Dirty Boss (Manhattan Billionaires #7)

1. Alba

ONE

ALBA

It took three days for my life to be ruined so completely that fourteen months later, I barely recognized myself when I looked in the mirror.

Gone was the carefree, privileged woman who thought she could dance through life, having her cake and gorging herself on it too.

In her place was a haggard, aching wreck teetering on the edge of total ruination, one of millions in the city.

I was one of the people that I wouldn’t have even noticed before, like the person who’d done my laundry or brought my food to my door.

I’d lost everything and turned invisible.

Maybe I got what I deserved.

As yet another suit-wearing patron snapped his fingers at me to get my attention, I pasted a smile on my face and shoved my disdain somewhere deep, deep down inside me where he wouldn’t be able to get a whiff of it.

Most customers I served were normal, polite enough people who just wanted to eat and go about their days.

A small portion of them were complete jerks who seemed to enjoy making my life as difficult as possible in order to make themselves feel better.

They’d send back food multiple times. They’d talk down to me and treat me like I didn’t have two brain cells to rub together.

They’d hit on me and occasionally try to grope me.

The men from my previous life had groped and leered and harassed too, but I’d been protected from them by my name, my family’s money, my status.

All that was gone now.

I hated working here. I hated being treated as lesser. Hated that all those people felt like they could harass me just because they were sitting at the table I was serving.

But this was my life now. Wasn’t it time I accepted it?

A worse question lingered at the back of my mind: Is that how I used to act?

When I got to the table of the finger-snapper, I forced my lips to curl into a pleasant, bland smile. “What can I do for you?”

“You can tell me when you get off work,” the old lecher replied, smiling at me with stained teeth.

He leaned back on the cushioned chair, the buttons of his bespoke shirt proving their value by keeping the flaps of fabric closed even under considerable strain.

The diamonds on his watch twinkled in the light, and even at a distance, I could tell his suit cost more than three months’ worth of my pay.

I could tell because those were the types of clothes I used to wear.

God, I missed my old clothes. I missed having places to wear my old clothes. Now my clothing itched and tugged and didn’t fit quite right. They weren’t tailored to sit exactly right on my body, weren’t handmade from the finest materials.

I still owned some of the old stuff—what I’d been able to pack into bags before being thrown out of my home—but wearing three-thousand-dollar pants to work where they’d get grease-stained and damaged beyond repair didn’t seem like a good idea.

Besides, even though the old clothes fit my body perfectly, they didn’t seem to fit me anymore.

It was like clinging onto jeans from high school for decades in the hope of buttoning them up again. My expensive designer clothes hung in my too-small closet, taking up space, reminding me of a life that was gone forever.

Now the cheap fabric of my work pants scratched against my legs as I shifted from foot to foot and tried my hardest to keep my smile in place.

“I’m sorry, we’re not allowed to give out personal information,” I told the old man, revulsion turning my gut.

I pasted that cardboard smile on my face again when I noticed it had slipped, then turned to his companion.

This man wore an off-the-rack suit that was a little too narrow in the shoulders.

It was lined with cheap fabric, and I could tell his shirt needed a date with an ironing board.

He was just like me, begging for scraps from the bigwig in the expensive clothing. Except in his case, he had the possibility of ending up in the chair across the table one day.

I, on the other hand, had dreams of getting out of the city and never having to interact with anyone ever again.

Cheap Suit’s face made up for any beauty lacking in his garments. Chiseled jaw, cut cheekbones, and the kind of lips that made women weep. Eyes of ice blue that watched me, something like pity swirling in their depths.

I didn’t need or want his pity. If he was sitting at this table, no matter how cheap his suit was, he was part of a world that had closed its doors in my face.

A year ago, men like him had circled me like vultures.

My ego had loved the attention. I’d guzzled it like it was water.

I’d craved it. All my worth hinged on how much other people valued me; it’s how I’d been raised to see myself.

Now I couldn’t stand even the barest brush of an attractive man’s gaze over my body.

I turned back to the first creep and did my very best to not let any hint of my thoughts show on my face.

I tilted my head and blinked at him like a pilot could land a commercial jet between my ears.

After getting fired from my first three waitressing jobs, I’d finally discovered that people preferred it when they thought their servers—or was it servants?

—were dumber than them. Or at least when we had the good sense to pretend. “Was everything okay with your food?”

I knew before he opened his mouth that he wasn’t done harassing me. It was always the same with the lunchtime business crowd. They made passes at me to impress their clients and board members. They talked down to the busboys and clicked their fingers in between making billion-dollar deals.

This wasn’t a fancy establishment. I wasn’t a good enough waitress to serve in those kinds of places.

But it was a hidden gem with really good food, and a lot of businesspeople came here when they wanted to impress each other with their secret knowledge of the city.

So although the billion-dollar-deal crowd didn’t make up the majority of our patrons, they weren’t exactly rare.

It disgusted me. I couldn’t believe I’d been part of their world before, even if I’d just been a pretty accessory on the periphery.

The old man tried again, his gaze raking down my body and back up again. “Pretty girl like you shouldn’t be working in a place like this. I could give you a job.” He grinned at me like he wasn’t thinking about offering to make me wait tables.

I stood on aching legs as my feet pulsed in pain with every heartbeat, wondering if I should pick up his knife and stab him in the eye. Surely prison would be better than this.

“Roger,” the other man growled, and I gritted my teeth. I didn’t need him to come to my defense. “Let the poor girl go.”

My gaze flicked to his pale blue one. I wondered if he meant “poor girl” literally, and resented his attempt at playing the hero.

“I’m happy here,” I said breezily, ignoring Cheap Suit’s attempt at saving me from his companion.

“I’ll send the chef your compliments,” I said, managing a coy smile and a wink as I whisked the older man’s plate away.

The old creep laughed, pleased that I’d capitulated that far. I’d played his game, made him feel like he had a chance with me. Power over me.

It made me feel dirty, but I couldn’t afford for him to stiff me on the tip. So maybe he did have power over me, after all.

The vulnerability of my situation hit me then, and I couldn’t stand the clinking of utensils on plates and the low murmur of people schmoozing over overpriced sandwiches.

My fall from grace had been abrupt, and I still hadn’t quite stuck the landing.

I existed paycheck to paycheck. I worked two jobs and lived in a shoebox.

Actually, the shoeboxes of my old life were far nicer than my current accommodations—but I couldn’t complain.

The alternative was the street, and January in NYC wasn’t exactly hospitable.

Dumping the plate in the dish pit at the back of the restaurant, I ducked into the walk-in cooler and leaned my head against a metal shelf.

The door closed, and the din of the kitchen was abruptly muffled.

I exhaled a puff of white breath, opening my eyes to stare at the container of limes directly in front of my face.

A little over a year ago, I was rich, I was engaged—and I was in love.

Not to the same man, mind you. My engagement was essentially a sham, but I knew my duty to my family, and I was ready to keep up appearances by tying my life to Cole Christianson’s.

He was the darling of my father’s company, and our union was supposed to make us Manhattan’s newest power couple.

Or, if I were being honest, it would make him a powerful man and me the woman along for the ride at his side.

I’d learned just how little agency I’d had over my life when I’d been ousted from it.

Cole and I would’ve each gotten to live our intimate lives in private, away from each other and from prying eyes. He could have had his own fun on the side, and I could have had mine.

Until I went and fell in love, like the idiot I thought I’d never be. The fact that he did too had felt like a blessing—it meant we could finally stop lying to each other and break up. No need for a sham wedding after all.

Ha.

That hadn’t gone over well with Mommy and Daddy Dearest.

Love, as far as I was concerned, was what had started this descent into near-poverty, this crash from the upper echelons of Manhattan society into the subsistence that passed for my life now.

Love is what bit me in the ass and made me throw everything away. And then love laughed in my face and turned its back on me. The man I thought I loved didn’t love me back when I didn’t have access to Daddy’s purse strings anymore.

That was a slap in the face like I’d never experienced before.

And Cole? Well, last I heard, he reconnected with The One Who Got Away, and they were blissfully happy and recently married.