavier
18. Louis
19. Victoria
20. Louis
21. Victoria
About the Author
1
Victoria
I straightened my skirt, glancing in the elevator mirror to see a confident face, one that wasn’t going to go down without a fight. I’d wanted this job since I’d started law school, wanted particularly to work for this firm, one that specialized in championing cases of the underprivileged. It was my dream job and I was going to get it, but I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from this meeting. All I’d been told was that I would be meeting with the partners, along with several other junior law associates who wanted a job at the firm.
I took a deep breath as the elevator climbed, closing my eyes for an instant before the door opened. By the time I got off, I was smiling, walking up to the receptionist at the desk.
“Hi,” I said to her. She smiled at me—she was beautiful, with kind, dark eyes and a welcoming grin.
“Are you here for the meeting with the partners?”
“Yes,” I said and then followed her into a large conference room where five people were seated on one side of the table. I sat down at the end, looking them over as they all did the same to me. There were three other women—two of them about my age and another who was older—and two men, one of whom looked younger than me. The other one was only slightly older, and he was the one giving me the coldest stare of all. I knew that look. It was the look of a man who was intimidated and trying to psych me out. I gave him a cool smile instead.
“So we’re waiting for the partners?” one of the women asked, the older one, who was wearing a name tag that said Marge.
“Obviously,” said the man, the one who had been staring at me in such a disconcerting way. I raised my eyebrow at him.
“It was a pretty simple question,” I said. “There’s no need to be an asshole.”
“Excuse me?” the man asked, his eyes flashing as they looked into mine. They were a crystal-clear blue, his hair dark and in neat waves on his head. He was dressed in an impeccable suit and his features were handsome, sharp enough to cut glass. I wasn’t going to let him intimidate me in any way, so I just grinned at him.
“Just relax,” I said. “I know you’re nervous, but just chill.”
He opened his mouth to speak, an indignant look on his face, when the door to the conference room opened and two other men walked in.
“Xavier, there you are,” one of the men said, and my heart fluttered nervously when the man I’d just called an asshole stood up, his eyes on my face.
“I was just getting to know everyone,” he said. I watched in horror as he crossed the table, sitting with the other two men, his eyes scanning each of our faces. I tried to keep my expression calm—if he was a partner, I’d just totally blown my shot at this job.
“So,” said one of the men who’d just walked in, a charming grin on his face. He was the one I recognized—the face of the law firm, the highest profile attorney among them. “My name is Louis Sylvester. I’m going to have you go around and introduce yourselves in a moment, but I wanted to talk to you a little bit about who we are. This is Jeremiah Bentley and Xavier Kyle, my partners.”
“Hello,” said Jeremiah with a smile that wasn’t quite as pleasant as his partner’s. Xavier wasn’t smiling at all, but lifted his hand in a vague gesture of greeting. He met my eye and I held it without wavering. Even if I’d already ruined my chance, I was going to do the best I could through the rest of the meeting, though I half-expected the man to send me out before we even got started.
“This meeting isn’t about us. We know you’re smart—you did your research before you came here. This meeting is about you. After we’re done here, three of you will be brought back. I need you to convince me today that you should be one of those three,” Louis said. “After all, that’s what we do here. We convince people. And the three of us—” He gestured at his colleagues. “—Are going to be the hardest to convince.”
Beside me, I felt Marge shift in her seat. A public presentation of myself wasn’t exactly what I’d expected, but I wasn’t going to let it throw me off-guard.
“Who wants to go first?” Louis asked, and for the first time, his eyes met mine. They were gray, a deep gray, and his hair was the color of golden sand. The look on his face was welcoming. “You?” he asked, looking at me.
“No,” said Xavier. “Him.”
He pointed to the other man who was in the room, the young one who barely looked like he was out of undergrad. I saw the kid swallow as he stood up and straightened his suit. For a moment, I thought he was going to choke, but as he started to introduce himself, his voice calmed.
“My name is Zachary Badger,” he said. “I’m twenty-three, graduated early from Yale in the fall.”
“You graduated from Yale Law at twenty-three?” Jeremiah asked. The boy gave a satisfied, smug smile.
“That’s right,” he said.
Xavier made a small noise that I couldn’t distinguish but I caught myself grinning when I saw the look on his face, totally bored and unimpressed with the scrawny kid who stood in front of him. I could see why that was his reaction—Zachary had no charisma, although Jeremiah seemed to like him well enough. I felt Louis’s eyes on my face then and I turned to see he was giving me a small, charming smile, obviously having noticed my expression. He held my gaze for a moment, a curious look in his eye, and I hadn’t even realized that Zachary had stopped talking and sat down until Xavier cleared his throat. I quickly looked away from Louis and back at the stern man at the end of the table.
“You next,” he said, gesturing for me to stand up. I did so, taking a deep breath during the movement so that by the time I was standing, I was squared and even, ready to speak.
“My name is Victoria Eaves. I graduated two semesters ago at Harvard Law.”
“Why are you important, Victoria Eaves?” Xavier asked me, his eyes intense on mine. I didn’t flinch, didn’t allow him to throw me off.
“Because nobody in this room is going to do this job as well as I can,” I said to him. “I belong in your firm.”
“Yeah?” Louis asked, raising his eyebrows. “Why?”
“I come from a family w
ho could have used someone like this firm. I worked my way through school,” I said. “In my internship, I worked for a smaller firm alongside a team of social workers to help parents get through the adoption process. I’ve done a lot of work like that—volunteering and research in poorer communities, mostly.”
“I see,” said Xavier. “Are you confident about the work you’ve done?”
“Yes,” I said in a firm voice. “Yes, I am.”
“How well do you work with people, Ms. Eaves?” Xavier asked.
“I’m great with people,” I said to him, then added, “obviously.”
Louis laughed, glancing over at Xavier, whose face didn’t change.
“Thank you, Ms. Eaves,” Jeremiah said.
I sat down with a sinking feeling. I knew exactly what was going to happen when I left here, especially after calling my new prospective boss an asshole—I’d get a rejection email in a couple of days. I sighed, sitting through the rest of the short introductions, listening as the people listed their credentials. They all had as much schooling as I did and two of them had much more experience, already practiced lawyers in their fields. Given the tension on Xavier Kyle’s face every time he looked at me, the distaste and disinterest, I had no doubt I’d thrown away my one shot at my dream job just to make some smart comment to a man whom I’d thought was trying to challenge me.
“Okay,” Louis said when everybody was done. “I think we’ve gotten a feel for what you’re like and what your qualifications are. I’m going to talk to these two and see what they think, and we’ll give you each a call either way.”
“Thank you,” I said to them as the rest filed out. I reached out to shake Louis’s hand and he took mine, his own warm and soft against my skin. His eyes were warm, too, locked on mine for an instant longer than was necessary, just as they had been before. I smiled at him, though I didn’t want to use any interest he might have in me to my advantage. I couldn’t help it. His grin was so charming, so lively and infectious.
I shook Jeremiah’s hand, whose face was decidedly less friendly, and when I got to Xavier he gave me only the briefest of shakes before breaking apart and turning to his partners.
I went downstairs, avoiding the elevator, wanting to stretch my legs a little bit before I got into my car. I heard footsteps above me but didn’t realize who it was until they called out my name.
“Ms. Eaves,” came a voice from the staircase above. I looked up to see Xavier Kyle standing there.
“Yes?” I asked him.
“Apologize,” he said. I raised my eyebrows.
“Excuse me?”
“If you apologize, I’ll think about including you in the three we choose.”
“No, you were quite rude,” I said, shaking my head, starting down the stairs again. I wasn’t going to give into this man’s power trip, even if the commanding tone of his voice did send a shiver down my spine that was nothing like the annoyance I’d felt with him earlier. He came further down the stairs then and was only a few steps above me. I glanced over my shoulder at him, raising my eyebrows.
“Did you really think I would? Grovel to you for a job?”
“No,” he said in a soft voice, studying my face. “No, I didn’t think you’d do it.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Kyle.” I turned and left him there, not wanting to look at his face anymore if it was just going to remind me of how badly I’d screwed up.
2
Xavier
I sighed, watching Victoria disappear down the stairs, shaking my head as I made my way back up. I’d known that she wasn’t going to apologize, but I’d wanted to test her—to find out if she would give in to get what she wanted. It looked like she wasn’t willing to do so, something that told me more about her than her introduction had, though that had been convincing.
I went back into the conference room to find Jeremiah and Louis sitting at the table, looking over the files of the five candidates we’d just spoken to. I pulled the closest file to me as I took my seat—it was the kid, Zachary Badger, the one who had tried to impress us by being a young graduate. It had seemed to work for Jeremiah, but to me, graduating early without much experience wasn’t particularly impressive. And Zachary had seemed sniveling to me. I flipped the folder over, tossing it forward.
“I don’t like him,” I said.
Jeremiah frowned, picking the folder back up. “He’s my pick,” he said.
“That’s not how this works, Jeremiah,” Louis said gently, always trying to placate the old man. “We all have to decide.”
“I want the girl,” I found myself saying before I even knew what was coming out of my mouth. “Victoria Eaves. The volunteer.”
“Why?” asked Jeremiah.
“She’s perfect,” said Louis.
I nodded. “She’s got some—she needs to be cleaned up a little bit, but she knows what she’s doing.”
“All she’s done is work with social workers,” Jeremiah said. “We don’t do work with social workers.”
“Some of our staff does,” Louis said.
“She’s very qualified,” I said. “And the other three women?”
“Louis and I both like Beth,” Jeremiah said.
“I say Beth, Kelly, and Victoria.”
“No Victoria,” Jeremiah said. I raised an eyebrow at him.
“Louis?”
“I say Vicky’s in,” Louis said. I could tell he was doing so reluctantly, though I couldn’t tell why.
“We can keep the kid if you want,” Louis added, and before I could protest, he cut me off with a firm look.
Jeremiah nodded, then stood up abruptly.
“You two make the phone calls,” he said dismissively and disappeared from the room without a further word. Louis raised both eyebrows and stared at him, then turned to me with a grin.
“Why are you like this?” Louis asked me.
“Like what?”
“Deliberately going against what he wants. For Victoria? Why?”
“Victoria was impressive,” I said, glancing away from him. Louis was my oldest friend, somebody I’d gone through school with, and he knew how to read me as well as anyone, despite how good I was at maintaining a generally placid expression.
“Impressive,” he said. “She was. And she was beautiful.”
I shot him a look. “That has nothing to do with it, Louis.”
“No?”
“No,” I snapped.
He put his hands up in front of him in a “don’t shoot” gesture. “I’m just saying. It’s been a few months now since—”
“Since my wife died? It’s been eight months.”
“I’m not suggesting you do anything,” Louis said in a gentle voice. “And you know I wouldn’t support it, anyway. We don’t sleep with our employees. I’m just saying, if you were a little swayed by her beauty—”
“I wasn’t,” I said, though it was hard not to allow my mind to linger on the way she looked. Vivid red hair and green eyes, pale skin, her body small but with soft, delicate curves all over. She really had been lovely, with full pink lips and a clever, playful gaze. Truly, though, it hadn’t been her beauty that had caught my attention most, but the way she’d reacted before the interview, and the fact that she hadn’t apologized. “I’m not a creep, Louis.”
“I know,” he said. He got up to go to the end of the conference room, pulling open a cabinet and grabbing a bottle of liquor. He brought it over along with two glasses and I had to laugh as he poured us both a whiskey with a grin on his face.
“Do you have a bottle stashed in every room?”
“Every room where we have to meet with Jeremiah,” Louis said, swallowing the dark, expensive liquor. I tasted it, wrinkling my nose and putting it down without even taking a sip. I wasn’t much of a drinker, and usually Louis ended up drinking whatever it was that I didn’t take. The only reason he ever poured me anything was to give himself an excuse to have two drinks. It didn’t happen very often, but it seemed to be happening more frequently the lo
nger Jeremiah continued to be a part of our firm. Louis took another drink and looked up at the ceiling.
“We have to get rid of him,” I said, looking over at Louis, who sighed and wrinkled up his face in distaste.
“He did fine today,” he said dryly. “Didn’t embarrass us.”
“We got lucky,” I said. “You know that.”
He sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Yeah, I do.”
“He’s getting increasingly volatile. He’s the whole reason we have to get new staff in the first place. Half of our lawyers are being driven off—”
“I know, Xavier,” Louis said. “But what are we supposed to do?”
“I don’t know,” I said miserably. We had been trying to think of ways to get Jeremiah out of the business for months but to no avail. He had always been a mean, punishing man, but now he was even worse with the employees. He terrorized them—picking and choosing those he liked, tormenting those he didn’t until they quit or moved on to a new firm.
“We need to talk to the board again,” Louis said.
“We’ve tried that. The board is on his side. He’s got them eating out of the palm of his hand. If anything, we’re at risk,” I said. More than once we’d gone to the advisory board over it, but the only thing anyone told us was that he hadn’t proven himself to be a problem in court. In fact, he was still winning cases, still pushing us forward in revenue and clients, despite the high staff turnover. There was nothing we could do to get rid of him.
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