Forbidden Boss (Nikki and Rome's Story) (Manhattan Billionaires)

3. Nikki

My right ringfinger was sprained. The X-ray showed me an unbroken bone, but the thing hurt so much I wondered how it could still be whole. Besides the sprain, I’d needed three stitches on my leg. All in all, things could have been worse. I could have been crushed. The glass could have cut an artery. I could have died in the Blakely Advertising Agency studio, killed by a six-foot penis.

What a way to go.

By the time I got my discharge paperwork, it was just after eight o’clock. I’d been in the hospital for nearly ten hours, most of it spent waiting. My injuries were minor, but I was ready to collapse in bed.

Tomorrow, I’d deal with the fallout. The job search. The rebuild.

The hospital bill.

I’d had a lovely conversation with the hospital’s insurance representative when I was lying in a bed waiting to get stitched up. And by “lovely,” of course, I mean “short,” because I didn’t have insurance, and I’d made too much money at my old job to qualify for Medicaid.

Now, falling between the cracks of two jobs, I was screwed.

I didn’t know how much the bill would be, but I knew I couldn’t afford it. Hell, I couldn’t even afford to live. And how would I find a new apartment if I couldn’t show proof of employment or old paystubs? How could I pay off my stupid, idiotic loan without an income?

Three stitches and a cheap plastic splint on my finger were going to put me in more debt than I’d been in my entire life.

Stupid Rome Blakely and his stupid perfume penis. Buff and polish the giant glass dildo, they said. Do it out of the way so we can keep shooting, they told me.

I’d worked for less than seven full days at that place, and it would cost me all my financial stability. I’d been a placeholder and a fool.

The glass doors whirred as they opened for me, a tired-looking doctor brushing past me as I stepped outside. Cool, damp air surrounded me, but I couldn’t take a deep breath. I couldn’t seem to think straight.

Apparently, this would be the thing that sent me over the edge. I sank onto a bench under the hospital’s high awning, white, fluorescent lights spilling onto the pavement around and in front of me. The emergency department wasn’t far away, just on the other side of the parking lot, and I watched an ambulance come in with lights and sirens blazing.

I saw the shape of a person on a stretcher, and I hoped for their own sake they had insurance.

I tried to pull myself back from the brink. It was just a bill, and I didn’t even know how much it would be. For all I knew, by the time I got it, I’d have a new job and a new apartment. At worst, it would be a debt that would take me a few years to pay off. I could handle that. Logically, I knew.

But my eyes stung, and, horribly, humiliatingly, I felt myself begin to cry.

It was getting fired from the vintage clothing store, and then getting the notice to vacate my home, and then getting broken up with, and then the stupid giant dildo-that-wasn’t-a-dildo, and then getting fired again. And now this.

How could I ever get ahead? I didn’t even know what that meant! Getting ahead? Ahead of who? I didn’t want to be ahead of anyone. All I wanted was a bit of stability. As I leaned back against the cool metal of the bench, watching the paramedics close up their ambulance to make space for the next arrival, I wondered how everything had become so bleak.

The logical thing to do would be to ask one of my friends for money. Penny had married a man who made a fortune in tech, and she ran a successful small business of her own making dog clothes. They could probably pay my hospital bill with the loose change from their couch cushions.

Besides, Penny would understand. We’d reconnected a few years ago, and she hadn’t been much better off than I was now.

There was Dani and Layla, but I wasn’t that close with them, and I hated asking them for money. Then there was Bonnie, but Bonnie was in just as much of a bind as I was. She’d had to take a job as a nanny for a man she’d slept with years ago at a business conference. The only silver lining for her was that he hadn’t remembered her.

She wouldn’t have the means to help me. The logical choice was to call Penny for help. I’d known her since college, and we were close.

But I stared at the blank screen of my phone, and it wasn’t the hour that stopped me from messaging her.

It was the fact that I was the placeholder.

What if I was a placeholder for her too? What if this friendship had blossomed again after we’d lost touch after college, but if I asked her for this favor, she pulled away? What if we’d reconnected but she didn’t really care about me, not enough to mix money with friendship?

Then I’d lose her. And I’d lose my friendship with Bonnie and Dani and Layla by association. Sure, we didn’t spend as much time together as we did a few years ago, since most of my girlfriends had their children and husbands now. But maybe the gulf between us would just be a little bit too wide to bridge if I pointed out how broke I really was.

It would kill me to realize I was a placeholder for them too.

So I couldn’t ask them for money. I couldn’t even ask to crash on one of their couches—and by one of their couches, of course, I mean one of the multitudes of luxurious guest rooms they owned in various buildings dotted around Manhattan and beyond.

Asking for help would be tantamount to plastering a big neon sign on my forehead that said, I DON’T BELONG HERE.

A hot tear rolled down my cheek, and I brushed it angrily away, jarring the edge of my splint on my face. Pain lanced through my sprained finger, and I let out a whimper.

Panic and heartbreak and despair whirled around me like I was the eye of the hurricane, and my emotions were the wind and rain wreaking destruction on the life I’d carefully built. I sat in the eye of the storm, dead inside, waiting for the hurricane to flatten me.

That’s why I didn’t hear his approach until I saw a pair of shiny black shoes come to a stop in front of me.

My gaze traveled up, up, up. Up the perfectly tailored pants with the quarter-break and crisp center pleat. Up the bespoke shirt—white again—that was now without a tie and open at the collar. Up the strong jaw and the hard male lips, until my gaze came to a stop on glittering blue eyes.

We stared at each other for a moment.

“You’re crying,” Rome Blakely told me with a frown.

“No, I’m not,” I replied, stupidly, because I definitely was.

“Did they not give you enough pain meds?” He shifted to look at the sliding glass doors behind me, like he had half a mind to march in there and demand I be treated again.

Maybe I’d hit my head, and I was hallucinating. Why else would the billionaire in charge of the company that had just fired me be standing there?

His jaw clenched, and he returned those thick-lashed eyes to me. “Why are you sitting here on your own?” he demanded.

I reared back. “Why are you here at all?”

He blinked slowly, ignoring my question. I arched a brow, but I was fragile. I didn’t have it in me to resist, so I answered his question first. “I was just enjoying the evening air before I head home,” I told him, not mentioning the pit of despair I’d accidentally fallen into. “Now it’s your turn. Why are you here?”

He nodded to the black sedan idling behind him. “I’m here to take you home.”

“What?” I asked his back because he’d already turned to head to the car. His driver jumped to open the back door for him, and he didn’t even deign to give me a glance before disappearing into the dark interior.

The hospital’s sliding glass door whirred behind me, and two women walked out, gossiping. They called out a greeting to a third person, and I just sat there staring at Rome Blakely’s car like the useless lump I was.

His driver cleared his throat. “Miss?”

“How did you find me?” I asked him.

“The paramedics told us which hospital they were taking you to this morning. Mr. Blakely wanted to make sure you made it home okay.”

“I don’t believe you,” I told him, frowning.

The man’s face was impassive. He held the door open and blinked at me, unmoving.

The stubborn part of me considered walking away and getting a cab. But I couldn’t afford that. I could take the subway…

But there was a car right there. If a rich, overbearing asshole wanted to drive me right to my door, who was I to refuse? I mean, I enjoyed a bit of true crime now and then and this was definitely how people got themselves murdered, but still. I was tired and brittle, and my finger throbbed.

I stood, meeting the driver’s gaze. Then I asked the most important question: “Does he have snacks in there?”

The driver’s eyes sparkled. “Yes, miss,” he told me.

My own gaze narrowed. “Good snacks?”

“I can’t answer that. I don’t know what kind of snacks you like. The mini fridge is fully stocked, though.”

My shoulders dropped, and I relented. “Fine.”

Shuffling to the open car door, I shoved the discharge paperwork in my purse and ducked inside. It was surprisingly roomy, not quite a limo but bigger than a sedan. Blakely was seated beside me, his long legs spread and his arm resting on the window frame.

When the driver closed the door, Blakely leaned forward and pressed a button, and a mini fridge slid open in front of us where the front seats’ center console should have been. I saw small bottles of alcohol, a variety of sodas, and a good selection of snacks. I grabbed a chocolate bar that promised to be studded with almonds and a bottle of water.

“Thank you,” I told him primly.

Blakely pressed the button again, and the mini fridge disappeared. The car was whisper-quiet as the driver put it in gear. We went around the circular drive and back out toward the hospital’s exit. The only noise in the back seat was the crinkling of my chocolate bar wrapper.

“I’ve never heard of this brand,” I noted, inspecting it.

“I get them flown in from Belgium.”

“Well, la-di-dah,” I said quietly, and took a bite.

At that brilliant riposte of mine, the billionaire in the seat beside me turned to stare at me, the passing streetlights casting his face in alternating light and shadow.

Decadent chocolate exploded over my tongue. I let out a surprised noise, letting the rich flavor melt in my mouth for a moment before crunching through the perfect amount of almonds. I closed my eyes and leaned back, enjoying one more bite before shaking my head. “Wow,” I said.

“I’d like you to explain your comments to me,” Blakely said, voice harsher than I thought was really warranted.

I frowned over at him, only to find him glaring at my chocolate bar. Maybe it was really expensive, and he’d missed the day in preschool where he was supposed to learn to share?

“What comments?”

His gaze traveled over my now rumpled dress, lingering on my collarbones before rising to my eyes. “You said firing you would be a mistake.”

“Well, duh,” I said, and took another bite.

That was the thing about being in an expensive car with a very rich man the day that you got fired for getting injured, ruined a multiple-hundred-thousand-dollar photo shoot, and then discovered that not only would you be homeless soon, but you’d also be in a mountain of debt. It tended to put things in perspective.

In other words, I didn’t give a rat’s ass what this arrogant, privileged man thought of me. I eyed the space where the mini fridge hid, wondering if I could snag another chocolate bar before he dropped me off. They were flown in from Belgium, after all.

“Explain.”

I turned to look at him. “Explain what?”

“What kind of mistake are we talking?”

I blinked. “The kind of mistake that you regret, obviously.” I frowned at him. Firing me was his loss! I might have been a peon in his company, but I was a hard worker, and I always went above and beyond. I knew I was a valuable employee, even if my previous boss hadn’t appreciated me. That was his loss too! My old boss would have to hire three people to replace me, and he could stick that in his fancy consultant’s pipe and then take the pipe and shove it up his hole.

But Blakely’s reaction was strange. His eyes got intense, and his jaw went hard. A muscle feathered in his cheek until he faced forward and took a deep breath, like he needed to gather himself.

I finished the chocolate bar and eyed the mini fridge again before scanning the door on my side. Maybe one of these buttons would open it up. Belgian chocolate was worth looking like a glutton in front of a man I’d never see again.

“The company will cover your medical bill,” he finally said in the silence.

I started. “What? Why?” Then, because this was a gift horse and I’d just told it to go ahh, I added, “I mean, thank you. That’s the least you could do, really.”

He hummed, and I watched his hand curl into a fist before stretching out again. All they’d given me at the hospital were a couple of ibuprofen, but maybe they were stronger than what I was used to. I was having trouble following his reactions.

He seemed…stressed? Angry? At me? But why? I hadn’t asked him to find me and personally escort me home. That had been his prerogative.

My gaze dropped to the chocolate bar wrapper on my lap. Was he actually mad about the chocolate? How much could one chocolate bar cost? Wasn’t this guy a bazillionaire?

My eyes were beginning to feel sore, and tiredness was seeping into my bones. All I wanted to do was get away from this guy, curl up in my bed, and feel sorry for myself in peace.

I breathed a sigh of relief as we turned onto my street in Brooklyn. When we came to a smooth stop outside my building, I began to gather myself to leave the strangest car ride in automotive history. Not knowing what to do with the chocolate bar wrapper, I stuffed it into my purse.

“I’d like you to take the rest of the week off,” Blakely finally said as his driver circled toward my side of the car to open the door for me. My ex-boss’s voice was utterly calm. “Come into the office on Monday and we’ll discuss options. My assistant will be in touch to organize it.”

I pulled my gaze from the driver’s movements outside to look at him again. “Other options for what?”

“I’m sure we can come to a mutually beneficial solution here, Ms. Jordan,” he said, his voice dark and silky. The light from outside cast half his face in shadow, carving out the space below his cheekbones and under his bottom lip. “My assistant will be in touch, and we’ll go from there.”

The door beside me opened. “Okay,” I answered, and I got out. The car didn’t pull away until I was inside my building, watching its taillights disappear around a corner from the lobby.

I trudged up to my first-floor apartment, locked myself inside, and collapsed on the couch. I had no idea what had just happened, but at least I’d gotten good chocolate for my trouble.

The meeting on Monday was another story.