1
Tess
“You’re fired!”
My boss’s deep voice rang out over the floor. It was 8:57 in the morning, and the firings had begun.
I scrunched down at my desk.
“Glad it wasn’t me,” I whispered. “I literally cannot afford it.”
Maeve snorted. “Holly and I both told you that your emergency fund is for financial emergencies only, such as getting fired, not drunk online shopping.”
“But they were the most adorable cake pans!”
“No one needs ten different cake pans shaped like bunnies,” Maeve hissed as Beck, dirty-blond hair perfectly parted to the left, strode by.
Tall, like really tall, with broad shoulders and a chest that tapered down to narrow hips and an ass that waschef’s kissin that bespoke suit, my boss was hot—way hotter than my last boss, who would literally wear a corset to contain his beer gut.
“I need those changes made for the AstraDrone presentation,” he ordered me. “Don’t disappoint me. This meeting is important.”
“And I, as a lowly assistant, am not,” I quipped.
Beck’s mouth turned down, but he didn’t respond. He prowled into his office, the glass door shutting behind him with a soft, metallic click. The office floor let out a collective sigh now that he was gone. Only the quiet sobs of the girl who had just been fired cut through the silence.
“He’s like a wild animal,” I whispered to Maeve. “If I didn’t hate him so much, I would totally let him play Tarzan to my Jane. But the Disney version.”
Maeve raised an eyebrow. “If you had him half naked, then why would you want to do anything G-rated with him?”
“I just meant I didn’t want him unwashed with a sunburn and matted hair.”
Goose bumps rose on the back of my neck. I turned around slowly.
Steel-gray eyes caught mine through the glass wall.
Oops.
Beck’s eyes narrowed, and he pointed to his watch.
I saluted.
“You keep poking the bear in the suit you’re going to get bit,” Maeve told me as I opened the email from Beck that had just appeared in my inbox.
“He hasn’t fired me yet!” I said breezily. Then I groaned when I saw all the changes Beck wanted. I looked back at his office, but he was pacing while on the phone.
“The man is a lunatic,” I said to Maeve, standing up. “Also, I need sustenance if I’m going to finalize everything before the meeting at two this afternoon.”
My lunch from yesterday was still in the fridge. I had baked a quiche Lorraine earlier in the week. I would have eaten in yesterday, but Beck had yelled at Maeve for not catching a typo in a memo, and she had needed a cocktail over lunch to keep it together.
The quiche would be a perfect second breakfast.
Except it wasn’t there.
My Hello Kitty lunch box was still in the fridge, along with the matching thermos, but someone had taken my food.
“The hell?” I grumbled, grabbing the lunch box and stomping back to my desk. There were a number of things I hated—children, Cressida the HR skank, the guy who lived above me and blasted his music to cover up the sound of his dog barking, my stepdad, dating, pickles, my boss, folding fitted sheets—but right there, at the top of the list, were people who stole other people’s food.
“The nerve!” Maeve exclaimed when I showed her the empty lunch box.
