“I didn’t come here because I wanted a job, Mr. Svensson. I’m here because I want to land a billionaire husband and live happily ever after in a fairy-tale castle,tee-hee!”
She undid another button then turned, hopped onto the corner of my desk, and arranged her body in an exaggerated pinup-girl position.
My brain made alarm noises as she pushed up her tits so they were almost spilling out of her half-undone blouse.
“There, isn’t that better? Now,” she said, still using that fake falsetto voice, “can youpwetty pweaseshow me how to use a laptop? I want to please you and be the best assistant ever.”
“What the—” I took two steps back, turned to the door, and grabbed the handle, still shocked at what was happening.
Did she want me to have sex with her?
I turned back around to confront Tess. But my assistant had lost the fake persona and crossed her arms. She still hadn’t buttoned her shirt back up, part of me was happy to notice.
The rest of me was furious.
Tess had a smirk on her face like she had the upper hand. Which she did not. It was my company. Tess worked for me.
I took two steps toward her. “You think you’re going to come here and make a mockery of me and waste my time?” I roared.
Tess’s jaw was set, defiant.
“Well, guess what,” I hissed at her. “You’re fired.”
“Good,” she spat, “because I hated every minute of working with you. I hope you have a terrible life.” She grabbed her purse and stormed out.
I sat back down at my desk.
Tess hated working with me? I had thought we’d had a somewhat good rapport.
What do I care?
Cressida, the human resources director, hurried into my office. “I thought you wanted me to add Tess back into the system?” she asked.
“No. She’s been fired.”
Cressida looked up at me from under her lashes. “That’s too bad. I know you’re a busy man and need an assistant. I am happy to fill in while you work on finding a new one.” She licked her lips.
“No, thank you,” I told her firmly. Cressida had always given off predatory vibes. I wasn’t sure if it was just my paranoia that had been instilled in me by my older brothers or because of my own issues with my mother.
“Please just find another temp. Make sure she’s well qualified. She needs to show proof that she knows all the software, can work a spreadsheet, and has some sense of design.”
“Of course!” Cressida chirped. “The temp agency sent me a whole list of people. Maybe we can grab dinner and go over them?”
“Can’t,” I said, grateful for once that I actually had to go see my brothers. “I have another commitment.”
5
Beck
The rain had reduced to a drizzle as the town car dropped Walker and me off in front of the Svensson Investment tower. My brothers were waiting for me in the conference room on the eighty-seventh floor.
While all of us were the products of a polygamist cult-leader father and his many wives, only my full brothers were assembled in the conference room today. Leif Svensson’s genes were strong, and he also only took blond women as his wives. As a result, my brothers and I all looked eerily similar. Our existence was one of the great ironies in my father’s life—in a polygamist cult, girls were preferred for obvious reasons, but my father seemed to only be able to produce sons.
Fortunately, as of Tuesday, he was in jail. Unfortunately, however, our little sisters were still missing.
My younger half brothers lived with my older half brother Hunter in the small town of Harrogate. I could only take the little ones in small doses. Having the college-age kids interning at my company was bad enough without having two dozen Fortnite-obsessed little boys crawling all over my condo.
The adult brothers I had to interact with on a daily basis were barely tolerable. The youngest, Carl, who worked as an account manager at Svensson Investment, was arguing with Liam, the second youngest, who was the COO of Platinum Provisions and had a dessert addiction, which I was forever trying to break him of.
