Broken & Bossy (Boulder Billionaires #5)

Chapter 1

Carly

Yes, I am officially, technically homeless.

And I’m not sure I’ve ever hated a bathroom this much.

Not the one with the broken tile in my childhood home, or the shared one in my dorm at the University of Colorado, or even the one I threw up in one too many times at Folsom Field.

Nope.

It’s this one, tucked at the back of Boulder Canyon Cafe.

It smells like a combination of floor cleaner and spilled vanilla syrup.

I stare at myself in the mirror above the sink, trying not to obsess over the way the old, warped glass reflects my face as wider than it actually is.

My brown hair is still tucked up in the messy bun I threw it in after waking up so that no one on the street thought I was a drug addict on my two-block walk, my eyes a little too puffy, my lips a little raw and cracked from the dry winter air.

At least my work clothes double as activewear.

I look more like someone who was rushing off to the gym first thing in the morning than a homeless woman.

My reflection winces.

I dig through my work bag for my hairbrush and release the mess of waves from its prison atop my head, tugging the bristles through a little too aggressively, aiming for speed, not perfection.

Forty-five minutes until my meeting, and lord knows if I’ll have to vacate the bathroom for a customer in the middle of this and come back to finish later.

Zoe said the renovation of her bathroom would take two weeks. Two. But it’s been three so far because her landlord is impossible to get ahold of unless he’s begging for rent.

And as much as I’m grateful to her for letting me crash on her sofa for the last two months, going with her to her opening shift at the Boulder Canyon Cafe every weekday just to steal the bathroom is starting to actually drive me insane.

But I can’t complain.

At least not out loud.

My life has been spiraling down a storm drain, and Zoe graciously took me in like the actual angel she is.

It’s not like I knew my ex-boyfriend was about to break up with me — in fact, it was exactly the opposite.

We were about to sign a lease together, had plans to get a dog together, had window shopped for rings a week earlier, and the night he took me out to dinner at one of the higher-end restaurants in Boulder, I was fully convinced he’d drop to one knee over drinks.

Or maybe after dinner.

Or after dessert.

Or on the walk back to the car.

But instead, he’d dropped the bomb that had made rubble out of my life: he’d been seeing someone else. For months. And he wanted to be with her.

Apparently, the ring-browsing had made him picture Sarah’s hand instead of my own, he’d had a sudden realization, and I needed to, as he put it, “get the fuck out of our house.”

I’ve never considered running someone over with my car until that day.

But Aaron is unfortunately not squished or dead or even maimed, and I am not in prison but instead living with my best friend from university until I can get my life back together.

And until then, I can at least pretend like I’m not a mess in front of everyone but her.

By the grace of whatever god is looking down at me, I manage to get my eyeliner, mascara, blush, and bronzer on before someone tries to open the locked door and knocks.

It’ll have to do.

I pack up my bag and slip out the door, make a mental note to put on deodorant in my office because I’m ninety percent sure I forgot, and give a cursory, awkward half-smile to the man standing outside the bathroom waiting to go in after me.

Zoe’s nose scrunches the moment I appear from the hallway, her glasses wiggling up toward her eyebrows. How she manages to tame her auburn curls without a full bathroom routine is beyond me, but she looks put together for her shift in her usual white button-up blouse, jeans, and light brown apron.

“You look like hell,” she says, plucking a medium-sized cup from the top of the espresso machine.

I roll my eyes and lean against the counter dividing us. “Good morning to you, too.”

“Usual?” she asks, eyeing the machine. I nod. “Sam’s, too? Or just yours?”

“He hasn’t texted me,” I say, slipping my phone from my pocket to double-check my boss hasn’t begged me for a coffee in the last thirty seconds, “so I’ll assume it’s just mine.”

“Cool.”

I watch as she pulls my shot, pours oat milk into a pitcher, and lifts it to the steam wand. It’s like second nature to her, but it would be after two years of managing this place and four years of just working here.

The milk hisses, then quietens, steadily heating in her grasp.

“Have you heard from your landlord?” I ask.

Her lips purse. “No,” she sighs. “Sent him another text last night. Last I heard, the builders were scheduling a day with him to come back to finish the walls, but if he’s as bad at responding to them as he is to me, who knows how long it’ll take.”

She pours the milk into the cup, tops it with a dusting of chocolate, and pops a lid on top for me before sliding it across the counter.

“I know it’s shit getting ready here. I can try to get a little vanity from that thrift shop down the road and set it up in the living room, if it would help.”

“No, don’t go out of your way—”

“Or you could get ready at the gym,” she offers, plucking a ticket off the printer. “Maybe switch to showering in the morning since you’re already there for that, and then just get ready there?”

As tempting as that is, I’m not a morning gym rat, and walking in at seven in the morning when the gym is packed full of people just to use the shower and get ready feels like a walk of shame. “It’s okay. Shouldn’t be for much longer, anyway. It’s not like it’s your fault.”

“Aaron’s fault?”

“Aaron’s fault.”

Zoe nods.

She knows how easily I’ve slipped into the I hate you stage of grieving my relationship over the last week or so, and has been all too happy to enable my blaming of anything and everything on Aaron.

Zoe straightens as a customer walks through the door, the little bell chiming as the metal hits it.

“Go to work,” she says. “Kick ass. Try not to think about him and remind yourself that you’re a brilliant designer with an actual career, and he’s just a man who wears salmon-colored shorts unironically. ”

I snort, then cover my mouth, trying to hide the cackle that’s trying to work its way up. “Christ, he does love those shorts. They’re awful.”

“I know.” She grins as she turns to the customer, forcing some pep into her voice as she chirps out a, “Hi! What can I get ’ya?”

I sling my work bag over my shoulder and grab my cappuccino, flash her a wave, then slip out the door like I didn’t just get my coffee for free and hog the bathroom for thirty minutes.

This day can't get any worse.