I Need A Bad Boy: A Collection of Bad Boy Romances

by Sophie Brooks

  I happened to knew this firsthand. As I sat there waiting patiently, dad was lying in a hospital bed, in a coma, after suffering a heart attack. Theo Lambert had done that to him. Until then, Philip Everwood had always been a strong man, as strong as a bull. Even mom’s death hadn’t been enough to take him down. But the risk of losing everything he had built had taken a big toll on him. I could have lost him in a minute. I still could.

  No, no, don’t think about him now, I thought, because I was already feeling a burning sensation around my eyes: tears that were pushing from inside my soul, looking for a way out. I couldn’t let them out, not right there and then. He can’t see you crying. You must be strong, you must be cold. Revenge is a cold thing.

  I didn’t even know what the plan was. I only knew that I’d destroy Theo Lambert somehow. And save dad’s company, if possible. But in any case, I’d destroy that arrogant pig.

  “Hi.”

  I jumped in my seat and blushed a bit. His unexpected appearance had startled me. I’d been lost in my thoughts, and I hadn’t noticed when he entered the room.

  “Hi,” I said, getting up and offering him my hand. He grabbed it delicately and kissed it. I would have laughed if I hadn’t been trying to stop my face from reddening. “I’m Lara.”

  “Lara Bold,” Theo said. “I’ve read your resume. Follow me, please.”

  There was something about him, to be sure. His voice was as deep and magnetic as one could imagine. The way he moved his hands, the precision and accuracy in his gestures, the way he looked at you right in the eye, all of it was undeniably charming. I knew he was handsome because I’d seen countless pictures of him, but meeting him in person was a completely different experience. Gosh, I thought, I could even like the man if I didn’t hate him so much.

  I followed him to the adjacent room, which turned out to be his office. I found it surprisingly small, all things considered. Through the window it could be seen a strikingly beautiful view of the city from above. I’ve never suffered from vertigo, but at that moment, I felt a bit dizzy. Maybe it was because of the height, or maybe because Theo’s eyes were pale blue pools where one could easily drown.

  He sat down at his desk and invited me to take a seat in front of him. His beautiful eyes followed my body as it moved, appreciatively. I could tell he liked me more than a bit. Callie was right.

  “I must say, Lara, that you have a pretty impressive resume.” He made the slightest pause before the last word. Maybe it was unintentional, maybe not. He was a player, certainly. “I think you may be the one who takes the job. But there are things that can’t be read in a resume. My previous assistant had impressive qualifications as well, but she... tried to bite more than she can chew. Please, don’t make the same mistake.”

  I’ve confronted countless men and women, and I don’t feel threatened easily. Even so, I flushed again. He kept his polite smile and his serene look, but somehow he had changed. He was now in full-on bad boy mode. I had to admit, even through all my hate and determination, that I found that attractive as hell.

  “I’m sure I have a lot to learn,” I said. “You can rest assured that I—”

  “Do you know anything about mergers, acquisitions and the like?”

  Of course I know about that. I’ve spent the last few months reading about what you do, motherfucker.

  “No,” I lied, “but I’m sure I’ll learn a lot. I’m eager...”

  “Enough,” he cut me bluntly. “There will be no bullshit with me. Of course you’ll learn, not because you’re eager, but because I expect you to.”

  A lightning bolt rushed up from deep inside me, threatening to surge out from my eyes and shoot at his pretty smug face. Who does he think he’s talking to? But I controlled myself quickly and kept a humble expression. I even looked down, for chrissake.

  “You’ll need to know the basics. I’ll hook you up with Sandor Vandell, my head of acquisitions,” he continued. (Hook you up?) “But mostly you’ll be taking care of my appointments and going places with me. That is, if you get the job. It will be demanding, stressful, and fun. Any questions?”

  I held his gaze for as long as I could, but I had to look away after a while. It was as if his eyes could burn with their blue glow. I looked through the window, as if I was trying to think of any questions. I had none, actually. I knew what I needed to do. The rest I would make up as I went along.

  We went over my resume in detail. Half of it was fake, and all of it, including the bits that were true, was under a fake name. My good friend Maurice (well, he’s a good friend for me; I’m his crush) had made some arrangements to make Lara Bold come to life, at least on paper. Theo Lambert could never know that my last name was Everwood. At least, until it was too late. (Or that I’d worked with Callie. I’d left that bit out as well.)

  “Fine,” Theo said. “I’ll let you know if you’re chosen. Thanks for coming.”

  “Thanks for the opportunity,” I said, sitting up, and offering him my hand once more. He held it, but this time he didn’t kiss it. He just looked at me in the eye, with that expression that seemed wild and hungry and sincere at the same time. His next words were unexpected. “Wanna have lunch?”

  I declined politely, and he seemed genuinely sad. I felt his gaze upon my body as I walked out the office. As I went towards the elevator, I remembered the talk with my father, when he told me about the takeover.

  3. HOSTILE INTENT

  Everwood Press is located in a stylized building near the riverbank. Walking beside it, one wouldn’t guess what it contains at its heart —mainly, thousands upon thousands of books, securely stored in a big warehouse surrounded by offices and a small park. It may not be the best arrangement, dad used to say, but it’s the most beautiful one, and people who work in a beautiful environment produce beautiful works.

  I met him in his own office, a pretty small space with a view towards the river, like most offices in the building. He called his secretary and asked for two coffees, as usual. We had met there countless times. But this time things were a bit off. Instead of being cheerful, he looked depressed. He fell into silence after a few minutes, and we waited for the coffee in an quiet, awkward atmosphere.

  “What’s up?” I finally asked.

  He still stood silent for a few seconds, looking at the ceiling. He put his hand over a pile of newly printed books that lay on his desk. He didn’t look at me as he started speaking.

  “I’m about to lose the company,” he said. “All of this. The building, the catalog, the books. Everything.”

  “Lose it? Why?” I asked, surprised. From what I knew, the publishing house was doing well, more than well. Once in a while, some book in the ever-growing catalog would hit it big, and those hits sustained the growth of the whole company. The days of struggle and effort, when dad founded what was then a small press and had to fight every day to seize a portion of the market to make it viable, were well behind him, and now was the time (for him and the shareholders, since the company had gone public years ago) to reap the benefits. It was a good, clean, thriving business. Why would anyone want to get rid of it?

  “The boad received a last minute call from the Lambert Group,” dad said. “Nobody knew about it. They just picked up the phone and told them they were buying shares. It’s a hostile takeover. They don’t care what I think, they only need the shareholders to get tempted and sell.”

  I knew what a hostile takeover was. As an accountant, I had never been in the middle of an acquisition, but I had read about them, and after a few years of talking to dad about his publishing house, I had an idea of the value of the company, its assets and cash flow. Even when I’d never worked at Everwood Press, as his daughter, I had a pretty good idea of its viability, and it was certainly a healthy company.

  “They would be fools if they sold,” I objected. “How much would they get, and how much would they lose in the long run? The company is profitable.”

  Dad stood up, walked around his desk, and stood in front of the
window, looking at the long line of multicolored trees along the riverbank. “Maybe not so much,” he said. “I’ve been talking to Marcus, and he found some troubling signs in the books. He says we haven’t been very well managed, at the very least. At worst, someone’s been stealing from us and hiding it in the balances.”

  I knew Marcus. They had been good friends for decades; that’s why dad put him in the company to take care of the numbers. He’d never been good at that, so he needed someone he could trust, and of course, Marcus was the man. Years ago, when I was just a little girl, he’d been almost an uncle to me, staying close after mom died, taking me to the park or the theatre, procuring me distractions.

  “Is it so bad? Can’t you just resist?”

  “The shareholders won’t say no. The company is in worse situation than we thought. Marcus has run the numbers and we’re pretty fucked.”

  “Do the shareholders know? The board?”

  Dad looked at me with a sad smile. “Theo Lambert is making sure they know exactly what’s happening. His guys have been very busy on the phone this last week. They know that most shareholders will do what the board says, so they are being very persuasive.”

  Of course. There was a reason for hostile takeovers to be called hostile.

  “So... there is no chance to recover?” I asked.

  Dad sighed.

  “I’ll do what I can. But I don’t think so.”

  I thought for a few minutes. I knew Theo Lambert from the magazines (who wouldn’t?), but I didn’t know a lot about his group. There was one thing I was pretty sure about, though.

  “Dad, the Lambert Group is not in the publishing business,” I said. “Real estate, hotels, transportation, logistics, technology, they do it all. But they have never printed a book. Why do they want Everwood?”

  His sad smile grew even sadder. Aren’t you still so young and naïve?, he seemed to ask me with his big clear eyes.

  “Books? They don’t care about books. They want the place. A pretty place beside the river to build something else. A resort, an apartment complex, a shopping center, whatever. As soon as they put their hands on our stock, they will get rid of everything.” He looked at the window again. When he spoke, his voice sounded fragile, broken. “Everything I’ve built. My life. They’ll destroy my life.”

  His heart agreed, evidently, because two weeks later it decided to quit in protest. Dad was buying groceries when it happened. He dropped to the floor so suddenly that people thought he was dead. He was taken to a hospital and resuscitated, but a few hours later he went into a coma. I stood beside him all night, awake, looking for any signs of recovery. Nothing happened. The following day, I started looking for a way to destroy Theo Lambert.

  4. THE CALL

  “I’m Theo Lambert. You’re hired,” he said. He didn’t even say hello.

  So Callie was right. Theo had barely waited one day before calling me. I guessed that he’d waited a day just to save face. There was no denying it: he was obviously hooked.

  “I’m honored,” I said.

  “It’s not an easy job,” Theo warned.

  I don’t care about the fucking job except for the fact that I will be there to fuck you over.

  “I’m confident that I’ll do it well. Thanks for the opportunity, Theo.”

  “Can you start right now?”

  “Like right now?” I asked stupidly.

  “Yes, right now. I need you to come over. I’ll text you the address.”

  The address was downtown, just a block from the Lambert Tower. I checked it to make sure as the taxi took me through the busy streets. I told the driver to stop near the corner, paid him, and walked the rest of the way. Callie had borrowed my car, so I had the chance to get acquainted with the surroundings, instead of wasting time looking for an available parking space.

  I had no clue what I was supposed to do. Theo had only told me that I had to be there. At the address he gave me I found a tall apartment building, but he had given me no indication of which apartment it was. Should I wait for him in front of the building, go inside and announce myself at the desk, or...?

  “Miss Bold?”

  I turned around to see the man standing on the sidewalk. He was wearing a neat gray suit, and his expression was as empty as if he’d had no face at all. He invited me to enter the building with a silent gesture, and as I walked in, he opened the glass door for me, with an impersonal politeness that I found pretty unsettling.

  “Welcome, Miss Bold,” a young woman said as I approached the desk. “Floor 10, apartment B.”

  I thought of sending Theo a message to ask what the fuck all this was about, but I figured that I’d better get to the tenth floor and see what was waiting for me up there. It would make very little difference. So I took the elevator.

  To my surprise, I found Theo himself inside the apartment. He was sitting on a couch, looking through the glass wall, enjoying the most beautiful view of the city. The river could be seen from there, and after a few seconds I could make out the shape of the Everwood Press building. Enjoying the view of your new acquisition, asshole? Are you already seeing a shopping center down there? I thought bitterly.

  “Lara. Come in,” Theo said, sitting up. He grabbed a glass and a bottle of sparkling water, which he offered me. “What do you think?”

  “Good morning,” I said, still bitter. “What do you think about what?”

  “This place,” he replied, blinking in surprise. “Do you like it?”

  I like it, yes. Such a nice view. The dark purple walls are charming. There is a bar and a media center. And what a beautiful couch. How many people lost the work of all their lives to pay for it?

  “It’s nice,” I said dryly. “Why does my opinion matter?” Is this the place where you bring your chicks?

  “Because this place,” he said quietly, “is where you’ll live. Most of the time.”

  I blinked twice.

  “What?”

  “We need to be close. You can’t be taking the subway or driving for forty minutes every day,” Theo said. “Even if I send you a limo, it will get stuck in traffic. Sometimes I will need you quickly and that won’t do.”

  He showed me a keyring with two identical sets of keys.

  “Here, take one of these,” he said, detaching one of the sets and offering it to me.

  I was having a hard time assimilating the whole situation. I took the keys before realizing what he meant.

  “And you’ll keep the other one?” I asked when it clicked.

  “Is that a problem?” Theo said.

  Of course it’s a problem, you sick fuck. But I’d have to agree if I wanted to be close to him. Objecting now could mean getting fired on the spot, and goodbye secret plan.

  “Not at all,” I said. And it was settled.

  I would need to move in, which was not a simple operation. Even a young single woman has to carry lots of things from one apartment to the next one. Fortunately, Theo offered to send a truck from a moving company and three guys to take care of all my things. I wouldn’t even need to pack. They would do everything.

  “How cool. And you know these guys because...?”

  “... I own the company,” he replied.

  “Of course.”

  5. WORKING FOR THE ENEMY

  I actually started working with Theo the following day, after his guys had helped me move to my new apartment. I asked Callie to take care of the old one (well, of my real apartment) and visit it once in a while, to check that everything was OK. Callie sounded a bit alarmed when I told her that I was moving, but now that the plan was in motion, she couldn’t back down. She agreed to everything.

  Theo had given me a dedicated smartphone to use at my job as his assistant. “Never forget your cell phone. Never,” he told me as he handed me the device. “I won’t,” I assured him. To which he naturally replied: “Of course.”

  The smartphone started ringing almost as soon as he gave it to me, with a constant influx of SMS and Whatsapp messa
ges that would last until very late in the night. There were also tons of voice messages that I could listen to because Theo had helpfully given me the PIN for the mailbox. The following day, the ringing started around 5am and kept on and on: text messages, Whatsapp messages, voice messages, one after the other. Every single one of them was from some young woman. They pleaded for attention, complained about unreturned calls, sought encounters, professed love and devotion and insisted on business opportunities that were just thinly veiled excuses to meet in person. Theo had just forwarded all messages from his own phone to mine. I checked all the messages, muted some, and tuned out the rest after a while.

  Is he doing this on purpose? I thought. Does he want me to know how successful he is with women? If so, it was a childish attitude. There was no doubt that he, as a handsome, charming and powerful man, was successful with women, and no amount of confirmation would change the way I thought of him.

  My sleep was ruined, so I decided to go to work early on my first day.

  * * *

  It was about 8 am when I arrived at the King of Hearts. When the elevator door opened, I saw Theo talking to a handsome man in a prolix suit, maybe ten years his senior, whose accent sounded slightly foreign. They both shook my hand and then Theo introduced me to the man.

  “Lara, this is Sandor Vandell. I talked to you about him, remember?”

  Sandor Vandell. The head of acquisitions. Of course I remembered. We’ll have a lot to talk about one of these days, I thought. For now, I just smiled politely and introduced myself.

  “Come here, please,” Theo said as he waved at Sandor. We both entered his office as the head of acquisitions stepped into the elevator. “Any important messages?”

  “Well, I don’t think so, though there are many people who really miss you,” I retorted.

  “What about you?”