Dear Grumpy Boss (Bossily Ever After #1)

15. Zayn

Fifteen

Zayn

“Yo! Sleeping beauty! Wake up!”

The voice isn’t loud but it still booms around me.

I groan, shift on the couch where I face-planted earlier and pop open one eyelid.

Three faces greet me, one glaring while the other two are filled with curiosity. That the glaring face is my best friend’s makes me want to disappear.

“Go away,” I mumble, closing my eyes against the shattering golden light.

“Adam here is committed to violence and since the man is an ex-army sniper, I thought it better to be present,” Nathan says, with far too much glee in his voice. I fight the urge to plant my fist in his face. “As your older brother and your business partner, I take your physical well-being seriously. Since Adam is also a beefy motherfucker, I asked Max for additional support. Also—”

“Oh, just shut up, will you, Nathan?” I say, sitting up.

The pain I’ve been bottling all morning rises to the surface when his sharp silver gaze takes in my current state. Discovering that he was my half brother at the age of sixteen saved my life. Though our mother had been long gone by then.

He took me away from my bullying father and showed me what unconditional love meant. If he probes my mental state now…I’m not sure what I might do. Bawling like a baby wouldn’t be the most embarrassing thing on the list.

“If you truly mean to be useful, go make me a cup of coffee.”

Nathan sighs. “That coffee machine looks like it belongs on Starship Enterprise. I don’t know how to work it.”

“Fuck, you’re a spoiled ass,” I say. “For a confirmed bachelor with a grown-ass stepdaughter, you should know the basic minimum.”

“And who do you think spoils me?” Nathan asks, clearly asking for a fight.

“Jazz, who else? That girl isn’t just Sophie’s paid companion. She runs your entire household,” I say morosely. Then, because I’m a mean, grouchy bastard, I add, “What will you do when she leaves you, Nathan? They are both going to graduate soon, yeah?”

Suddenly, my older brother’s face is shoved into mine, tension pouring out of him. “Why they fuck would you say something like that?” he bites out. “Neither Sophie nor Jasmine is going anywhere.”

“Don’t be so sure,” I say, seeing the same distress in his eyes as I feel. The fucker doesn’t know what’s coming.

“Why? Did Jasmine say something to you? When the hell did you even talk to her?”

Max, my brother’s other business partner, takes pity on me. “He’s yanking your chain, Nathan. He’s miserable and wants to spread it around.”

I grin.

Nathan curses.

Max shakes his head. “Come on. I know how to work the coffee machine.” With one look at me and Adam, he pulls Nathan away. They whisper like two hens clucking over their chick.

But when the door closes behind them, leaving Adam and me alone, I immediately miss my brother.

It’s not that I’m scared of Adam beating me up. The guy is a soft teddy bear beneath all the aggression he puts out on the surface. It’s that I’ve already taken a heart-shattering, soul-destroying risk with one important relationship today and I can’t afford to lose one more.

Adam, Nathan and Mouse were it for me, the latter being my entire world.

“Shouldn’t you be with her?” I say, belligerence creeping into my tone. I can’t bear to say her name. A pathetic part of me hoped she would come looking for me this morning. Demanding I come back to bed. Or at least to throw my gift to her in my face. It seems Mouse has really grown up. “She needs you.”

“Mariska’s coming to stay with her. When I left, she was still sleeping.”

I nod absentmindedly. “After the night we had, she deserves the whole day to—” I cut the words off as Adam’s cheeks turns dangerously red. “Sorry, that’s stepping over the line,” I say, rubbing my hand over my face.

“She’s an adult,” Adam says, surprising the hell out of me. “If she spends a night with you, that’s hardly my business. She’s made far tougher decisions for herself.”

He sounds as morose as I feel. “But she’s your little sister and you adore her and can’t tolerate her being hurt,” I finish for him.

He nods.

“I tried my best to not hurt her,” I say, swallowing the thorns of agony in my throat. “I did, Adam.”

Just remembering her face, her body, how she moaned in my arms, messes the little equilibrium I have. At dawn, it felt like a good decision to give her choices.

It was all that bloody honor crap that Nathan taught me when I was an impressionable teenager with an asshole for dad. The haughty bastard would love it that it stuck. “She’s…” I swallow the words that rise to my lips easily. I don’t know if I’ll ever say them. But if I do, she should hear them first. “She’s leaving me.”

His gaze searches mine and understanding dawns. “That’s why she sounded so lost on the phone. Big decision.”

“Yeah, and she blindsided me with it.”

“And what?” he says, leaning his bulk forward. The chair creaks ominously under him. “You’re just letting her go? You’re too much of a stubborn bastard for that, Zayn.”

“I gave her what she asked me for.” I rub my hands over my face, feeling bone-tired. “And then I gave her an even better reason to leave me. I want her to be happy. It would kill me if she settles for being…” I don’t finish the sentence. I can’t.

He’s so big that his broad chest rises and falls ominously when he sighs. Leaning forward from his chair, his cups my shoulder. “You’re the best among us, Z. Always were.”

“Then why do I feel like I have the lost the entire world in one fell swoop?”

My best friend has always understood when I’m in pain. He understands now.

I sit there, with my head in my hands, and he stays with me the whole time.