My Possessive Boss (Alphas in Charge #4)

Chapter 1

Natalie

There are a lot of ways a woman can embarrass herself at work.

She can spill coffee on an expense report right before an important meeting.

She can answer the phone with, “Richmond Corp, how can I help you fall in love?” because her brain snatches words from the romance novel she read over breakfast and throws them into business hours without permission.

She can spend twelve full seconds staring at her boss’s hands while he signs paperwork, then pretend she was admiring the pen.

Not that I’ve done all three.

This week.

Arriving early helps. The office is quiet before everyone else gets here. Still and soft around the edges in a way that lets me pretend I am the sort of woman who belongs behind the executive desk outside Jordan Richmond’s office.

I unlock the executive suite at six seventeen in the morning, flick on the lights, and breathe.

“Okay,” I whisper to myself. “You are a professional.”

The glass walls do not argue.

The polished dark floors do not laugh.

The giant framed photograph of Winterglow Heights Lodge at sunrise does not say, Natalie, you once tripped over a decorative fern because your boss rolled up his sleeves.

Very kind of it.

I set my tote behind my desk and smooth both hands down my yellow dress.

It is soft, summery, and maybe a little too cheerful for the executive floor of Richmond Corp, which is all stone, wood, mountain views, and expensive silence.

Everyone up here looks put together in a way I have never managed.

Sleek hair. Tailored pants. Shoes that do not squeak when they panic-walk across marble.

Then there is me.

Curvy and soft, with honey-blonde hair that has opinions and baby-blue eyes that make people call me sweet even when I am thinking things that would get me escorted out of church.

And right now, most of those thoughts involve Jordan Richmond.

Unfortunately for my last remaining professional brain cell, my boss is thirty-eight, ex-military, dark-haired, green-silver-eyed, and built like a mountain learned to brood.

He is also tattooed, which I know because last week I spilled coffee on his shirt, made a sound normally reserved for wildlife emergencies, and watched him remove the ruined button-down in his office like it was not the beginning of my personal destruction.

He keeps clothes pressed and ready in the tall cabinet beside his private bathroom, because Jordan Richmond seems like the kind of man whose backup plans have backup plans, and all of them probably have labeled folders.

I still haven’t recovered from the tattoos curling over his shoulder and down his arm, or from the fact that he looked more annoyed by my panic than by the coffee soaking into his ruined shirt.

Richmond Corp sounds enormous and terrifying, but it is really a small, powerful collection of resorts and lodge retreats scattered across Blissmont County.

Lovestone Ridge. Swoon Peaks. Winterglow Heights.

A few cabins tucked deeper into the mountains where rich people come to breathe pine air and complain about cell service.

He also does a lot of charity work, though not the shiny, gala-smile kind where men pose with big checks and pretend to care. His is quiet work that gives women housing, jobs, training, and somewhere safe to start over when their old lives have teeth.

I learned that during my first week, when Maribel from accounting found me staring at a staff photo near the break room. Half the women in it were smiling like they had been handed a second chance.

“He doesn’t talk about it,” she told me, lowering her voice like the walls might snitch. “But Mr. Richmond helps people. Especially women who have nowhere else to go.”

Then she patted my arm and added, “Don’t let the grunting scare you.”

Which is easy advice from a woman who does not sit six feet from his office door.

I turn on my computer and pull up his schedule.

At nine, he has a call with the Winterglow Heights manager.

At ten-thirty, legal review.

At noon, a meeting about the shelter placement program.

At two, conference prep for the new lodge launch with the Turner brothers from Mount Everlove, who co-own the property and apparently communicate mostly through short emails and impossible deadlines.

At five-thirty, dinner with a potential investor.

I click through his inbox, flag the important items, and try not to think about the fact that he will arrive in about an hour.

Usually, he gets here at seven-thirty. Sometimes seven-twenty if the day is packed.

He steps out of the elevator in one of his dark suits, jaw tight, eyes sharp, coffee in hand, already carrying the weight of the whole building on his shoulders.

I need time before that happens.

Time to prepare my face.

My face is a problem because it tells the truth. If I think someone is annoying, my face files a public complaint. If I want another cupcake, my face starts a campaign. If Jordan Richmond looks at me for longer than three seconds, my face apparently starts composing wedding vows.

Which is why I get here early.

I can settle in. Organize his papers. Remind myself that he is my boss. My grumpy, terrifying, growly boss who barely speaks unless necessary and somehow makes silence feel like a dare.

A tiny crush is normal.

A microscopic crush.

A crush so small it could live in a thimble.

My phone buzzes inside my tote.

I glance down.

Lydia.

My stomach folds in on itself, and my hand moves before the rest of me can get dragged into whatever emotional trap she has wrapped in pink ribbon this morning.

So, no. We are not doing that.

Not this early. Not before coffee. Not before I have enough emotional armor to handle my sister’s pretty little knives wrapped in glitter paper.

I flip the phone facedown and shove it under my notebook.

Lydia can wait.

She has always hated waiting for anything. Toys, attention, clothes, friends, and men.

My fingers move over the keyboard.

Nope.

I am not thinking about Wesley today either.

Wesley, my childhood best friend who became my boyfriend for one confusing, hopeful stretch of time.

Wesley, who used to split fries with me at the diner after school and promise we would get married if we were both single at thirty.

Wesley, who recently got laser eye surgery, discovered protein powder, started living at the gym, changed his hair, changed his clothes, and changed the way he smiled.

Changed the way he looked at me.

Like I was a sweater he had outgrown.

Then Lydia decided she wanted him.

And because the universe enjoys slapstick with emotional damage, he wanted her back.

I inhale through my nose and click open a vendor email.

Work. We are working.

Professional Natalie lives here now.

The elevator dings.

I freeze.

No.

Absolutely not.

My gaze snaps to the clock.

Six twenty-eight.

That is not possible.

No one else is supposed to be here.

I have not had time to prepare my face.

The elevator doors slide open, and Jordan Richmond steps out.

He is not in a suit.

Oh, sweet mercy, he is not in a suit.

He is wearing gray sweatpants and a white T-shirt, and my brain takes one look at him and politely walks into traffic.

He stops just outside the elevator, big and broad and dark against all that expensive glass. His hair is mussed, like he left in a hurry. His jaw is covered in rough stubble. Tattoos curl down one forearm, the ink disappearing under the sleeve stretched around his bicep.

The T-shirt is plain white cotton.

It is also fighting for its life.

The sweatpants are worse.

Much worse.

There are things a responsible human woman should not know about her boss before breakfast, and yet here we are.

His green-silver eyes land on me.

I sit up so fast my chair makes a tiny, wounded squeak.

“Mr. Richmond.”

My voice comes out too high.

His gaze flicks over me, quick and sharp. Desk. Computer. The coffee I forgot on my desk yesterday. Me.

“You’re here.”

Two words.

Not good morning.

Not why is my secretary sitting alone in the executive suite before sunrise like she has a secret corporate heist planned?

Just, you’re here.

“Yes.” I swallow. “I work here.”

His brows draw together.

Why did I say that?

Of all the things. All the available words in the English language. I work here.

He grunts.

That one is definitely displeased.

His gaze shifts to the clock, then back to me. “This early?”

“This is when I usually arrive.”

The moment I say it, something changes in his face.

Not much. Jordan Richmond does not do much with his face. His face is a locked vault guarded by wolves. But his eyes sharpen.

He did not know.

Which means he does not know everything.

Tiny victory. Very tiny.

He looks at yesterday’s coffee again. Then at me. “Why?”

Because I need forty-five minutes to become a woman who can survive your forearms.

I tuck my hands under the edge of my desk before they can start fidgeting. “I like the quiet.”

Another grunt.

This one might be acceptance. Or judgment. Or indigestion.

Then his gaze drops.

For one terrible second, I think he is looking at my dress.

Then I realize he has caught me looking at his clothes.

Specifically, the gray sweatpants.

My soul exits my body through my left ear.

His eyes narrow.

I look at his shoulder instead.

Which is not better.

His shoulder is also a problem.

“You’re staring.”

“No.”

Silence stretches between us.

I clear my throat. “Briefly observing.”

More silence.

“Professionally,” I add, because apparently I am determined to perish.

His jaw flexes.

There is a pause long enough for me to rethink every decision that led me here, including my birth.

Then he says, “My mother’s in town.”

I blink.

That is not what I expect.

“She is?”

He gives one short nod. His mouth tightens, but there is something almost fond buried underneath it. “Arrived last night. Said she wanted to stay with me instead of the hotel.”

“Oh.”

I try to picture the woman who raised Jordan Richmond. My imagination gives me a retired general with a clipboard, a steel-gray bun, and a voice that can make grown men apologize to furniture.

That feels right.

He stares at me.

“She’s noisy,” he says.

I wait.

“So I left early.”

I press my lips together.

Do not smile.

Do not smile at the terrifying man in gray sweatpants.

Do not make a joke that he ran away from his mother.

He looks like he could break someone with one hand, and he fled his own house because the woman who raised him arrived with luggage and maternal opinions.

My mouth twitches.

His eyes narrow further.

Oh no.

He knows.

My face has betrayed me again.

“Something funny, Miss Mullen?”

The Miss Mullen hits me right in the spine.

“No.” I shake my head too quickly. “No, sir.”

His gaze holds mine.

I attempt a neutral expression.

Based on the slight shift of his jaw, I fail.

He grunts, low and rough, then turns toward his office. “Get back to work.”

“Yes. Absolutely. Love work.”

He stops.

I close my eyes.

Love work.

Why am I like this?

He looks back over his shoulder. His expression is still grim, but something in his eyes has warmed by half a degree. Maybe less. Maybe I imagined it because I am a woman in crisis.

Then he disappears into his office and shuts the door.

I collapse back in my chair.

“Love work,” I whisper. “Fantastic. Very normal.”

For the next half hour, I do my best to pretend nothing happened.

I answer emails, organize contracts, and accidentally take a sip of yesterday’s coffee. It is cold, bitter, and startling enough that I slosh half of it onto the carpet.

After a quick rescue mission with the wet wipes in my top drawer, I head to the break room for fresh coffee.

When I come back with a new cup, I gather the Winterglow Heights contracts and the updated lodge launch packet. He needs these before the nine o’clock call, and if I get them to him now, he’ll know that I’m efficient.

Yes, this is professional. This is absolutely not about wanting a second encounter with gray sweatpants.

I knock lightly on the door.

“Mr. Richmond?”

No answer.

I wait.

Still nothing.

Maybe he stepped out while I was in the break room. There is a side hallway near the conference room, and he moves quietly for a man that large. Alarmingly quietly. Like a bear with military training.

I push the door open.

His office is empty.

The room smells like cedar, expensive cologne, and him.

Which is unfair. Offices should smell like paper and toner, not like a woman’s moral downfall.

I cross to his desk and set the contracts in the center, aligning them with the edge because he likes things straight. Not that he told me. I just noticed. Jordan Richmond is the type of man who notices everything, and after a month of working for him, I have started noticing him back.

The thought makes my cheeks warm.

I turn to leave.

Then I see the photograph on the low cabinet near the window.

I have seen it before, but only from a distance. Jordan at some charity dinner, dressed in a black suit, standing beside three women holding framed certificates. Everyone else is smiling.

Jordan looks like someone threatened him with joy.

I step closer.

His expression is so severe I almost laugh.

Almost.

I pick up the frame and tilt it toward the light.

“Do you practice looking terrifying,” I murmur, “or does it just happen naturally?”

“Naturally.”

I scream.

Not a delicate scream.

Not a cute little gasp.

A whole embarrassing bird-noise explosion.

The frame nearly slips from my hands.

Jordan Richmond stands in the open doorway of his private bathroom, the one with the shower he apparently uses after early workouts or coffee-related wardrobe disasters, wearing nothing but a towel.