Bossy Grump: An Enemies to Lovers Romance

by Nicole Snow

  “Thanks, ass. You threw in every punch except for my broken—” I cut myself off.

  “Maria? That was two years ago, man...and the tabloids forgot.” Nick leans against the wall. “Osprey and his muckrakers barely touched you. Nothing like me and Carmen Seraphina. He dragged me over the coals for a month.”

  “Enough,” I bite off.

  I shudder at every mention of that hideous man. Roland Osprey is a media assassin, the mortal enemy of everyone rich and famous, especially here at home in Chicago. The Chicago Tea is a fucking flamethrower of a publication, leaving scorched earth in its wake.

  “We’re still paying for our parents’ sins,” I say, the words so numb. “And our own.”

  I wish it weren’t true, but I’m old enough to know better.

  The Brandt curse will never end, not since that incident on the yacht with the trash we called parents and Dylan damned Parnell.

  “It was so long ago—” Nick starts.

  I shrug.

  “Things come back to haunt you, even if you don’t deserve it.”

  “How can it keep coming back? I wasn’t even involved with it, and neither were you,” Nick says with disgust.

  I want to laugh in sympathy, but this situation is so intense I just can’t.

  “Believe me, brother, I understand.”

  Paige sits pale and quiet, watching our exchange. For her sake, I hope she has no idea what we’re talking about. She hugs herself.

  “You okay?” I ask.

  “Yeah.” She looks at me, twisting her lips. “Can I ask a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “Morale is already so low—” she begins.

  “And this won’t make it better,” Nick adds.

  “Do you think people will quit?” Paige stares at me sadly.

  Hell, I hope not. The panic on her face is obvious.

  She’s afraid she won’t be able to handle it if more positions go vacant, if we lose the Winthrope contract, and wind up rudderless, running on Grandma’s glory fumes.

  Frankly, I don’t even know if I can handle it, and I technically own half the company now.

  There has to be something we can do. We have to stop the bleeding.

  “We’ll get through this, or die trying. There’s no other choice, and no point in dwelling on what might happen,” I growl.

  They look at me, scared but reassured.

  I fake stoic calmness well.

  If the company fails, maybe I can try for an acting career.

  Nick sits on the floor, ignoring the other empty chair.

  “Nicholas Brandt, stand up right now,” I say.

  “Huh? What’s your problem?”

  “We’re already on the brink of losing a very important contract for this company and for our family, because people like Winthrope still see us as the ‘Brandt Boys.’” I put finger quotes around that stupid name. “You look like a frat boy sitting on the carpet. Start acting your age. If we want to run this company like Grandma, we need to stop panicking and shape up.”

  9

  Ex Troubles (Paige)

  My heart dropped when Winthrope said he needed to reassess.

  Everyone really wanted this deal. Ward can’t handle more setbacks right now, even if he’s the only one who seems to be keeping it together.

  I doubt Nick can either, judging by the way I catch him brooding in front of his soaring windowpanes overlooking Chicago in its summer majesty. He always lightens up as soon as he notices my presence, but I’m able to see a different kind of family resemblance between him and Ward when he slips into grump-mode.

  Both brothers are closed books in their own ways.

  Human vaults with something very dark and painful tucked away inside.

  Why?

  The hardest thing is imagining how the Winthrope deal falling through could affect poor Beatrice. The day before she collapsed in her office, she told me she could finally taste what she and Godfrey set out to do when they were young.

  They wanted to build a castle, a palace, right along Lake Michigan. It was a silly pie-in-the-sky dream of two young artists madly in love then—except for the fact that Ross Winthrope’s outrageous luxury hotel can actually make their fever dream a stunning reality.

  Without the contract, she’ll be crushed.

  I worry. With a bad heart, can she handle it?

  “...start acting thirty, nimrod.” Ward’s booming voice draws my focus back to the room.

  Nick stops his pacing, running a hand over his face. “Whatever. There must be something we can do.”

  “I said we’ll figure it out.” Ward’s voice is iron, and strangely soothing.

  My eyes connect with Nick’s in a hopeful glance, desperately wanting to believe him.

  Nick moves to the cabinet Ward keeps his mini fridge in and reaches inside. “Where’s the damn water? My throat feels like cotton.”

  “I’ll get it!” I bolt out of the room before either of them can stop me.

  Thank God. You’d need a chainsaw to cut the tension in there. Grabbing the water gives me an excuse to breathe.

  The air in the hall feels ten times cooler, but the atmosphere is just as morbid.

  The building isn’t empty, but you’d never know it from the void that permeates Brandt Ideas these days.

  I stop by my desk to change into the more professional house shoes he insisted I buy with his stupid lucky tie. They shuffle against the marble floor. I should have just worn flats, but wearing Ward’s slippers in the office makes him acknowledge what passed between us, even if he’ll never admit it.

  I go to the supply room and grab an armful of water bottles.

  On the way back to his office, Andrew watches me from the glass wall his marketing team’s office suite sits behind. A girl from accounting peers at me through the gap in a horizontal blind made bigger by her finger.

  God.

  We won’t be able to hide the crisis forever.

  Everyone can feel something dreadfully wrong, and they act like I’ll be the bearer of news, good or bad.

  If we lose this contract, there’ll be resignations. No one wants to go down with a sinking ship.

  And when people don’t come to work, I get their workload if it’s anything I can do. I’m not sure I can handle more without ending up in the psych ward.

  I may have panic-called Brina to vent the day I found out Ward was my Dark Knight from the museum, but this place wasn’t HeronComm bad with her badass boss-turned-husband ruling over his people with an iron fist.

  Not until today.

  My hands are too full of Fiji bottles to open the door, so I kick it. Nick opens the door for me and grabs a bottle from my mound, rips the cap off, and starts chugging it like a man dying of thirst.

  I restock the rest in the cabinet fridge.

  Wardhole taps his pen like a gavel on his desk. My eyes snap to those hands, so strong and strangely calloused for a man who grinds away behind an office desk all day. They’re more like a carpenter’s fingers, weathered and imposing, far too good at making me imagine what they’d feel like brushing my skin.

  “It’s got to be the personal factor giving Winthrope cold feet,” he grumbles, mostly to himself. “What the hell can we do about it?”

  I admire how calmly he asks the question. He hasn’t lost his temper the way he often does—or maybe he only loses his temper with me.

  Ha-ha. That bitter laugh in my head must translate to my face.

  “Why are you smirking now, Paige? What’s so funny?” he asks.

  I shake my head.

  “Nothing.”

  “It’s never nothing with you,” he says, dark whirls in his eyes ripping the truth out of me, stripping me bare.

  Am I flushed? Send help.

  I try to hide it with a laugh. “You’re just so calm with this Mayday situation. I was just thinking...maybe you only explode on me.”

  “Not just you,” Nick adds with a wince. “You should see how he gets when he’s
out of cereal. Ward eats peanut butter puffs like they’re going out of business.”

  “Children, can we focus?” Ward asks, darting his eyes away with a hilarious tic of shame that says it’s true.

  I snicker, trying to imagine him stuffing 'candy for breakfast' into that mortar of a mouth. So maybe he does have a human side.

  Nick snaps his fingers loudly, banishing the thought.

  “I’ve got it. We need a reputation wash. The same kind of service I hired to spruce up my internet footprint the last time Osprey was on my ass,” Nick says with a smile, holding out his open hands like he’s just solved string theory.

  “Huh?” Ward looks at him. “That was online only. And it didn’t fool Osprey and his machine for very long when your ex was still gallivanting around, talking about your sordid...history.”

  “That’s not the point,” Nick snaps, huffing out a breath.

  “What’s a reputation wash?” I ask.

  Nick turns to me. “It’s like cleaning your personal history. Teams go into Google results, social media, wherever, and try to rank up the positive results over the bad.”

  No one says anything. Ward and I exchange a lost glance.

  “Trouble is, Winthrope isn’t dicking around on Instagram or Twitter. Plus, The Chicago Tea has a top spot in Google news. Nobody’s going to bury Osprey’s crap with the media empire he’s built. We don’t need a reputation wash. We need a time machine, Einstein,” Ward tells his brother.

  Nick’s shoulders sag. His eyes flick back and forth, a shade greener than Ward’s, searching for alternatives and failing.

  “Look, he doesn’t want to do business with us because he thinks we’re spoiled frat boys. We need to look old, artsy weird, and boring.”

  “No shit, Sherlock. We need to look like our grandparents, but we both know the ship has sailed on that, no thanks to...never mind.” That last word is a whisper as Ward’s eyes meet mine before shifting to Nick again. “Short of defying relativity and re-doing our lives, what you’re asking for is impossible.” He pauses. “And frankly, there is no reputation rinse. Not for real. You saw how fast it was over and done for you.”

  “Nah, but that was me. Your reputation isn’t trashed beyond repair, Ward.”

  “What?” Ward asks.

  I plaster myself to the wall and watch.

  “You don’t have a hundred miles of nasty blog posts and tweets like I do. You haven’t dated enough famous girls and had the infamous breakups. You didn’t have Carmen Seraphina crawling over barbed wire, always coming back—”

  “Thank God for small favors,” Ward rumbles.

  Nick throws him a withering look. “The point is, your reputation can be smoothed out. Just enough to show Winthrope we can do the job without him breaking a monocle or something.”

  Ward scoffs. “Yeah, right. You heard him on the phone. He knows who we are. Hell, if Grandma wasn’t in the mix, he never would’ve given this firm the time of day. He’s not the type to pass out second chances. We have to prove ourselves on skill, talent, and service. Although, if he won’t give us a foot in the door, I don’t know how we—”

  I burst out laughing.

  “How is that funny?” Ward looks at me, his eyebrow quirked.

  “I mean, it’s not. It’s just—you talking about people not giving second chances.”

  “Okay?” His forehead creases.

  I shrug. “Ignore me. I’m just an obnoxious drunk.”

  Nick lets out a belly laugh and meets my eyes.

  “I like you. Never stop giving him everything he deserves, Paige.” He looks at Ward. “Bro, you’re boxing yourself in. You can save this company. You just need a reset and an open mind.”

  “Don’t you think I’d do it in a heartbeat if I thought it would work? Human beings aren’t fucking blueprints, Nicholas. You don’t just redo a bad design and go about your merry way.”

  Our eyes meet, and I hate how I’m totally blushing again.

  He may be a bosshole, but right now, his words are strangely profound.

  “Ah, Ward, you’re such a drama king,” Nick spits. “If you’d just man up and get over her, you wouldn’t even need a reset. You don’t stomp around Chicago with your dick hanging out like I do.”

  He’s trying to be funny, but there’s something kind of sad behind his self-deprecation too.

  Oh, Nick. You poor, poor soul.

  Ward stands. “Wrong. The breakup was public. She made me look like a damn—”

  But Nick cuts him off. “It was two years ago.”

  What? What was pretty public? I want to know.

  I have no idea what they’re talking about, but two years is ancient history for anything short of murder. Did Ward get his heart busted up by some girl?

  I step forward. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, but—”

  “See? She doesn’t even know and she works for you.” Nick rips open another water bottle and starts chugging, his eyes narrowed at his brother.

  “Uh, actually I was just going to say my best friend Brina’s husband, Magnus Heron, was a total buttwipe. The dude paid some chick to fake an engagement once so he could stage a big press conference. He always did outlandish things, marketing himself, but when he had to take over his company and look after his kid brother, he turned it around fast. There’s no way either of you can match that guy in the jerk department.” I shrug. “I mean, I’ve never had to hit either of you in the face with a pie.”

  “Shit. Heron’s wife is your best friend?” Nick asks, sputtering on his water.

  Ward chuckles like a crackling fire.

  “I’m more interested in the ‘she pied Heron’ part.” He looks at me. “You really hit him in the face with a pie?”

  Maybe I shouldn’t have admitted it.

  “Um, yeah. He kinda deserved it. Long story. I didn’t realize you guys knew him.” I don’t know why. Billionaires in Chicagoland are practically neighbors, unless one of them pisses the others off. “The point is, the press used to treat him like an arrogant ogre...and he was. But now? It’s all fluff pieces since the wedding and the stuff that went down with HeronComm. If he turned into Mr. Rogers in a year, you guys can too.”

  “He’s married to a small-town girl who doodles cat and dog cartoons for charity shelters,” Nick says.

  I scowl at him. “Brina’s from the burbs. She owns her own company, thank you very much, and those pet cartoons attract tens of thousands in donations to help animals find new homes. She makes serious money with her graphic art and only works part time.”

  Nick shrugs. “I didn’t mean anything by it, Paige. Just that Mag’s a family guy now.”

  The room goes silent.

  “Don’t you get it?” Nick asks.

  I shake my head.

  “No,” Ward clips.

  “That’s it. That’s how we get your reset.”

  “What the hell are you talking about? Are you saying I need to wife some graphic designer?”

  “Not necessarily.”

  “Good, because every girl in our graphics department isn’t my type,” Ward jokes.

  What is your type, Wardhole? But I laugh again.

  He looks at me exasperated.

  “What’s wrong with making art for a living?” I ask. “Jeez, for the grandson of two famous architects, you’re such a snob.”

  He rolls his eyes. “I’m not a snob. I suppose nothing’s wrong with cartooning as long as I don’t have to be involved with it, but why would anyone marry someone whose hobbies are as bland as porridge?”

  “Oh, Brina, I’m sorry. I never should’ve mentioned you. I didn’t mean to get hung up on cute pet cartoons. It wasn’t the point.”

  “What was the point again?” Ward asks.

  “Get married. There’s your reset. Bam!” Nick says, signing guns with his fingers. “It’s a ticket to good PR, and you’ll look like a grown-up.”

  Ward and I share a grim look, then we both burst into laughter.

  It�
�s so absurd I’m in stitches until my sides hurt.

  But Nick never laughs.

  And when we finally regain composure, he keeps the joke going. “Do either of you have a better idea?”

  Um. I’m speechless.

  “Of all the stupid shit I’ve heard you say—why don’t you get married to save the company takes the nonexistent wedding cake,” Ward snarls, his dark brows pulling down like a thunderhead.

  Nick grins. “I’m irredeemable, remember? Look, you probably don’t have to get married. Not really. Just fake an engagement until after the contract’s signed. A low-key broken engagement a few months later isn’t a good reason to cancel. He won’t back out once it’s underway, and managing a Winthrope construction shores up our reputation forever. We’ve just got to make the finish line.”

  Crickets.

  I wish there were bugs chirping to break the agonizing silence.

  Then Ward clears his throat, turning to face the city through the shimmering glass. “I hate to point out the obvious, but...I haven’t had time for dating in two years. Who, pray tell, should I fake marry?” He sighs. “I can’t believe I’m even asking.”

  “A cat cartoonist,” I say.

  Ward scoffs.

  “Bad timing, I guess. I thought it was funny.” I shrug, feeling a soreness in my shoulders. It’s got to be the stress.

  Nick stays quiet, his eyes slowly tracing from his brother to me. Then back again.

  Wardhole, Paige.

  Paige.

  Wardhole.

  Smile.

  Sinister freaking smile.

  Oh, no. He can’t possibly be thinking—

  “Paige,” Nick says, starting toward me.

  I whip my neck around. “Nick?”

  He stares at me heavily until I get his point. His incredibly boneheaded, desperate, and no-way-this-is-happening suggestion.

  Hell no.

  But before I can say it, Ward hits the limit on his snarly boss-o-meter. “Ridiculous! We’re struggling to salvage the biggest deal in Brandt history and all you’ve got are games, Nicholas? Christ. Maybe Winthrope’s right. Give me something real to work with, you two,” he spits, pure venom in his tone.